There’s a definitely springlike tang in the air, the trees are producing little green leaves, the neighbours’ one-paving-stone front garden is producing snowdrops, and the streets are producing chalk arrows.

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At the beginning of December I got this splendid Advent calendar from tanaudel and joyfully coloured each day’s figure. Then it was Christmas and I didn’t have time for anything. Then I went to hospital and though I was out again the same day I haven’t had energy for anything until now.

(er, just to show how vague I am right now, I wanted to have a “click this to see full size” link here but I accidentally reduced the original scan to even smaller than this picture and saved the small pic over the large one)

I realised, when counting on my fingers, that the Twelve Days of Christmas don’t end on the 6th, but on the 5th of January. This figures, because the 6th is Theophany (Epiphany for you Westerners) and so no longer a day of Christmas, though Christmas and Theophany were the beginning and end of the same feast for the early Church.

We went to Utrecht to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary, and to buy books to take on holiday and bras at SandrabrA because that’s the only place we know of that has the right combination of very small girth and generous cup size for the teenagers (and sort-of-medium girth and generous cup size for me; I have a really well-fitting bra for the first time in my life, a rather strange sensation, not completely pleasant for now because underwiring takes a lot of getting used to but it does wonders for my figure). While we were there anyway, we thought we’d find a nice museum.

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Either someone’s idea of a joke, or a hilarious attempt at prudery!

ETA: Europa, of course. Not only my favourite statue in the town park, but also very close to my ideal of female beauty.

Usually when the radio wakes me up at 6:30 I hit the “off” button the moment there’s a sound, because my other half’s alarm doesn’t go off until 6:40 and I want him to be able to enjoy his extra ten minutes. This morning, however, I was in bed alone because he’s in Helsinki, so I actually listened to the radio for a bit.

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The introductory talk (with lots of examples from 15th- to 20th- century art) was about the conflict between figure and background and different ways to deal with it. You can emphasise the contrast, or make the background part of the figure, or vice versa, or any kind of mix-and-match. It’s amazing how people pick up things from the introduction even if they don’t intend to put it into practice consciously.

It was a very nice relaxed class: sometimes it’s a fight for me (usually enjoyable, but still a fight) and sometimes it just flows, like today.

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The idea for today’s art class was to make a kind of combination of model and portrait drawing, to show the model’s personality. Peter-Frans warned that it would be very intense and confronting, both for the students and for the model, and it was.

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An architect about to renovate a building in Leipzig, East Germany, unlocked a door and found a flat untouched since the spring of 1989. Apparently the occupant left in a hurry: there are dirty bedsheets in the washing machine, uneaten bread rolls in the kitchen, and a full ashtray on the table.

Here is an article in German with lots of pictures. Note the Vita-Cola bottle in the kitchen; there still is Vita-Cola, but it comes in plastic bottles now (and actually tastes better than some Western brands).

I was already tired when the session started and it didn’t get much better (and then in the afternoon I had to give a talk to kids at a church meeting, but that went okay, they were cooperative). Nice stuff, though. Pictures behind the cut.

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Wednesday evening, 20:00, about to serve pumpkin and coconut soup.

Phone: Ring, ring! It’s the art-class teacher. “Am I right that you were going to sit tonight?” Me: “Isn’t that tomorrow?” Him: “Yes, but tonight as well.” Well, it wasn’t on my schedule (we still don’t know which of us made the mistake) but it’s only five minutes away, so I grabbed a piece of bread, admonished the family to save me some soup, and wasn’t much more than half an hour late for the lesson.

Only five people there, most of them old acquaintances; a bit of chaos from the chaotic start, but that wasn’t at all unpleasant. Only, when I got home I was too tired for anything except sipping a glass of wine and reading Golden Ashes (a great find from the 25-cent bin of one of the local second-hand bookshops). Oh, and eating pumpkin and coconut soup, of course.

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