In Memoriam: Ploppy (2003-2014)

The world is poorer for one pug. 

Yesterday our dear old friend Ploppy passed on to greener and much more comfortable cushions to sleep there in eternal calm and typical nonchalance.

Some memories of the dog are unforgettable, so as the pure stubbornness of the beast to move on walking, when he had decided that it was enough. In true style he sat in the middle of the street and waited out our silly attempts to, a. move on, b. get off the middle of the street, and c. to please obey an order, for once in his life. He was unruffled. The only things that could move him to greater agitation was the fact that there was food to be expected and after a horrid walk there woould be a nice place to retire to and fall into a snoring state of almost opium induced quality.

At some time he was suspected to be in the pay of an obscure pre-1990 secret service - for his cunning understanding of human character, his steady nerves and the unimaginable coolness he possessed as a dog. I am pretty sure that in a former life he has been a Great Dane or an Irish Wolfhound, at least. 

Unfortunately he was never very healthy and suffered greatly of an auto immune sickness which made him grow old before his time. We and Mick will miss him greatly.

Eva V - Costume Jewellery at Galerie Deletaille in Brussels

When I met Eva V. for the first time I was immediately taken in by her easy and open friendliness - and by the amazing necklace she wore. I was  - I hope, discreetly - gazing at it while we talked and my mind was wandering and wondering whether I had ever seen such extraordinary and individual pieces before. I had not. Next time we met, she wore another one and the third time I finally asked her, where and how she had found those one of a kind costume jewellery pieces, one more beautiful than the other. Easy: she produces them herself.

That mystery explained, I wanted to see and know more about them and Eva very kindly invited me to her Atelier, where I could hardly know where to look first, for all the colours, semi precious stones and very originally constructed necklaces and brooches of a very unique beauty.

Once you have attentively looked at a piece made by her, you will instantly recognise it - they are very much their own style and immediately recognisable. I find they remind me of the late antique mosaics of Ravenna and the glamour of Venice, I see a hint of South American Aztec aesthetics and  discover a well-known and dear southern German "baroque" feeling, a love for earthy colours and  dazzling stones - all of that put together delicately in rows and rows of amazing colour combinations and timeless elegance.  If I would not know better, one could think that Dolce and Gabbana in their latest discovery of Byzanz and its riches might have been inspired  by Eva's pieces before!

What makes me so convinced that her work is Art and not just some necklace you put on for a summer and throw away, is the fact that they suit all ages and all persons - always a sure sign of quality and sincerity -  and they do "make" each and everybody an individual in her own right. The pieces are very present, but do not overwhelm the personality of the woman who wears them, they make her more beautiful, more true, more present.  Put one such necklace on a beautiful girl of 20, with a crisp white t-shirt, jeans and great shoes and she is perfectly dressed - put it on a hard working director in her costume and you need nothing more to impress the board room and mark your point -  put it around the neck of a wonderful old lady with white hair in her cashmere turtle-neck and she will look adorable and unforgettable. Short: If you have an inclination to the evasive idea of Chic, here you go. Think of Diana Vreeland or good old Coco Chanel and you get the idea - the ladies who wear her pieces love them and know that their piece is unique.

I think a part of the secret lies in this uniqueness of each piece - there is never a second one, all of them are one of a kind and made by Eva alone - she sources the materials all by herself and the production process is something which would make it impossible to produce this jewellery mechanically - sometimes the way to put strings together or to include a stone at a place where it needs to be can take days and demands careful consideration. 

The good news and also a reason for writing this post is that until the 24th of May there is a rare opportunity to see her pieces at the beautiful Gallery premises of Lin Deletaille in the heart of Brussels, right next to Park Egmont. 

Eva V and Lin Deletaille

Eva herself will be there in the late afternoons with her very own touch of picking something up and draping it around your neck which wants you do scream with joy and chic. I could go on and on - better, if you have the opportunity of being in or around Brussels, go there and have a look yourself.....
I think her work deserves to be known not only in Brussels, but far beyond.

Gallery Deletaille - 32, Rue aux Laines - 1000 Brussels

Telephone +32 476 69 81 79 - l.deletaille@gmail.com

Belgian Spring - March!!! Photo courtesy of Veronika de Brouwer

Good Old Bathtub

Nowadays some people still do take baths. Not perhaps on a daily basis, but often enough - or so I hope.

It seems that people, who are very successful take only showers - they do not have time and most probably they hear the news while they shower and use products which leave the skin soft and well perfumed right away, so that after the blitz shower they can jump out of the premises, into their clothes ( prepared the night before - nothing to be said against this), run to, most probably, their car and drive, bicycle, walk or what ever, to their important jobs to work hard all over the place. It is a question of time!

There are also people who shower, because they cannot any longer manoeuvre themselves out of the tub and would be sitting there like a duck to be shot. Elderly persons normally do not like any longer to take baths, but prefer to shower. SO, next time you think about being old, think about the shower or bathtub question - and you will see where you stand!

I had an aunt, far aunt, who had in her bathroom a bathtub of 1,90 m -  a very long thing, looking like a sarcophagus - not wide, but long. Next to this wonderful instrument was a very comfortable chair, she had upholstered in the fabric towels are made of, you know what I mean, so that even if sitting there soaked, the chair simply dried up and looked normal. Her daughter and she used to have nice chats in the bathroom, one lying in her bath, the other one lolling in the huge and comfortable chair. Of course this was not a bathroom as we have it nowadays, some sort of cubicle of 1x1 m, where you will throw all your wonderful flacons and things on the floor if you just turn to quickly, without a window and without day light. Hers was a room, more for living with the comfortable attitude of being a room and not a "wet-cell" as the pragmatic Germans say: "Nasszelle". So depressing! And if you have bathroom without any natural airing system, you always have to take a wash with that fan noise... not a thing I would love. Or you start a mushroom culture - also a possibility.

But back to the glories of taking a bath. Being a whale or whatever you chose to be, a bath is always glamorous and it gives you the opportunity to think. In fact your are being hyper practical:  you get clean, gentlemen can shave as well, you can read a book, even hear a good disc on your i-pod and if necessary and wished for, have a chair there for that chat. The vast choice of delicious bath oils is worth giving the old bathtub another go -  in a shower you smear the stuff on your poor body for ca 54 seconds, wash it off and I do not believe, that any good is done, sorry. Showering is for getting clean, quickly, and nothing more. Fair enough!

In a bath you linger and can indulge in wonderful perfumes - no wonder that clever Mrs Estee Lauder introduced the famous bath oil ( now not longer available) of the famous "Youth Dew" - it was a revolution at the time as it started to make it "normal" for ladies to purchase scent for themselves, albeit in disguise of an innocent bath product. Until then and for a long time before, it was the husband/lover/admirer who bought and decided on the scent a woman had to live with. With the invention and matter of factly purchasing power of the bath oil - a product to take a bath, not a sinful  luxury thing - she transferred to women the power to buy a scent which was distinctively luxurious, sexy and made taking a bath not longer a chore, but a pleasure.

And if you do not like "Youth Dew" or her clever sisters, try some Verveine tea bags or some Epsom Salts,  a cup of milk (only think of good old Liz Taylor as Cleopatra.....) or some essential oils, a shot of good hairconditioner or a baby bath - the experience is always the same: relaxation and some me time of the best.

Children's birthdays - FUN?

My youngest son had his birthday yesterday - and we had, as it should be, a party. 

He himself had planned all meticulous during the last weeks and month and after careful consideration had invited 8 friends. Not the whole class, but only 8. The idea was to make a picnic and go to the park, playing football, running around and eating seated on a blanket on the grass ( not very comfortable in march, but then one goes along with the desires of the jubilant and accommodates accordingly in time...) which in his understanding means a huge chocolate cake WITH Smarties on top, several kilos of the most unhealthy chips possible, a mountain of Haribos and other terrifying stuff, lemonades and, if really not to be avoided, some bread with butter made by loving old mum.

Planning done, I broke my right foot and have to sit in the salon and keep quiet. 

Big disappointment. But then, creativity and play kicked in and my daughter took over, baked a chocolate cake out of one of those boxes you can buy in the supermarkets, they went shopping alone, with my card (!!sweating me at home..) and came back, glowing and happy with their bounty of  sweets and nonsense and  threw themselves into preparations wholeheartedly.

The children arrived, the mothers clustered around my sickbed for a quick chat and the invitees were never again seen in the house, but started to organise to build a camp in the garden - lucky us to have a wonderful sunny spring day - otherwise it would most probably have been a camp under the dinning table with more uncomfortable implications for me sitting right next to it. I think they had great fun and spent the whole afternoon outside in a tiny garden, busy organising their play themselves, solving small conflicts and eating huge amounts of unhealthy stuff - happy to run around, make a lot of noise and only once in a while accommodating to my daughters essays ins becoming a general manager. Though she did pretty well I have to say!!!!

I was musing meanwhile over the fact, that it is so easy to give the children those opportunities and that so many times there are those huge and super expensive parties organised for children, who do then not know how and where to start - and adults taking great care of orchestrating what they should do and play and eat and how and when all this will happen. 

I wonder, if those adults, with rolling eyes and sweating eyebrows, are really doing those parties for their offspring out of fun, or if they do not do it for themselves, having to comply to some unwritten law that children's birthdays are only well lived and well done if everybody afterwards is exhausted, a lot of money poorer and at least sighing with relief that it is all over.

When I was living still in Portugal children's parties were great and I learnt a lot - bear with me for some nostalgic ideas and incentives...

First of of all, the children were invited as individuals, not as a class, as well as siblings and mothers ( and fathers, if they wanted, but it was mainly a mothers thing, with dads popping in and out or if there all sitting at the other end of the room and talking business) - so no problem with the famous babysitting problem with the other children  at home - they simply came too.  Then, it was always at home and if you did not have a big home, you did invite only few kids and their entourage. Were there many people to be expected the weather helped and one went for a picnic in one of the parks and everybody helped with food and drinks. Also it was always clear, that mothers stayed for the party, but could leave with or without the children at any time - after singing and eating the cake, of course - which was always more or less half an hour after the official start of the party, so that everyone was there and the festivities could start. The idea was of spending a comfortable time together, drinking tea, talking about things, having fun while the children had fun themselves and the adults behaving like adults and having fun as well.

Of course there was always one or two children coming over to say hello to mum, show or communicate something important, blow their nose, complain about another kid and/or eat a bit of cake on her lap, but then they left again and everybody was happy and enjoyed themselves. No needs for Mummy to sit on the floor and engage in organising the Lego sessions.. I loved that afternoons, as it was so easy - there was a cake, some bread with butter, tea and lemonade and if we were very lucky, some sweets and chocolates for the children, but more as a decoration than a means to itself. All left relaxed and happy and well fed in soul and body.

I know, things are done today differently, out of lack of time and also inclination? Parents drop of their children at the door with military precision and pick them up impatiently at at the hour which was indicated - doing other things meanwhile the darlings are parked at the party. Do not get me wrong - I DO IT MYSELF!   I DO understand that very well and who am I to accuse anybody - it has just become "normal". Most of us work full time and most of us have several children: a Saturday is not for relaxing but for 1763 things to be done, football for Nr 1, scouts for Nr 3, in between shopping at the Supermarket for the coming week, organising plants for the garden,  if possible the buying the new winter tires, the shopping for shoes for the baby or the present for the godchild's 7th birthday next week, and and and... 

There is simply in our mind no time for pleasure and for a chat and for a sitting down and letting be. I know perfectly well, that I am nostalgic here - I am myself one of those mothers who run around on Saturdays like a headless chicken and try to accommodate all and everybody's needs. 

But is it not a pity, that a child's birthday, a day of joy for parents and siblings and friends, becomes a chore instead of pure bliss and joy and celebration?

Happy happy New Year 2014!

Best wishes to all of you, wherever you are, for a happy and good, lovely and hopeful New Year!

I hope to come back more often with ideas and opinions - last year was meagre in the harvest of writing and having fun - all a question of good organisation, isn't it? 

When I was singing with my old choir last December the first Cantata of the Weihnachtsoratorium by Johann Sebastian Bach, the text hit me like an autobus: Lasset das Zagen, verbannet die Klage! - if this is not the right motto to start the new year, then I do not know what to give you as a message on your way....

 Right now I am with the children in the sunny part of the South of France and the last waltz  of the Vienna New Years' Concert makes me quite melancholy. An advantage of being grown up and having lived already many a year is that one knows that melancholy is a hint in the direction where we should go and do better next time, not less, not more.

So, after a short bout of  dear melancholy, this is the time for new plans and resolutions and the fun of following them or not.

Have you made resolutions while jumping down the sofa into the new year yesteryear evening? In any case there are so many things I want to do, see and read! 

In true adaptation of my friend Friedrich's saying: " This life is one of the Best!!!"

And here is the Radetzky Marsch - off we go to new adventures!

Happy tidings to you all......
Jola