I don’t believe this. More than 1,5 month ago since I blogged. O.k. - you can find me on Facebook (hope this is the right link) and you can find me twittering. My blog is for bigger things. I have been to Hamburg. It was nice, but not nice enough to come back regularly like, say, Berlin or Paris. I have been to Bruxelles with students and I learned a lot. My students may be young but they have a big ability to care for each other. Such a good experience. I have been devastated by the results of the elections. I am very busy writing and editing a book about management in agogical professions.  My dearest friend endures a course of chemotherapy. I so admire her optimism and enjoy her cleverness. Go girl, go! And it is almost the end of the schoolyear. It Is So Busy! Only 4,5 weeks and the year is over. Everything must be done by then… pfoe… help me!

If you happen to live in the Netherlands, you should go to the new production of the National Ballet: Don Quichot. It’s wow and wow and if you want to see all the possibilities of the body, this is your chance. Of course, winning an Olympic medal is a tour de force, but it is only a few minutes. These dancers give their top performance for a whole evening. Smiling.They make you think it’s party time whole evening. Enjoy.

I joined Team Pootje Over on Ravelry and I obliged to finish as much WIP’s (work in progress that does not seem to get finished) as we get gold medals. I so hope my aims are overambitious. I did met the first gold medal. Here’s my Ravelympic gold medal in Wip Dancing…

It looks rather drab on the tailor’s dummy, but wearing it I was quite happy with it… I also finished the January Mystery Sock named Gansey Girl by Debbie O’Neill. I really choose the wrong yarn, but so glad this project is out of my system.

In the mean time there is lots of sadness. My best friend has breast cancer. That makes me mad. An operation is performed and she gets an infection. Back to hospital. That makes me even madder/sadder. I don’t want my best friend to have pain. There is nothing I can do. How fragile we are.

So funny, the pun is gone in English… this cake is made from a recipe of a monastery in Bologna (in 1994 published in Tip Culinair, a Dutch culinary magazine that doesn’t exist anymore) and it’s a hell of a lot of work to make it. The Dutch expression ‘monnikenwerk’ (monk’s work, meaning a lot of work) is therefore appropriate. The topping of mixed dried fruit is 24 hours soaked in black tea with orange juice and cinnamon. The cake itself is made from honey, butter, chocolate, almonds, raisins, applesauce and spices. You have to cook it a long time in the oven and it is really, really special. Usually. I hadn’t been baking for a long time, so the cake could have been smoother and softer. But it was so relaxing to do, that I decide to do it more often. And, it makes nice pictures, don’t you think?

Guess what we are eating tonight? A wrap with sauerkraut, cheese and pumpkin seeds with a salad with tofu and a dressing from lentils. Isn’t that animal friendly and environmentally safe?
The John Adams Institute (of which I am a longterm satisfied member) organized a lecture by Jonathan Safran Foer based on his new book ‘Eating Animals’. No novel, but a story about why we could better stop eating animals, pardon meat. An infonovel.  Before the lecture I didn’t plan to buy the book and didn’t plan to eat just vegetarian. But Foer is a charming, convincing, honest, inspiring, humorous, wise man and a gifted storyteller.

So that’s why I will buy the book and that’s why we are eating the wraps and salad tonight. So, along Foer’s lines: today we are vegetarians and may be tomorrow. But that is what we will decide for tomorrow.

This is my Bambi. It lies at the snowy foot of my light tree and it is smiling all day long. So it must be happy.
I wish you a merry Xmas with lots of lights and friends.