For today I was trying to find a French song (14 juilliet), but I just can't find the right one. So here is an Italian song that we heard a lot on a previous vacation. It's Max Pezzali with Lo strano percorso.
We'll go to Italy again soon, to Venice. I wonder what song we'll return with this time. Before we go I'll have to recover from yet another infection in my leg. I'm going a little crazy, it is the 4th time in 3 months...
I didn't watch the Contest on Saturday though. The four of us went to see the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as a surprise for Damaris' birthday. She was so excited when we surprised her with the tickets. And we really enjoyed the show. It was colorful and marvelous! I could have looked at the costumes and stage attributes for days.
On a sadder note, I got another infection in my leg. So I am on a new track of recovery. I don't know what else to say than that I hate these infections and I never ever want to get another one. Did everybody hear that?!
My name on Flickr is Doucepoints and my Etsy shop is also called Doucepoints. The name is an expression of both soft and sharp, cultured and rough. Those are things I always see in my work, and I wanted my webname to express that too. But Doucepoints is also a pun on the term 'Douze Points', twelve points; the highest score a song can receive in the Eurovision Songcontest. Points are always announced first in English and then repeated in French. The Douze Points have a magical ring to it.
Since forever (probably since ABBA) I have been a fan of the 'Songfestival' as we call it. And I'm always looking forward to it. Tonight is the first semifinal and on Thursday the Netherlands will be represented by the Toppers with the song Shine in the second semifinal. Both the group and the song would definitely not have been my first choice. But I hope we'll get some points and maybe, maybe we'll make it to the final.
With this song (that I voted for in the national contest) the Toppers would have had a better chance (my humble opinion):
The last song that the Netherlands won with (when I was 5, and I still keep hoping, talk about hoping against hope):
Yesterday we were having a wonderful, sunny, musical Queen's Day in Leiden....
Then somebody ruined the party in Apeldoorn by trying to kill the Royal Family. He did not succeed but did kill 5 innocent bystanders and himself in the process. And he ruined a wonderful and unique holiday! They say it wasn't an act of terror, but if a whole country is upset and unsure that they will ever be able to have a great Queen's Day again, I call that terror.
A new beginning, that's what it always feels like after I emerge from being ill with a infection of my leg. I have to start again to arrange my priorities and rethink all the activities I was involved in. So, this time, I dropped working on the bazaar at school and I will probably not help in school activities for a long time (I believe helping with a felting project was the direct cause of the infection this time). What I did not drop: Ceramics class, cooking at home (I made Melanzane Parmiggiana yesterday), my own creative endeavors, having fun with my family.
Right now this fun consists of sudokus with Emil, reading Harry Potter to Damaris and Emil; we'll start book 7 as soon as someone makes it to the book store.
The ultimate goal is to be able to go to Pinkpop with Damaris on June 1. I bought tickets for the two of us two days before I got sick. So I'm saving my energy now to see Amy MacDonald, Mando Diao, Franz Ferdinand, Anouk, Katy Perry and more with my hip girl!
[Today is the last day to enter the give-away; tomorrow I'll draw the winners!]
Wow, Friday night Jonathan Ross returned on TV (on BBC1). To find out why he suddenly wasn't on a couple of months ago, I had to do some google-ing (use 'Jonathan Ross' and 'Andrew Sachs' for your search if you want to know as well). But now he is back, and, to please me I think, he asked Franz Ferdinand to play some music at the end. New music to knit to, I say: (I kept the related videos at the end so you can look at some of the jokes and interviews from last Friday's show)
Hello, just a quick wave from me, in between summer activities. I went to Copenhagen with Frederik, we had visitors from China, went to a wedding (Congratulations Rinny and Gerrit!), and now we are almost ready to go to Zeeland for vacation. Here is some music I'm listening to. Enjoy the summer!
As I have said before, I love YouTube! You can find just about everything there and see it as many times as you like. I dug in my memory and thought of two songs from long ago that have always stuck with me somehow. They are the kind of songs that I was fascinated by: mysterious lyrics, performers that I have not (really) heard from since. I remember both songs so well I could sing with them right away when I found them and I had probably only heard them a couple of times when I was about 10 and about 5. Oh, how the mind works, it's fantastic! I must say I still don't understand most of the lyrics, my French and my Italian are not very good (this is a euphemism).
So here they are for you to enjoy (or not) and play over and over again. First, Lio with Amoureux Solitaires.
And now, Raffaela Carra (Damaris and Emil played this one more than ten times)
Some music to go with the warm weather we are promised for the coming days. I remember this song from when I was small. I'm not very good at French but it seems to be about my favorite city Venice and it has this great guitar(?)thing: tata tata ta tttttuh. I think it's a great song! Here's Julien Clerc with Elle voulait qu'on l'appelle Venise.