Garden produce

Yesterday we had our first garden-grown broccoli for dinner. Well, that actually makes it sound bigger than it was: we each had 3 pieces, as the broccoli itself was still quite small but had already started to flower. Now we've had quite some visitors to the garden lately who had no idea how broccoli is actually grown, so here's a picture I took about a week ago:

Our broccoli buds.

Yes, broccoli is a flower. The word actually means "flowering top of a cabbage" in Italian (I got this from Wikipedia, btw, my Italian is not that fluent). I don't know why so many people are surprised at the way broccoli grows, but it's always nice to learn something new, right?
Since my last gardening post there have been some changes: we now have (apart from the broccoli) 3 other vegetables growing in the garden: tomatoes, peppers, and winter leeks. The leeks replaced the beans (legumes, actually) that were slaughtered by a buch of slugs (same for the rocket). The strawberries and radishes are of course long gone, and the artichoke plant does not really look like it's doing much, but we'll keep it just to see whether it does something next year.
So, the tomatoes. We actually went for a store-bought version here, because the ones we grew from seed were just too tiny to produce flowers (or so we thought, they now have some very very small flowers, so something may still happen there. The store-bought tomato plant came with flowers in place, which have by now turned into some lovely tomatoes:

Cheating with tomatoes

I hope they will turn red before our big vacation, so we can actually enjoy them!
The pepper plant is also store-bought and still in flower, and the leeks are still very tiny at the moment, but they're supposed to grow until November/December. The grape plants have some veeeeery tiny grapes which we hope will get bigger in time, but last year the total harvest was 3 grapes, so we're not holding our breath on that one.
Apart from these functional plants, we of course also have some nice flowers, to keep the insects happy and thus to keep us happy.

Our own white rose.

Our rose (which we've had for a while now, but which doens't seem to get any bigger) had just one flower last year, so I'm very happy with the turnout of this year. There are some other flowers on the lower stems, which hadn't opened when I took this picture, so it looks even better now.

Alcea rosea, in good Latin.

I just found out that this is called a "Common Holleyhock" in English. Well, we call it "stokroos", which means "stick rose", so neither name is very favourable. Anyway, we've had these ones for 3 years now, and they've been doing great all along.

Clematis show-off.

They (meaning the housing association that owns the building) removed a whole wall of ivy from our garden last year, as it was getting into the roof tiles and window sills of the people living above us, and to replace it we put in a clematis, which is less damaging and nicer to look at. I'm never sure whether I like these plants, they look a bit too show-offy for me, but still, they're flowering nicely.

Butterfly central.

And finally a nice combo shot of our butterfly-bush and hydrangea. We've had both of these for a couple of years too now, they are both in corners of the bit of garden that gets the least sunlight, so I'm not sure whether they are totally happy, but they look nice and the butterfly-bush attracts a lot of butterflies and bees and bumblebees, so that's good.
That's the end of the tour for now, hopefully I can get you one more update some time in autumn, when most of the fruits of our labour should be in!

Life's phases

So today I open my Facebook news feed, and the first thing I see is that one of my old fellow biology students got engaged to her boyfriend. Last Saturday, I discovered that the first boyfriend I ever had (I was 16) had gotten married to his girlfriend of 8 years. A week before that, an old friend with whom I've lost contact also married, and he (well, his wife) is expecting his first child soon. I know of 2 other upcoming weddings this summer, one of which I'm actually invited to.
See a pattern emerging? I certainly do! Somehow, I now find myself in the "getting married" life stage. A few of my friends jumped the gun on this one, and are already in the "buying the first house" stage, while some are taking the "first child" stage a bit early (see above), and some can't be bothered about marriage anyway, but on the whole, most of the long-lasting relationships around us are getting married. How did this suddenly happen?
For me, it is kinda strange, because my friends can be divided along 2 lines: those I know from secondary school and my first study, who are all roughly 25-30, and those who I know from my second study, who are all roughly 20-25. The second group are mostly still students, busy moving out of their student rooms and getting their first rental houses, busy finding the perfect partner or thinking up what they actually want to do with their lives. The first group has got that pretty much covered, most of them already have permanent jobs (some of them own their own companies!) and houses, and are now ready for The Next Step. I somehow find myself in between these groups; I'm still studying, but also already working quite a lot and my boyfriend has a steady job, we've already lived in our own rental home for almost 4 years now, but are clearly not doing any of the Next Step stuff, because hey, it's a bit early isn't it?
I wouldn't say it's freaking me out, or letting me feel that I'm 'behind' (or 'ahead', for that matter), but it makes me think. People tend to move in packs, and apparently I can't decide whether I'm going to go early into the next stage, or linger around a bit in a stage that most of my friends have already left behind. This won't last much longer, I can tell you, because in half a year I will be finished and I will (hopefully) be working, and then we will also find ourselves in the "hey, suddenly I've got all this money, let's do something with it!" stage that you get between finishing your studies and getting children (clearly, I have no experience with this myself, but some of my cousins (with young children) sigh at my imagined freedom and financial wealth to come. But then they all waited until they were 35 before they had their first child, and that's not something I want to do. Oh dear, seems like I'll be jumping some stages ahead too...)
In a couple of years time, we will all be having children together (not literally...), and then the talk will be about schools and how difficult it is to combine babies and work and then how difficult it is to combine all you children's hobbies, and then we will all be having raving adolescents and mid-life crises and divorces together, and then... It feels like a drag, really, like something you can't escape. Technically not true, but you see it in groups all around you; once one starts getting married, all of them do; once one couple has a baby, all of them want one too, etc etc... (apart from the one "drop-out friend" that most groups have, the one who still lives in the fabulous apartment in the city centre and can't be bothered to tie themselves down to one specific job or partner, but I don't see myself taking on that role, and I have several friends who qualify for it already).
All in all, I'm very happy to have some 'younger' friends who tell me that I'm crazy to already be thinking about stuff like this, because they're going to study abroad for two years, and why shouldn't I?

Complaining

So yesterday I was eating breakfast with my boyfriend, and he had boiled some eggs, and I cut mine open and said; "Wow, that really is hard-boiled!" I like my eggs hard-boiled, if there is one thing that will make me gag it's gooey egg yolk running all over my toast. But my boyfriend took it differently and said; "That's what you wanted, right?" I found this puzzling, as I was trying to pay him a compliment, but he saw it as a complaint.
I had the same experience a couple of weeks ago, when we walked into a room for a meeting and I said: "Oh, it's warm in here!" I was happy about that, because it'd been cold outside, but the others took it the wrong way and said; "You shouldn't complain about that!"
There must be more examples, but I can't think of them right now, and trying to dig up negative responses from people out of your memory is no way to spend an afternoon.
But I do think it is interesting, and also somewhat worrying. Apparently, people's first response is to assume that you are complaining when you are making a neutral comment without expressing clear joy or happiness. I know I can sometimes come across as ironic or sarcastic, but in both these cases, I was just making off-hand remarks without any negative thoughts attached (or pronounced, as far as I know). This is not to say that the interpreters of my comments are wrong in interpreting the emotions of others, but maybe it does tell us something about the general mental state of people.

A few years ago, I bought A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen. This book encourages people to stop complaining (including gossip) for 21 consecutive days, which will then cure you from your negative state of mind. It provides you with bracelets that you have to move every time you do complain, so there is a physical action involved to tune your mind towards the complaining (I did not do the bracelet thing at the time, as I was working a job where I couldn't wear anything around my wrists for 8 hours at a time, but I might do it in the future). Now there is a lot of The Secret-like "The Universe will provide as long as you dare to ask" crap in there, including some veeeeery unbelievable "real life" examples and super-enthusiastic letters of experience from all of Will Bowen's family members, neighbours, and employees, but there are also some very good things in there.
One of the things that stuck with me is "people who hurt are hurting", meaning that people who cause harm or distress to others are themselves suffering from harm or distress, in whatever shape or form. Think about it. The last time you snapped at someone else, was there some other reason behind it? Were you tired, grumpy, stressed? Or was that person maybe doing something that annoys you in yourself but haven't been able to change? I think the general principle is true, and whenever people verbally assault or insult me, I usually try to see what might be behind this, and in many cases I can realise that their words are not specifically directed at me but just serve to relieve some of their own stress, so I don't get worked up or angry or sad myself (this can be very hard, as I'm not a very patient person).
Secondly, Bowen argues that the more we focus on the bad things, the more bad things there will be. Not really, of course, but if you lose sight of the good stuff, the bad stuff will more easily jump at you. This usually only works for your own bad stuff; as soon as someone talks about somebody else who is very sick, people generally appreciate their own health better, even though just 5 minutes ago they were complaining of back pain. But by focusing on that back pain, you are missing all the good things that you do have, and your mind becomes ingrained in focusing on bad stuff. This does not mean that you shouldn't say something if you are genuinely in pain, or distressed, or sad, but if it's just minor things, turn your attention to better prospects, and in the long run, you will notice more positive than negative things.
And finally, the people around you are often of the same "complaint-level" as you are. Groups of people often have similar levels of a multitude of things (income, education, political views) and complaining is no different. If you are thinking that all those people around you are complaining too much, then you probably are too. While reading the book, I started to notice this in people around me, both the positive and the negative, and I now have a lot less contact with several friends who were very negative and always complaining about things that they had caused themselves, could easily fix, or that were just out of anyone's reach (the weather). Complaining appeared to be their default mode of communication. Lessening the contact was quite a conscious action on my side, not because I did not like them anymore as people, but because I wanted to have a more positive outlook on life, and talking to them made me feel negative, sore, and depleated of energy.

Now I won't say this book did me any miracles, but the three main messages that I got out of it have helped me to get a better outlook on life. I can complain that I am sitting inside working while it's 24 degrees and sunny outside, and I can hear my neighbours laughing in their backyard, but that doesn't help the situation, and the work gets me money and the money will pay for my university fees for next year, so in the end that makes me happier. I've made a conscious choice to sit indoors and work, so why should I complain? I can still feel sorry for myself on the inside, but I've noticed that the more you focus on the good things while talking, the happier your 'inner voice' also becomes.
I do think many people have a negative outlook on life and assume that others are also complaining, and that this will be around for quite some time yet. But maybe we can all get a little bit more positive about our own life and situation with just a little effort.

Fry's fiction

Now I've written about Stephen Fry's autobiographies (which I read in the wrong order), but for a couple of days now, I've been reading some of his fiction. I read Making History several years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as it has an intricate plot, takes place mostly in Cambridge and the future, and involves some heart-breaking romance. Not the best-written fiction I've ever read, but a good story and very amusing.
So when mr. Fry kept making references to his first novel, The Liar, in his Moab is my Wash-pot autobiography, I had to read that too. So I Amazone-d it, and I've been reading it for the past week, because you know, it's the holidays, so I don't have time to read.
The book is... weird. First of all, it's not written in chronological order, but things keep jumping around from Adrian (the protagonist) at boarding school to Adrian at Cambridge and back again. This should be fine, except that Adrian does basically the same thing in both locations (namely lie and be a fraud), and that there are so many side-characters with similar vague names who jump in and out of the story that it's hard to keep track of who was his roommate and who was merely one of his classmates. The writing is so-so, I can see how his humour is developing, but it isn't quite at the level of Making History or his autobiographies, and a far cry from what comes out when he actually opens his mouth.
Then there are some weird, disjunctive things in italics that run through the novel that make no sense at all, nested in between the main chapters, involving characters called "Tweed jacket". I'm sure I'll figure this part out when I get to the end of the book, and if I don't, I don't feel like I'm missing much.
But what is freaking me out the most, is that it is semi-autobiographical. I know Stephen Fry said that a lot of his personal life went into The Liar, but I hadn't expected him to have done it so literally. I mean, his background, actions, friends, entire life-events, are just put down on paper for all to read. I can clearly see Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson walking around in there, even though they are now called Gary and Jenny. The bits about the boarding school are eerily familiar, and then some conversations can also be found word for word in Moab. But then, on the next page, some freaky fictional thing happens, and everything goes off balance. I'm not sure what to believe anymore, although the fictional things are clearly less worked-out and thought-through than the real things, so you can sort of see it from that. Also, looking back at some of the things that happened in Making History (which is one of the later books by the way), I can now see connections, and these are probably also things that he took from his own life.
Maybe I shouldn't have read the autobiographies before getting to the fiction, but in a way I'm happy I've done it, because now I can see that at least some of the things aren't real, some of the weird and partly gruesome stuff that goes on in boarding schools didn't really go on...
Finally, I can already see that this one is going to end with a big romance again, as did Making History. Stephen Fry is a great, great romantic. Which makes me really sad, because from what I've read so far, life has quite let him down on that account. In his novels, the beautiful straight-guy-with-girlfriend suddenly turns around, discovers the gay protagonist who's been in love with him for years, realises he's gay as well, and they live happily ever after. This did not happen for mr. Fry and his Big Love. From what he writes on his blog, he's still looking for that one Perfect Person. It's great that he can experience it through his writing, and I think it does a lot for people who do not believe that gay people can feel love like 'normal'  people, but it wrings my heart to see the heartache put on the page like that. So let's hope that at 54 he's not to old to find the love of his life, and then the ends of his books can also be written from his own experience. And let's hope that it'll be all he ever dreamt off.

Holidays

So last week a friend of mine asked me what the holidays were about for me. For him, his ideal holiday would be being alone and doing nothing. I asked him whether he would like to do that in some sort of exotic location, like a deserted island, but just sitting at home was fine enough for him.
Now I can't imagine that being my ideal holiday. I spend most of my time sitting alone at home (well, 2 cats for company), not doing nothing but working, and one of the happiest moments of my day is when I can go meet up with friends or when my boyfriend gets back from work. So that doesn't work.
I know others see their perfect holiday as getting as tanned as possible, or climbing mountains, or getting drunk every night. Not really my thing either. I always thought that my ideal holiday consisted of reading lots of books and doing the things I can't find time for during normal days, such as painting or baking, but it turns out I get much more joy out of those things when I can do them in between the necessary stuff. If I have lots of time to do these things, they somehow lose their value.
So what is my ideal holiday all about? I guess it's about visiting new places, seeing new things, learning new things, meeting new people. Most years of my life since I've been able to decide for myself what I wanted to do, I went someplace new, someplace I could learn something (if there isn't a museum or some great natural phenomenon, it's gotta be pretty special for me to go there...). Travelling around England and Scotland, camping in France (I've done that loads of times, but always go to different places), visiting Rome, camping in Switzerland... wait, that's just the last 2 summers I'm describing now. In 2008 a friend and I took it to the extreme by backpacking around Europe, and I've also visited Jordan, Egypt, South-Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and, Zambia (together with my mum, who also wants to see the world) this way. Those were trips, travels, journeys, mind you, not 'holidays' in the sense that most people understand them. But for me, they were the best.
So this year, we're going to visit the US, spending 3 weeks discovering the north-eastern parts. I've spend a couple of weeks planning already, and we haven't even rented a car or booked accommodation for the last week, let alone pre-book some of the sights we want to visit, so it'll be some time in the making still. But I don't mind, that's half the fun of it; discovering what is out there and planning all the great things you are going to see. And then actually doing them is even better.
When I explained this to my friend he looked at me as if I was crazy and asked whether I hadn't already had enough of this trip because it's taking so long to plan. But again, it's all about discovering new things, possibilities, learning things. I don't think you'll ever find me stretched out on a beach for 2 weeks in a row. But hey, to each their own.

Beatrix Potter

I am a huge fan of Beatrix Potter, and for a long time it was a dream of mine to do as she did: write children's stories and draw the illustrations myself. I'm quite sure that won't be happening, but I still admire her work, not only in writing, but also her conservation work for the National Trust. I visited her cottage in the Lake District last summer, and it was great to see so many locations from the stories in real life.

So it is only logical that one of my Postcrossing requests reads "Beatrix Potter" cards. This request was sadly ignored for a long time, only one Peter Rabbit card, send by a Dutch girl, found its way to me:

NL-1036952 received 13 February 2012

In the last month, however, more and more Beatrix Potter cards have been flowing in. Interestingly, two of these came from Taiwan (not really a Potter-country, I'd say):

TW-574861 received 9 June 2012

This card shows one of the great ironies of Beatrix Potter's rabbits: she did not like them so much anymore when she had drawn them thousands of times and more importantly when she was living in the countryside herself and realised how annoying they can be to anyone with a vegetable patch. So she wrote less and less about rabbits, and when she did write about them she drew them very small and in the distance (The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies is a good example of this), without the rich detail that you find in Peter or Benjamin:

TW-580249 received 20 June

I always liked Benjamin Bunny better than Peter Rabbit. I have no idea why.
He is not my favourite Potter character however, that is Tom Kitten, of whom I've not received a card yet. He features in his own story, but also in The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding, which equally scared and delighted me as a child, as all good stories do.
Finally, yesterday, the best Beatrix Potter card of all arrived, which shows how everything started:

GB-339849 received 4 July 2012

Yes, this is the letter with which it all started. Well, a copy, made into a postcard, of course. Not a lot of detail, not even any clothes, but still, it's great that this piece of paper has been saved, so that many years from now new Beatrix Potter fans can still see how it all began.

Silly superstitions

So now that my essays have all been handed in (and my teachers are taking their sweet time correcting them!), it is time to relax and enjoy the holidays. Only it isn't for me, because I'm working, starting work on my MA dissertation, and also planning our 3-week trip to the US in September. But still, it's less stressful than writing 16,000 words in three weeks, you'd say.
Not true. With the handing in of essays, the silly superstitions that have established themselves over years of school and university start to set in.
When I was still in secondary school, I always kept the book I would have an exam on the next day on my desk while I was sleeping, I never put it in my bag as I usually did with books I needed the next day. I know some people who actually put their books under their pillows, as if the knowledge would drain into their brain through the pillow. Also, I never ever did the last-minute revision thing that you see so many people do in the hallway right before a big test. I was so afraid that by studying some random small detail, I'd forget something else, probably something big, that I did not look at my books anymore once I left the house. I have no idea if either of these things work, and they seem a bit contradictory now that I look back on them, but there you go.
With essays, this becomes less of an issue, but now other things have crept in. If I have a folder from the teacher I'm handing in to (sometimes they bring spare folders to class, when the pile in their office gets too big), I will always hand in my essays in that same folder. For my Theatre course, I have a blue folder that I used for all 3 of my assignments, taking out the previous one and then putting in the next one as I go along. On some conscious level I know this doesn't affect my grade in anyway, but still I do it...
Another thing is that I cannot return the books I needed for the essay to the library until I have my grade. This is some weird kind of reversed psychology; if I hand in the books, I will need to rewrite, and then I have to pick the books up again, so if I just keep them at home, there won't be any point in having to rewrite, as there is no extra effort involved, so I will pass. Again, pointless, but I know several others who do this.
And then there is the checking of the grade. Ahhh, how much easier must it have been when grades were just posted in lists on paper on actual boards, and people just knew when they were there and could go to that place and check their grade. Now, grades are posted online, and many teachers forget to email their students that the grades are in. So you keep checking the website, but not too often, otherwise you'll somehow annoy or speed up your teacher, who will then definitely fail you, but just often enough so that your grade will be posted when you check (needless to say, it never is, as I've already checked some course websites 10 times without knowing my grade. Also, some teachers just put the essays in their outboxes, which is really mean, because then it may take days for someone to notice that they're there, and then there is a sudden rush of text messages and emails and people practically running to the university to prevent others from seeing their grade before they do... Ah well). This is the same as the 'we cannot leave the house now, I'm waiting for a package to arrive!' situation, which we had last Saturday, when the package does indeed arrive just at that time you are out (I realise this does not matter for your grade, which will still be online, and is more annoying when you have to ring you neighbour's bell 5 times before you finally have your things, but still, it's in the same category).
I have a funny feeling all 3 of my grades will arrive at the same day, namely today (as the teachers have had the whole weekend to check things), which will cut short any adrenaline rushes and stress I have been experiencing over the past week, as I keep remembering things I really wanted to put into an essay but forgot at the time. But that would be good, because then I can return the 15 books that are clogging up my desk to the library, and start on my MA dissertation with a fresh, clean desk. Also, I will be able to go to places where there is no Internet without thinking that the grades will be posted that exact second and all my classmates already know everything and I'm the only one on the planet who does not have her final grade. Also, I will finally able to relax. Which is what the holidays are all about.