my journey as a civil war novel writer

It is not a secret that I usually don't think too well on Dutch actors. I love a couple, often I think the British are way better. There are several exceptions, Henk Van Ulsen who died at the age of 82 yesterday was such an exception. He was one of the old generation who combined stagework with TV and movies. [And that breed seems to be dying out even in Britain.] The character actors who could tackle every role large or smart, and who really made their names on the stage n ight after night, instead of through movies. Van Ulse n came to my attention when I was a very small child, 7 in fact. He played one of the characters in a children's series called "de vloek of woestewolf." [the curse of dastardly wolf]. I remember only daring to watch it from behind a chair and the combination of his powerful voice and the penetrating eyes actually left me afraid of him for years to come. Not many shows have left that big an impact on me. When I began to go love theater about 10 y...

Wanted to write this a lot earlier but I hurt my hands a bit clapping at a concert. Shows you how often I go to pop concerts, not. I have been to a few in the past, but never many. And I hate the standingvenues as most of the Dutch ones are. So I wasn't looking forward to the Fish concert too much. I was doing this for my friend Mel. I loved his older work when he was the lea dsinger of Marillion, but me being a fan went back to the eighties and after that I really lost touch. I didn't know he more recent work very well and had not listening to too much beforehand. We stayed to the back in the concertvenue, Patronaat in haarlem. This was perfect for Mel who is not as tall as me and as we were standing on some steps she had a good view. It took me a while to get into the mood with the first couple of songs, didn't know many of them, yet the man is a great enternainere and pretty left wing, never a bad thing with me. But the dutch public!!!! There was a bar at the back of the...

Last weekend was very nice. I went to visit Marjon in Duiven. And as that is close to Arnhem , we went to Burger's Zoo on saturday. We both like taking pictures and taking pictures of animals. She gave me some great tips on how to use the camera. I am so lousy when it comes to reading manuals. I know stupid, but somehow I ju st don't have the patience for it. The animals here have some more room then in the more traditional city zoo's. For that reason I don't like to go to the traditional ones very much. I hate to see them in small cages and even a zoo like this is barely enough room in my opinion. They have create d some themed exibits showing animals from continents tog ether. This seems to be more a theme in zoo's these days. Big mammals are still my favorite, I liked the desert area very much as well. And on safari we were lucky enough to get there around feeding time, so we got a good view of all the animals feeding. I did manage to avoid the one spider they ha...

It's a dutch word it basically means getting the finances for your organisation in order. To know what costs you have and what comes in. Now this is not something I like or which comes naturally to me. It is a thing that I have been putting off. But I can't any longer.So this week is numbers crunching, sweating and nerves.Oh and getting the VAT out of the numbers. Argh. Luckily someone will be doing that for me. And then someone from the IRO bureau will check it for me for free. Now that is the plusside of the whole thing. After that I will have to come u with what I need to charge per hour. Arf. And then for later this month making folders is on the agenda. But that is something I like better. Writing is more my style. I am making sure not to work too hard, as I was doing before my holiday. And keep time to socialize. Doing fun stuff during the evenings, boardgame tonight! And during the weekends. So I am doing much better then before my break. Everything is under control and...

I am back from a lovely holiday in England. Nice and rested and with new energy to spend on the practice. I want to tell everyone about a great exhibition about Henry VIII at the British Library. It has been curated by David Starkey, an historian who has also w ritten books about Henry. The exhibit is full of original texts and many paintings and it was a joy to look at. Most of the information was not new to me, luckily as we had a nine year old a long. And I could now use my time to tell her the history in a way that was interesting for her. Of course she loved all the gory details of the six wives and especially the beheadings. It was a bit harder to get the whole complicated family across, the importance of Henry's mother, Elisabeth of York for peace after the wars of the roses. And the emergence of the Anglican church. I stayed out of protestantism in Europe at that time LOL. That is for when she is a lot older. She did give me the compliment that I was much better at telling ...