Thanks for the comments on my previous blog entries!

And hold on to your hats, plenty more pictures to come This time we're heading south, to Salamanca. It's a lovely old city, nice to walk around in.

A selection of pictures from my roadtrip in August: part 1 - Bordeaux (France):

Going to visit my granddad tomorrow, for the last time. My mother has warned me that he's skin and bones and barely conscious. Not looking forward to this, but it's the right thing to do, especially since I barely visited him since the stroke... I don't cope well with these situations, I always feel a black hole pulling me in when I deal with death, I actually wish it was Monday and work again...

I'm not sure it actually is International Book Week, but I saw this on Facebook and thought it was fun.


It's International Book Week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your status.

"I made a point of tellin' that fortune-teller the next time I saw her."

"Je me sers un café, la rejoins devant ma rue."

"If you can get a potentially rebellious employee thinking "Yes, I can," in response to your "No, you can't," the battle may be half over."

(Yeah, I cheated, I had three books next to me )

Tuesday was even worse than Monday. It can only get better? Hope is all we have...

So on a positive note, here's a little cartoon I found funny:
[url]http://thedoghousediaries.com/4549[/url]

And now I will get ready for another day at work. My boss won't be there: at least one bright note, it should be calmer... I won't hear her screaming at some of my colleagues

I want to blog, but I can't think of anything to say that isn't depressing. I'd rather keep my mouth shut, I already complain too much in life... Monday blues anyone?

Oh well, off to bed, I'm exhausted...

When Marianne opens her eyes, her mind is already bursting with excitement. She jumps out of bed, runs to her parents’ bedroom and barges in.
“I’m going to granddad today, right? When are we leaving? Is Hayley coming too? How many days can I stay?”

Her parents look at each other and smile: before they even have the chance to answer, she runs off again, to pack her things. Summer holidays are nearing their end and she is going to spend the last part of the summer at her grandfather’s house, as she does every year. As usual, her cousin Hayley will come too.

At 2 PM, her parents drop her off at her grandfather’s place, at last. Her cousin won’t be arriving until the evening, so granddad and granddaughter go for a bicycle ride together. She loves it, riding through the small villages and the countryside, so unlike the city where she lives. When she passes a mare and foal in a paddock, she can’t resist stopping and beckoning them to the fence. Her granddad pulls some weeds and grass from the side of the road and shows her how to offer it to the horses.

A few miles further, a canal stretches into the distance, flanked by two rows of tall poplars. They find the spot where the blackberries grow wild and drop their bikes alongside the road. The bushes are taller than she is, so she stays at the edge, looking for berries passers-by might have overlooked. Her granddad ventures deep into the brambles however, as if doesn't feel the thorns, to where the branches are still black and heavy. When he returns, he holds out a juice-stained hand filled with the plumpest blackberries, those that came off the stem with the slightest touch. Nothing could taste better than these juicy mouthfuls of summer, still warm with sunshine.

The fresh air has made them hungry, so they return to the house. As they pass some cornfields, the headwind overpowers Marianne and she leans forward as she struggles. Suddenly she feels a grandfatherly force pushing her forward with ease.

Dinner is simple, just bread with cold cuts and cheese, but it’s a feast after the tiring bike ride. That’s not all though: for her final slice of bread, her granddad reaches inside a cupboard. Not just a cupboard, but the cupboard, the legendary one brimming with all sorts of delights for little girls. This time, he chooses a pot of home-made strawberry jam. She spreads it on her bread as thick as she can, all the while being careful to not get any on her hands; she doesn’t like sticky fingers.

Hayley arrives after dinner and bright laughter is soon heard throughout the house as they retell their summer. After bedtime, lying side by side, the two cousins whisper to each other, confiding secrets that they will have forgotten by morning. Their grandfather in the next room can hear that they’re not asleep, but the soft sound of their murmuring soothes him.

When they wake up the next day, the sun is bright and their hearts soar.
“Granddad, granddad, can we build a tent in the garden, just like last year?”
He smiles and goes off at once, gathering the necessary materials. In an hour, his strong arms transform a pile of sticks, ropes and textile into an enchanting tent palace fit for two princesses. Under them and above them and around them, burgundy and ochre paisley blankets shield them from the world. The harsh sunlight is filtered so that only a warm glow penetrates. This is where their lunch is served, accompanied by home-made lemonade. As they imagine their wonderful world, birds singing in the background, only the occasional winged intruder disturbs the peace.
“Granddad, a wasp!” they cry out in unison.
And he comes rushing in to save them, as he always does.

Thanks for the comments on my previous blog. I haven't heard from my mother in two days, so I'm not sure what is going on with my grandfather...

The other day, I needed to post a letter after work, so I got off at a bus stop I don't often use. As I walked home, I passed some hedges and noticed a blackberry. Somehow, brambles had infiltrated the hedge, peeping out here and there.
As I spotted that blackberry, I thought back to November last year, when I had also walked home that way and had noticed two lonely berries still waiting to be picked in the winter cold.
And then I noticed a few more blackberries to the left, and then to the right. I couldn't resist picking the full black ones, despite knowing that they probably looked more delicious than they would taste, due to the shady location.
And as I ventured my hand into the sharp brambles and picked the ripest ones, I suddenly remembered that I had done this before: as a child, with my grandfather. We would ride our bikes to a nearby canal bordered by giant bramble bushes. Or maybe they just seemed giant then because I was small. I stayed at the front, where most of the berries had already been picked, but he ventured deep into the bushes, not caring about the thorns as he filled his bucket with the plumpest berries, the ones that come off the stem without really pulling.
Later that day he would do one of the few tasks in the kitchen my grandmother didn't take care of, apart from making fries and baking waffles: he made bramble jelly, enough jars to share with the whole family.

Received a bad e-mail last night, looks like I might have to visit my grandfather this week in a hurry... Not something to look forward to, I hope the doctors are wrong with their talk of "unlikely" etc. Although: he has never been the same since his stroke, barely himself.

I discovered this in an old e-mail, I love the English language...

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Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as h--- one day and cold as h--- another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it...