Blog 0.5: the "book"

As our computer had some trouble this past week and was banished to the silicon sanitarium for a cure, I had to resort to blogging the old-fashioned way: with my notebook. I've kept a journal intermittently since the early 1990s but have been religious about it since my summer 2004 trip to Europe; since then I'm on volume #6, and the last five have all been filled since February 2007. Obviously I've had a lot more time to reflect and to write living here than in Toronto, and reflection is both essential to an artist's life and in short supply in general terms in our modern world. The notebook is one way to make reflection a part of one's daily routine, as is this blog.

So let's see; we're most of us down with colds at the moment, affecting our voices to differing degrees. Duncan is almost completely hoarse, but that hasn't stopped him finding a new girlfriend at school: "Luisa" and he were married yesterday, he tells me, and when I dropped him off at the garderie they were holding hands and giggling together. (This affectionate romantic phase will soon pass I'm sure, to be replaced by the "ewww, girls are GROSS" period, one which Malcolm is in the midst of, apparently. There are signs that we are coming close to a truce, however, and some sound diplomatic progress has been made; he is polite to Lara during her visits; he has a female pen pal in Devon who he is very pleased to be corresponding with, and he made a comment yesterday about a certain kind of language being "the kind of thing you wouldn't say if you wanted to invite a girl around to tea". "Civility" is all we're aiming for at the moment, and he's meeting that requirement). Malcolm seems fine except for some coughing in the evening, and Maggie had the sniffles earlier but seems to have escaped the worst of this bug. I'm better voice-wise, although still very scratchy. Not much singing going on right now, except in my imagination.

Instead I've been a bit of a bargain hunter and a "bricoleur", finding things and fixing them up for the apartment. I found this antique brass chandelier being thrown out near the school:


and after wrestling with rewiring it, getting new sockets and other assorted bits, managed to restore it to use over our dining room table:


I was so pleased to get that done that I went ahead and ordered myself one of the best charcoal barbeques I've ever seen: a Barbecook grill. Our friend Jean-Remy had one and I admired it a lot, and I said at the time that as soon as I got my first opera contract here I was going to buy one.


I wasn't back from Cork more than a week or two before I had completed my research. I didn't go crazy and purchased the cheapest one they make, but it's still got the same type of fire-lighting system that they all use: two or three sheets of newspaper and you have coals ready to go in 15 minutes. Maggie prefers the convenience and ease of use of a gas grill, but they are incredibly expensive here (400 euros +) and the propane isn't readily available.

Curious about how it works? Watch the video here. Notice the smile on that guy's face? Look familiar?

This weekend is the beginning of a week of holidays leading up to All Saints' Day, so I think we're going to head down to Glons to say hi to the Cloes, maybe hit the Tongres antique market, and then head south to France; visit Reims and tour the Champagne region, and maybe head to Metz or Trier. Maggie has a school trip next weekend, so we'll have to be back by Friday, but that should give us enough time. I'm not sure how far south we can get, but we'll do some planning tonight, and we're going to rent a car starting on Saturday morning for the week.

Talk to you later!