La Bandita

Map in hand, sun on face, wind through hair...we turned left off the A1 Autostrada into a narrow winding Tuscan road surrounded by cypress trees, vast yellow hills and the odd dry barrel of hay. Entering a maize of driveways: curved, lazy tarmac snakes confusing us as they bend and twist after every turn passed, deviously protecting the treasure that two eager bandits are hunting for.

La Bandita, a large farm-house and hip B&B owned and run by ex-New-Yorker Music-Agent turned Italian family man/ wine-lover/ compulsive traveller, John Voigtman. We found him and his genius stylish abode at the top of a steep, bumpy, white-dirt road on a mountain overlooking what feels like all of Tuscany and beyond.

It takes two minutes to feel right at home here. During the first two minutes you're holding your breath as you marvel at the awesomeness around you: The massive glass front door of the house opens up into a spacious, white, welcoming room with a large, L-shaped white couch as its main feature. One of the walls is a bookshelf, dense with irresistible binders from floor to ceiling and in front of the couch, a simple low table with the latest wallpaper magazine, an ipad and a few fresh-cut flower stalks in a glass vase. Around the corner, an open kitchen and the smell of rosemary in the oven. Outside, the heat hangs relaxed and low over the endless hills in their shades of mustard and mould. Above a few happy clean clouds are suspended in clear blue. But inside on my own white cloud, I drift into a semi-sleep as some song from the i-dock floods the room and compliments everything.

And so began day 1 of 3 at La Bandita.

Tuscany

It's the outdated yellow-walled cliche decor style adopted by many-a-house-builder or the place where that fake-smile movie with Russel Crowe was filmed or the name on some extra-virgin-olive-oil bottles. "Tuscany" is an over-used and under-stood household name. For me it was an image of rolling hills covered in olive trees with an old senora grandma selling bright red tomatoes under a terracotta rooftop.

Close, but no cigar, bella. I now see that my image was printed in black&white. A faded organic ketchup advert. In the now, I am seated in a train sliding away from this famous place Toscana. My suitcase beside me is heavy with memories, images, emotions, exhaled breath, white dust and 2 bottles of pesto - an untidy mixed-bag of that which now is "Tuscany": a place where nature is first & foremost. It surrounds you and astounds you. Simplistic is everything. Less is more because things are good enough to begin with. Food, for example,...is the best example. The bright-red tomato in my initial image was really crispier and sweeter than I could ever have imagined. And I consider myself rather imaginative.

After day one of the holiday I was already drenched in inspiration. You could wring it from my scarf and sell it in bottles. With every new exciting encounter or image, my inspiration and relaxation deepened: Meeting Giovanna (our first Italian host who spoke three words of English) as she worked in her beautiful garden overlooking Florence; exploring the big antique-furnished villa and drinking Italian coffee from a beautiful tiny cup on a heavy-oak table flooded in sunlight from a large window...then the next morning lying in a big brass-framed bed and hearing a rooster howl (in Italian) outside somewhere in the purple crispy dusk. It felt like being on a farm where you once grew up - if you did.

But it all really started after that, on our first full day, when we left Florence on the Autostrada A1. Two smiles on four wheels. Destination La Bandita, in the heart of Tuscany.

For next time. I've now squeezed all the adjectives I know onto this page. They're bumping heads and fighting over the window seats.

A change and a holiday

I've been quiet as a mouse as far as internet is concerned but in my real life I have been as busy as a bee- a bee with bigass arms... carrying the contents of our apartment accross the city. Moving sucks! They say a change is as good as a holiday but let me tell you, if you change homes you need a holiday. Holy poop!

Last week friday-night we were lying on our favorite olive-green couch in the safety of our familiar living-room, the night before our Big Move, mentally and physically preparing for what we thought would be a two-trip move the next day to our lovely new humble abode. And on Saurday-night we lay on the same couch after a very long FIVE-trip moving mission, bruised and pale, covered in sweat and dust...thinking "what just happened?!" Turns out renting a truck and adopting a posistive American-"let's-do-this"- attitude for the day, is simply not going to cut it. Deconstructing beds, tables, shelves and coffee machines; carrying them down spiral stairs and into a truck; and repeating the process at the other end; over and over again....is just tedious, for lack of a more dramatic word.

Moving aint for piss-ants. If I weren't going to Tuscany next week for some serious Time Out I would be feeling incredibly sorry for myself and my blistered palms. But the new place is just lovely and brand new (no ghosts, no spider-webs, no rusty keys). My favorite part is the state-of-the-art kitchen with a fridge-freezer from the future and the fact that all the activity happens in one big room. Watch this space for photos. Soon. After the holiday.

A day at the Tennis

There is something super-special about attending an exclusive luxury event that you've eagerly watched on TV all your life. I'm not sure what exactly makes it so exciting but I'm pretty sure it's a combination of seeing first-grade, top-class tennis live; witnessing the skill of the current best tennis player in the world (Spanish bull, Senjor Nadal! As seen in the pic below); being treated to utterly delicious food during the build-up to the highly anticipated match; being surrounded by friendly high-profile celebs; hearing the ball being hit and feeling the silence in the court before a serve...experiencing the tension first-hand and all the while drinking deliciously cold Pimms and Champagne from morning till noon.

It's big fun- I must go back! Again and again. But it's just so very expensive - perhaps another reason why it was so incredibly enjoyable: knowing that the 'member's-only' pass around my neck giving me unlimited access to such fantastic bliss will last for one day only, like cinderalla's dress for her 'one-night' at the palace- leaving her the next day back home in an old T-shirt, washing the dishes with a hangover... Bloody Wimbledon.

Friday

There are quite a few bordinary moments presenting themselves to me today and I can't decide which one to write about. Like this morning I walked through the big green park in the centre of Luxembourg, on my way to catch my bus to work, and I suddenly realised that I am officially settled in to my new home-city. I don't speak the local languages and I don't know anyone and I don't have a car and I don't belong to a book club or anything...but I feel at home here now. I love this clean, beautiful city, in which I have a favorite foodshop and a lovely flat where my post gets delivered and an awsome gym with people that recognise me and bank account in my name. Sounds boring and ordinary. Sounds just right.

And then I came to work and put sunblock on the face of my favorite four-year-old, which she hated every second of - as manifested by the lemon face she pulled while I spread summer-scented sticky SPF cream all over her tiny nose and cheeks. Which got my mind cruising down memmory lane all the way back to my own toddler-hood of beach days on the west coast of Southern Africa. The old feeling came back to me so vividly - for which the familiar smell of sunscreen is entirely to blame. All my senses took me straight back. Sea-salt in my mouth, hot sunshine on my shoulders, stubborn beach sand in every crevace of my tiny childhood body and the constant soft roar of the crashing waves that muffles everyone's laughter around me. Those were the best days. A very different kind of security as that which I experienced today.

But today is the best day of my 20-something's life right now...And I strongly suspect that tomorrow might be even better because Le Boyfriend and I are flying to my previous home city for some lovely London times, where on Sunday we will be at Centre court in Wimbledon with a glass of ice-cold Pimms watching a round of serious men's final tennis. So maybe Sunday will be the best day!

Have the best weekend, whatever you do, wherever you find yourself!

Chris Isaak

When I was a little chubby-cheeked, skew-toothed toddler with 2 plaits hanging down either side of my head, my parents used to play Chris Isaak a lot at home. I remember dancing between the grown-ups knees and ankles at parties and loudly singing along to the words of "Wicked Game". Then I grew up and carried on listening to him, playing the album "Baja Sessions" at every summer's-day-garden-party opportunity. Then I grew up a little more and saw him perform live...(!) yesterday.

Here I was, dancing and singing along once again...only this time actually understanding what I was singing. And best of all is that his music still sounds exactly the same, if not better, than back when I listened to it on a cd- the man still has the exact same golden voice. And he's simply the coolest of cool guys ever, with an immense stage presence, a very broken heart, a mischievous smile, and an impressive collection of performance outfits.

Who could have known back in the early 90's, that one day when I was 23, I would get a chance to see Chris Isaak perform live in the most intimate of venues, in Luxembourg of all places. Not only did I have one of the best concert nights ever, I got to meet the man in person!

How fun is life in all it's unpredictable glory. It makes me wonder about all the exciting unimaginable surprises yet to come! ?

Some times in Summer

Life is great in summer thanks to picnics, plants, parks and poetry.

Shine on me for vitamin D,

Shine on things for me to see.

Shine on the water, burn my eyes

Shine through leaves, on wooden floors , through white wine, on my skin.

Shine for life, to begin.

Today

This morning, as I sit here by the window facing the summer-ness in Luxembourg, I think about all the millions of other things hqppening worldwide right now.

Abbey Sunderland is sailing around the world on her own, attempting ( at age 16!) to become the world's youngest circumnavigator. She's probably also enjoying her view a bit more than I'm enjoying mine.

The Gulf of Mexico is becoming a black, dead sea filled with BP oil. Fish and Birds are suffocating and struggling to move- the result of the biggest oil leak disaster since us humans started the business of pumping.

Six scientists from Russia, China and Europe are on their 8th day inside the 'mock-up spaceship to Mars' in Russia, to prepare for the 18th month trip neccessaery to one day reach Mars.

My sisiter just woke up and is baking cup-cakes for a football party tonight in her appartment which overlooks the world-cup madness in the funky town that is Cape.

And Aaron Mokoena is taking deep breaths as he preps his team to kick some Mexican Ass in about 4 hours time, at the opening game of the first ever Football Worldcup in South Africa.

What an exceptional, seemingly ordinary day. I don't know about Mars, but here on Earth there's never a dull moment. And today is no exception! Happy weekend ya'll!

Move over Daisy, there's a new flower in my life

This weekend, after much recent whining and wishing on my part, Le Boyfriend and I went out to buy me an Orchid plant. I've badly wanted one of these white alien-like, fragile-but-firm, exotically-composed flowers for some time now- in fact ever since seeing the movie White Oleander 10 years ago. I somehow thought that an Oleander was the name for an Orchid flower. I never knew the correct name of this rare flower that I liked so much. Turns out it's called Orchid, not Oleander. Or rather, Phalaenopsis to be exact. Point being, I now have one of thems! And it has 11 shy-but-proud blossoms that glance at me when I open my eyes in the morning.

They make me happy, these new flowers in my life.