I think I have some kind of autumn lethargy setting in.
Rome has been put on hold for the moment ... on hold and replaced by other things . I have a lovely London-based Australian friend flying in for a few days today. I lived with her and her man for a few weeks when an employer failed to come through with my promised school house in Istanbul. Warmhearted, easy-going creature that she is, meant that I really enjoyed my time with her at her place, halfway up concrete stairs close to the edge of the Bosphorous.
The attached photograph was taken while lying in my couch bed in her lounge early one morning ... watching the curtains float on a summer breeze, I noticed the strange beauty of the red bars on the window.
So there's Clare, and then next week holds the promise of the working sleepover. The lovely v-grrrl has offered me space in her place in Brussels. I still have interviews to write up, taped interviews that Gert somehow transfered to my computer and I am in need peace and space and maybe some laughter after a few days of nursing sick people here.
Did I mention that every day I fall a little more in love with my laptop ... my Belgian isn't so bad either actually.
This weekend there's a catch-up with Gert's parents and a photography sitting with the family of a favourite friend of mine.
I need to get all the photographs of cultural events to the integration project by the 10th, and I have another pile of cds and dvds full of photographs going out to various people the world around once I'm financially viable again.
Last night a New Zealand woman I had spoken with at a Last Post ceremony in Menen Gate back in October wrote to ask if I had photographs of her sons laying a wreath and another mother in New Zealand spotted photographs I had taken of her London-based rugby-playing sons, printed in the New Zealand Herald. I have a cd for her too.
I am missing mountains and empty beaches, autumn has already been very grey and Manic has predicted one of those very cold Belgian winters ...
Need mountains or beaches.
Must work on that.
I left New Zealand mid-2003, bound for Istanbul and a new lif. After two years, a Belgian guy lured me into his world, deep in the heart of Europe. For a long time I was an in-process immigrant. One day we married. These days it's about photography, a little red wine and wandering ... and so the journey goes.
I miss summer :(
ReplyDeleteIk ook, Manic. I biked to the shop today and while the autumn is pretty, there's already this feeling of dread about trees without leaves and grey skies and cold cold weather :(
ReplyDeleteSame "Need mountains or beaches" feeling here Di...
ReplyDeleteI love reading your Istanbul experiences, especially since I never managed to get there: I traveled along the entire Mediterranean Turkish coast, but I never visited Istanbul.
Curtains and a Turkish summer breeze, how tempting when my balcony flowers are slowly withering, showing the dark gray skies surrounding Antwerp cathedral.
To put insult upon injury, my former diving school buddies MMS-ed me (that's texting with pictures, for those who are not into cell phone lingo) countless "look, we're diving surrounded by dolphins in Egypt" messages.
Unfortunately, Istanbul can be chilly in winter too:
http://www.wunderground.com/global
/stations/17060.html
- although it still beats Antwerp any day ;-)
Man, diving buddies really should MMS into a grey and autumn day ... on one hand, it's lovely to hear from them I imagine, to live vicariously for a moment but on the other hand, you're not there and that can only be crap.
ReplyDeleteIstanbul ... sigh, I do love Istanbul. I met my current guest there and we've been talking about it some. I should hang some enlarged prints from Istanbul on the wall here ... to get me through the dark winter months.
Stay strong, we'll just have to party the winter blues away when they get too much.