Christmas presents!

Look at what Santa brought me!
This is always fun!

This I'm gonna read when I'm home or at least in the near presence of the cd's!

And I'm eager to know what happened after the four children were made royalty in Narnia!

Been tagged!

I was tagged by Sabine to tell 7 random things about myself. Okay, here we go:

1. Whenever new long-awaited music arrives, I walk on clouds for days, sometimes weeks.

(Music, when it was due, made me sleep very little... still missing one of the above)

2. I own way too many cookbooks, still buy them, and use them hardly.

(The last one I bought)

3. The most amazing journey I ever made was spending Christmas in Kiruna, Lapland.

(Whereabouts of Kiruna, and the most adoring church to spend Christmas nearby - it looked even more fairytale-like in real.)

4. I met Mr. S on the world wide web...

(haha, the world wide web!)

5. I was educated to become an educator to the disabled youth. Never worked in that area though.

(yep, the Flemish logo for Special Youthcare)

6. I once wrote a sentence that was picked up by a good cause and now has a life of its own.

(One of the examples of its life on its own... found on Netlog)

7. One day I want to learn how to speak and understand Gaelic.

(I love the sound of the language)

I pass the tag on to:
1. Danielle
2. Oswald
3. Lucas
4. Luc
5. Sophia
6. Katrien
7. Reclusionboy

Some rules that come with the tag:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Dragon Dreams

Yippie Yeah!!!!
Woohooh!

EurovisionYouTube

Last weekend Mr. S received 4 cd's full of Eurovision Songcontest songs. At first it seemed no treat, but then I started to listen with him while we drove to my parents. And one can only conclude a lot of songs are in our subconscious, and the only reason we can't sing them is because we don't speak the language. And, fair is fair, there are a lot of good songs among those winners and those who just didn't belong in such a contest. Last night I spend way too much time on You Tube watching those songs once again. I'll tell you a bit about my favourite songs on the cd's aswell as some who don't appear on the cd.

My favourite song ever competing in the contest was an Italian entry, I also think it's a very fine crafted song. This is 1984, the song ended fifth, and was sung by Alice and Franco Battiato. Ever since I heard it then it stayed with me, and I still love it very much to this day. Looking back at it on YouTube, it also made me laugh. It's obvious Franco is very unexperienced in standing on stage, while Alice knows how to behave in front of such a huge audience. Look out for the expression on his face when he appears behind her. Anyway, here's the clip...



Second in line, for me, is the 1991 entry for France. Amina ended second, after Carola for Sweden. They actually both had the same score (146), but Carola had been given the most 10 points (after they both had been given the same amount of twelve points). Enough talking; a sweet performance by Amina here

Another one of my favourites participated this year. Vânia Fernandes sang Senhora do mar, a song that ended 13th, but deserved better (my opinion).



Ofcourse there are other songs... but maybe sometime later...

Lineart

Yesterday we went to the opening of Lineart in Flanders Expo in Ghent.
We went because Mr. S's brother had this small exposition. You can visit his own site here
Anyway, we strolled through the corridors of this expo and discovered a lot of RUBBISH!
The only thing I liked very much was the work of Evdokim Perevalsky. Here you'll find some of his work.

A Lazy Sunday

Today was a very satisfying day. We woke up late after a drinking-and-dining evening yesterday. Mr. S jumped into bed a little later because of his hangover, but all cleared well after another hour of sleep. Meanwhile I was booking face (I love this expression!) and took a snapshot of this angel outside, on the balcony, sitting under a figtree, touched by a little snow.


And everytime I looked into the livingroom I realised I really like our new coach and cleaned up room. I also bought a new but similar cupboard to display all my Tim Burton clutter, so Oogie Boogie and the larger Jack Skellington figurines aren't collecting all this dust.


And Poeske Kom was being lazy all the time. Sleeping in bed with Mr. S, and sleeping in the comfy chair, not realising I was taking her picture, so she must have been in very deep sleep.


And suddenly I remembered this book I bought two years ago. We went to this bookfair, where books cost practically nothing. I take a habbit to visit this fair, as it takes place just before the New Year, and I buy all kinds of books, several of them to give as a gift. So that year I bougt this pop-up book about Winnie the Pooh. I wanted to give it to my little niece, who's quite fond of Winnie.


But then I got home and took a closer look at the book... I decided she was way too small to take care of this special book... This is a picture of the whole book popped out.


It has only five pages but each one is so nice to look at, and so delicate, I decided to keep it myself.


You can slide out one page stories telling the story which is on display.


And the little angel from the beginning...? Well, a few hours later, it looked like this.


And since that moment I've been listening to wonderful christmasmusic by Holly Cole, Jane Siberry and Joan Osborne... I really love this season!

In Bruges

Last week Mr. S had to go to Bruges for business as it is called. He left from his home, together with Mrs. V, his mum. And I left from Ghent. We would meet eachother after his business was taken care of, and then we would have lunch. I left way too early to be a tourist.
First thing I saw were these black birds sitting on a branch. I have absolutely no idea what kind of birds they are...

Second view: amazing autumn colours...

The sun behind the clouds...

This shop reminded me of a real holiday, so the tourist feeling was totally present.


On every corner of this museum city there's something to be seen...


The wonderful cityhall...


A panoramic view of two churches seen from one point of view... Bruges has a lot of churches!


Finally we could have lunch! We all took typical dishes.


This is an amazing shop. Full of nice christmas inspired clutter. We went there because we needed a (as it turned out rather expensive) gift for Mr. S's sisters birthday.




Ofcourse Bruges has lots of fine shops. Every street has at least three lace shops.

Or nice candy and cookie shops!


And after the shopping we went to the Chapel Of The Holy Blood...! We didn't visit the relic, but we went into this little church on the side...


... where Mr. S had to act out his silly self...


And finally we all went home!

Preparations for a weekend full of painting...

A few months ago, just before I started this blog, we painted the diningroom. Now as we're heading towards four days without the need to go to work, we decided to paint the livingroom. We moved about everything out and when that was finished we called it a day for today. I had a bit of time before I needed to go to work and Mr. S started to read his Harry Potter book.
Reading in the only comfortable chair left.


We put nearly all the furniture in the other room, where it ended up looking like some crazy garage sale... The cat needed to inspect everything ofcourse...


And eventually Harry Potter wasn't that interesting I suppose...

The 71st annual bookfair of Flanders!

A few days ago we went to the opening of the annual bookfair, here in Flanders. The opening is usually about meeting lots of friends, strolling from one publisher to another, and for those who don't need to drive, a lot of drinking. I am the designated driver so I went for a walk along the different bookstands.
I bought exactly one book; a biography of Kirsty MacColl by Karen O'Brien.


And ever since I got acquainted with Mr. S I'm also acquainted with illustrations as an art on itself. Not that I didn't believe that before I met Mr. S, but nowadays I'm much more confrontated with the stuff. So, at the bookfair, I also bought two postcards, illustrated by An Candaele, a flemish illustrator I recently discovered and like very much.

Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book

About a year ago I bought 'Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book', instantly smitten by the idea and artwork. I didn't check the why's and who's, just paid it and went home...

So I came home and started reading. Everyone knows the famous picture of the Cottingleygirls in the garden surrounded by fairies. If you don't here it is. That idea alone, the fact that these two girls could fool quite a few (even intelligent) people with their fairies captured on photograph, that idea alone is worth millions to a fantasy-loving mind. Anyway, Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book took the idea of these girls, and turned it into something hilarious. Behind this all is Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) and Brian Froud (to me, of Dark Crystal fame). A few alterations on the names, and the authors had their book of how these girls captured those fairies between pages of a notebook. No need to say the fairies look totally surprised and flat! And FUNNY!




Should you come across this book, buy it!

Old stuff from an attic...

A while ago my parrents cleaned out their attic, and they came upon a box full of old schoolbooks. Little was interesting, but there was an old school report of mine... and boy... I think the teacher didn't like me!

I used to sit in the front row to help a fellow classmate to read the blackboard, yep, he had very bad eyes. Apparantly I was lifted from that task that year. And what did that teacher write in my report?

And this is a complete lie!

I went to a school in our neighbourhood where the classes had only but 10 pupils (or less!). So the classrooms were filled with two years, and the teacher had to switch back and forth between two different levels. My brother who is a year younger than me, and a year older than our sister, was always in class either with me, or with my sister. His name is Jan, and apparently I took care of his books. One should think that's a good thing...

And once again a huge lie!

It should've been forbidden for this teacher to write such harsh lies!

No really, I think he hated me in an unspeakable way!


But did you watch my grades? They were pretty good, weren't they, I think the teacher was jealous! Hah!