Downton Abbey and Laura Ingalls-Wilder

The postman made me very happy today. 

My long awaited parcel from

the Netherlands finally arrived. 

Downton Abbey, Season 3 ~ part 1 and 2.

 I promised myself not to watch them until the weekend 

 (but it is not going to be easy to hold that promise). 

  

~

 

I remember reading some of the Little House 

books when I was in 3rd grade and I have just 

started to read them to my daughter, 

who is also in 3rd grade now. 

 The problem is that some of the German

 translations are very hard to find

 (and therefore very expensive). 

That's why I decided to buy the 

whole series in English, just for me.

I am really looking forward to reading Laura's

books from an adult's point of view.

read more

My bookshelf - Ingrid Jonker

Another book that has definitely earned a place on my bookshelf - Ingrid Jonker's poems. She was a South African poet who wrote in Afrikaans. The book contains her poems in Afrikaans and a translated version in Dutch. The language Afrikaans developed from 17th century Dutch dialects and a huge part of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin. With some practice, it is easy to understand.



Ingrid Jonker had a sad life, she suffered from severe depression and she committed suicide at the age of 31. On May 24 1994, almost 30 years later, Nelson Mandela opened the first democratic Parliament of the new South Africa, and in his speech, he read Ingrid Jonker's poem "Die Kind (The Child)", which revived interest in the life and work of Ingrid Jonker.

-----

The child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga
The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath
Of freedom and the veld
In the locations of the cordoned heart
The child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga
The child lifts his fists against his father
in the march of the generations
who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath
of righteousness and blood
in the streets of his embattled pride

The child is not dead
not at Langa nor at Nyanga
not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville
nor at the police station at Philippi
where he lies with a bullet through his brain

The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers
on guard with rifles Saracens and batons
the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings
the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts
of mothers
this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere
the child grown to a man treks through all Africa
the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world

Without a pass

-----

Listen here to the poem in Afrikaans read by Ingrid herself. I love the melody of Afrikaans. The sound of the language is so much softer than Dutch.

A number of her poems have been set to music by South African musicians. Listen here for the beautiful African version of "Ontvlugting" ("Escape").

Last year a movie was released (in English) about Ingrid's life "Black butterflies". The main character is played by the Dutch actress Carice van Houten. I didn't see the movie yet, but I ordered the dvd.

read more

The Help

One of the packages under the Christmas tree contained this book. It was on top of my wish list. It is the German translation of "The Help" and I have heard so many people talk about it.

But before I started the book, I saw that the movie came out in Luxembourg last weekend. I decided to see the movie first and then read the book, because my experience is that the book is normally better than the movie.

It is a rather long movie (almost 2 hours 20 mins), but I loved every second of it. It is amazing, awesome, funny, sad, shocking (especially as being a mom to two black children)..... During the last scene (you know, where people normally start putting on their coats), as Aibileen walks away, you could hear a pin drop and nobody moved until the very last moment.

Highly recommended!

read more

Movies

My camera memory card has given up and all my Christmas photos are gone. Yes, I know, there are worse things in life...

During our stay in the Netherlands I tried to catch up on movies. I am so behind on DVD's. When we were a kidless couple, we used to go to the cinema almost every weekend. I love movies! Thank God for the DVD player!

I really liked "House of sand and fog". I bought the book by Andre Dubus III when it was selected for Oprah's Book Club. I loved Ben Kingsley from the moment he played Ghandi. My husband liked it too.

"The piano" - beautiful movie. I can only imagine what it must be like to love an instrument that much. My husband only watched the beginning, I think it is more of a girl's movie.

"In my father's den" - not an easy movie but absolutely worth watching. Matthew MacFadyen gives a moving performance. Surprising plot twist. I think I liked the movie more than my husband :-).

"The blind side" - my husband watched this movie from beginning to end (he loves sports). I did too and it was nice, but nothing special.

"Hachi, a dog's tale" - oh my, what a sweet movie! What a special friendship. It was hard not to cry. Can you imagine that dog waited for nine years at the railway station for his owner to come back. It broke my heart. My husband worked on the computer but I saw him watch secretly all the time :-).

read more

"Babies"

My best friend from the Czech Republic gave me the sweetest gift for my birthday last month. The dvd is called Babies (Babys/Bébés), an adorable movie following four children from around the world from the moment they are born until their first birthday.
If you are pregnant, or if your daughter is pregnant, or you already have children, or just like children...this is the perfect gift! Don't worry about the language because there is no voice-over, you just hear the mothers and children in the background in their native languages.

This movie is a real hit here in the house. My adopted son wants to see the babies over and over again. Especially the black babies from Namibia are so funny.

read more

The King's speech

My children are having a week off from school - no homework! - and my 2nd son, who always needs some extra money, proposed to babysit the kids so that my husband and I could go to the movies and watch "The King's speech". The movies shown here in Luxembourg come from Belgium and it normally takes several weeks before they have subtitled them in French and Flemish, but "The King's speech" finally arrived in the cinemas of Luxembourg city this week. And what a wonderful movie!!! What great actors!!! I love watching a good movie.

read more

Sarah's key

It rained all weekend and because we still had a babysitting-gift-voucher from the boys for my husband's birthday, we decided to go to the movies this afternoon. We watched "Elle s'appelait Sarah" (Sarah's key). I read the book by Tatiana de Rosnay in German some time ago, but we watched the movie in the original french version. It is a wonderful book, so sad, but very impressive. And so was the movie. Even though I already knew the end of the story, I loved every minute of it. Highly recommended.

read more

The Last Station

Yesterday evening we went to the cinema and saw the beautiful movie "The Last Station" (Ein russischer Sommer) about the final days of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. If you like historical movies and are interested in literature, go see this movie, you won't be disappointed. Both Christopher Plummer (Tolstoy) and Helen Mirren (his wife) are very convincing in their roles.

read more

Summer reading list

As you can imagine, my three men were devastated last Sunday when we lost the World Cup finals from Spain. But hey...we survived! Fortunately, there is some hope left as the Luxembourger Andy Schléck is wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. Luxembourg has +/- 500.000 inhabitants only and the whole country is extremely proud of him.

Last school day for the kids. There was a big party yesterday and now we are facing 9 !! weeks of school holidays. If you don't hear from me until mid September, I probably didn't survive.

I wanted to share my summer reading list with you. Well, some of the books are audio books. I love audio books. I've always dreamt of someone reading stories to me in bed, but then I married a Luxembourger who doesn't like reading (he plays basketball...).
I normally read in German, but I looked up the English titles on Amazon.com.



^ Snow Flower and the secret fan.



^ The shadow of the wind.



^ A thousand splendid suns.



^ Couldn't find this one, think it has not been translated into English.



^ This Nelson Mandela movie has been on my list for months. Having 2 children from South Africa, Mandela is our hero of course.



^ I think I'm going to like this one.

By the way, I stopped reading Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander". I have read about 100 pages and I didn't like it at all. I should have known better, this is not my kind of book.

read more

Books

Yesterday the postman made me very happy, he brought me the books I ordered from Amazon.



^ I love the Where Women Create magazine and books. I could look at the pictures for hours.





^ I have seen so many lovely paper projects on all your blogs, that I might give it a try myself!



^ I am sure I am going to love this one. I have read all her books, and found out only last week that she wrote a book about Africa.



^ I'm not sure about this one. It is the German translation of "Outlander". I have read so much about Diana Gabaldon's books and everybody is so excited that I took the risk and bought me the first part of the series. Normally it is not my style, but I really hope this one is good because it is such a nice thick book and there are 6 more parts. I still have to finish another book, but this one is next on my reading list.

read more

Shutter Island

My eldest son kindly offered to babysit yesterday evening so my husband and I could go to the movies. We went to see "Shutter Island". It is a brilliant movie, but we both feel we have to see it one more time to check all the details. We have been talking about it for hours afterwards.

read more