qaminari

Actually I didn’t do all those things in 2005, I just discovered 43 Things and so filled in everything I’d done to date – well there has to be some advantage of living to this great age! What I did do was:
- visit 5 new countries: Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland;
- revisit 3 countries: Estonia, Italy (Umbria), Portugal (Madeira);
- pass Spanish-English translation exam, study Japanese until April, then Italian while in Italy, start evening classes in Turkish in September, dabble in Portuguese;
- take watercolour painting, qi gong and tai chi classes, until June;
- buy a digital camera, a new computer and a pocket video recorder/MP3 player, change ISP, get to grips with digital photography, start a blog;
- read 103 books (and probably some more before 31/12)!
- start “body balance” programme in October, get diagnosed as pre-diabetic, lose 12 kg (so far); in taking up walking around Brussels, discovered several areas I didn’t know before;
- met several new friends, kept up with the old ones, sampled several new restaurants; visited exhibitions on the Turks (March, London) and, for Europalia-Russia, on Fabergé and the Trans-Siberian Express (Brussels, September);
- saw Ed Byrne (standup comic), Alexander McCall Smith (novelist) and number of films: Shara, Nobody Knows, Mar Adentro, Hirsiz Vari, Les Choristes, Bride and Prejudice, Sideways, Bin-Jip, Le Conseguenze dell’Amore, The Interpreter, Café Lumière, New York Masala, La Famille Indienne, A Taste of Tea, Quinze Ans, Uzak…

I met, or perhaps it would be truer to say encountered, Alexander McCall Smith, author of (among other things) the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, at a talk organised by the Scotland Office for St. Andrew’s Day. He had everyone in stitches talking about his membership of the Really Terrible Orchestra, in which he plays the bassoon – or, as he tells it, half a bassoon – and how he and other authors have invoked place, especially Scotland, in their work. A truly kind, compassionate, witty, articulate and intelligent man.