“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves” so says Corinthians 13:4. Does that mean if one’s feelings are not exactly these it cannot be love? It’s been an interesting few weeks, friends deported,friends re-united and friends confused. Perhaps, if we were more selfish life wouldn’t hurt so much…or is that part of being human…it all starts with one step.

It’s odd trying to explain a concept to people who just don’t get it…and at the same time think i’m a bit weird!! but anyway…here are a couple of images from today…

Maybe next year you will join us!!!

Tomorrow is the day when people are urged to write the word love on their arms. For more information on the aims and the idea behind this please visit  http://www.twloha.com/page.php?id=6

Depression is an insidious thing it creeps up and before you know it you can be completely enveloped in a fog of despair. I’ve lost friends to the consequences of depression, the common denominator, well they all thought they couldn’t speak to anyone, if only they had known that there were people out there who would listen to them maybe they would still be experiencing this wonderful life.

So please, if you can, write LOVE on your arm tomorrow and spread a little hope and a message that ‘they’/we are not alone.

I seem attracted to the oddest things. This week I saw an action figure of a Librarian, well not much action is involved, she just stands and watches with a severe expression on her face, she is the epitomy of what people expect Librarians to be like, in my experience though they are far from the prim and saintly Ladies and Gents portrayed in the media…

she is, I’m assured available from all good toyshops, although I suspect only in America. This one was purchased from ebay, no doubt she will one day be a ‘collectors item’.

something else I spotted is confusing me, I went with a friend for coffee and ended up in a Ladies Hairdressers and whilst she was beeing ’seen to’ I saw this piece of kit, it looks like a torture instrument from the deepest recesses of the old KGB basements to me, I have no idea what it is or what it is used for, anyone any ideas?

Every year at this time nothing seems to be right in my life…I’m always searching for something, waiting for that special person, thinking about another birthday coming up and being on my own, I don’t mind my own company its just that i’d like to spend time with a ’special someone’, knowing that another Christmas will come and go as though it is an ordinary day, no one around to open presents with, on the bright side no one to buy pressies for!!! More importantly no one to cuddle up with on these long winter nights….ah well at least I have my camera! The following are my abstract view on my life this past week.

view from the first floor window of my favourite café

Detail from a mosaic head outside the Library

Donna’s sock!

My laptop died the other day, it looks like the psu has gone…I don’t know where it hs gone but gone it has, now I’m waiting for the estimate for it to be fixed!!…and i’m back to using an old pc..it is soooo slow and I hate it…I haven’t got half the time saving devices and shortcuts on this pc and everything takes forever…so no fotos for a while, at least until I get my laptop back or I figure out how to make this thing run at least at walking pace…I’m also on a pc that i haven’t used since the last big love affair of my life and its a little disconcerting and odd to find still in the inbox of my Outlook Express the sugary emails sent between two people who were at that time engaged in a  perpetual lusting…Oh! how times change and what seemed like an amour now seems just plain silly…a good dose of reality checking there…

 What’s been happening in my world, well at the moment i have a chest infection and have lost my voice ( all my female friends say its man flu!), whatever it is I feel crap.

At Conversation Club yesterday, we had 6 new people, 4 Spanish, 1 Japapnese and a girl from China, it was very noisy and very busy, added to which i couldn’t speak, it made for an interesting couple of hours. After I had finished a group of us went for a coffee, we took over a local café, it was good fun although by the end i was very tired!!

Just some of the ways to say hello in the languages of the people who attend the Conversation Club I run on a Saturday. I have South Americans (Argentinian and Venezuelans), a couple from Pakistan, a few Portuguese speakers from Africa, Brazil and Portugal, along with a Ukranian a couple of Kurdish guys and a Japanese guy. They are a great crowd, a very diverse bunch and good fun to be with.  It’s interesting watching them talk to each other, they ask questions about each others customs and countries, sometimes the questions get a little personal…

I seem to have been spending a lot of my time recently listening to other people’s problems, now I don’t mind listening, apparently I’m quite good at it…and i figure if you are good at something it is a gift. Where do I go if I have a problem…perhaps I should talk aloud to myself!!!

Autumn is rushing up fast, yesterday I picked a couple of conkers off the ground…they seem to be falling early this year..I wonder what is going to happen this year…you see..conkering has been banned in most schools this year by the Health and Safety brigade!!! ya boo sucks to them…in next weeks class we are going to have a conker competition…provided of course the H&S wallahs don’t read this!!!! I love Autumn, the cool, crisp morning and the fog and the beautiful colours..I must get out with the camera…

I love the Autumn in Amsterdam, I haven’t been over for what seems like ages, whenever I get withdrawal symptoms I look at a couple of webcams from the city and apart from the smells it feels almost as though you are there…well almost at a stretch…at least I am saving the planet and lowering my carbon footprint by webcamming!!!!!!!!

Books

Bill Bryson      Mother Tongue

Mark Abley     spoken here

so my Laptop became an aptop and lol became just plain old o…I never knew just how many times I typed the letter l, it was so frustrating…it seems either the contact has gone awol or I need a new keyboard! So, at the moment I have a usb to PS/2 adapter and a full size keyboard on which I am typing my l’s, I’m still using the laptop keyboard for every other letter.

On Monday I took a friend over to the local college to enrol for some English courses, as she was off doing her tests to see what level she would be in, I was waiting in the main reception and other prospective students were arriving, there was a good selection of countries represented and I got chatting to some of them. They were mainly young although there was an older Japanese guy enrolling. One of the people milling around was a mum with 3 kids and a young girl in tow. Most of the kids around were playing and having fun, this particular mum would’t let her kids play, no, her kids had to do writing excercises and get them right, she told them  ‘if you want to go to a good school you have to do these excercises…’ the poor kids looked crestfallen they wanted to play… it turns out that she was here with the young girl, the girl was her au pair and from Hungary. Judging by the mother and her attitude the girl from Hungary is going to be very busy!!

After that I was at work and the place was full of feral children, parents were there but were letting the litte darlings run wild..I remember the days when a Library was a quiet and tranquil place..no more I’m afraid!!

see that’s 55 l’s in this little piece oops 58 now!!!

It is a holiday weekend here and as ever the weather is unpredictable, one minute sun and the next heavy rain..on Friday after work I was ‘picked up’ by some friends and we went to Llangollen a lovely little village along the banks of the River Dee. It was very busy, it usually is busy, this time though I noticed a change in the place…it is now full of tacky shops selling what can only be described as ‘tat’. There used to be a plethora of unusual little shops seling interesting things. Perhaps its a sign of the times and nobody soes tat anymore.

Yesterday I went there again with another mate and we only stayed for a coffee before heading out to a little village called Carrog, it was a lot quieter there and trés peaceful.  We wandered around an old railway station and made some photos…it was good to get out and away from the town and into the stunning Welsh countryside…one good thing about the amount of rain we’ve been having is that everywhere is so green, I mean really green, there are so many different shades of green it’s wonderful.

Detail from an old Railway carriage

Castell Dinas Bran above Llangollen

Elvis dashboard dancer

One of the ‘Thomas’ characters

Some of you may know that I’ve been making a series of photos of books from my collection and posting them here, I’ve been trying to make sentences, phrases out of the titles. I was told at work today about the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year…here are some of the previous winner’s…

2002: Living With Crazy Buttocks (Kaz Cooke – Penguin US/Australia)
2003: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (Kensington Publishing)
2004: Bombproof Your Horse (J A Allen)
2005: People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It (Gary Leon Hill – Red Wheel/Weiser Books)
2006: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Harry N Abrams)
2007: If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs (Simon & Schuster US)

I’ve had a look at a few of them and if you’re interested they’re still available on Amazon, and at other good bookshops no doubt… There is going to be a ‘Book of Books’ the oddest title ever…it’s being published in September and I for one cannot wait!! My order is already in…see here for more past winners