End of the year wrap up

First of all, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to all of my loyal readers for not having written any new posts for a while. Yes, I've been awfully busy, e.g. finishing my new book which I hope to be able to offer to my editor by New Year. Hmmm... it's going to be tight. Then there was the lecture I was invited to do about autism more then a week ago. Unfortunately the organiser, founder of a major Flemish autism organisation, got terribly ill and the whole event had to be cancelled. Well, I already had my flight tickets so I took the occasion to visit my family in stead. For what it's still worth, I prepared a little movie for my lecture, in order to let the audience feel what it's like to be autistic. I've uploaded it on Youtube and if you like you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V90Eh3g-umY&feature=g-upl&context=G265a57eAUAAAAAAAAAA

Well, what do you think? Horrible, isn't it? I hope that it will do away with the incessant remarks that we get in the sense that we "exaggerate" or the invariable "come on and get your chin up's". Believe me, this movie is very realistic as already testified by a great number of autistic people who got a preview. 

So, it's that time of the year again. The time to review what has been and to look forward to what is to come. 2011 has been a real rollercoaster for me with very high ups but also with a few very low downs. It was the year of my breakthrough as an author, which brought me in many of the national newspapers and even on television. But fame, even in the very limited form which I was to enjoy, has its inevitable downside. There are always people who'll try to abuse your trust and since I'm so terribly naive I often let people take advantage of me. That's one big lesson I had to learn for the umpteenth time and I'll definitely do my best next year to not let it happen again. Even though this will undoubtedly lead me to live an even more secluded life. It's a true pity because there are also a lot of people out there who genuinely appreciate me and the actions I take to promote more understanding for my autistic brothers and sisters. I'm so sorry for them, but I just have to be more careful.  

2011 has also seen the beginning of my career as an English teacher and it looks like I'll do a lot more of that next year. Yet another secondary school contacted me and there are even plans for an English summer camp in June. But I'll tell you more about that later when things are more definite.

But in general, 2011 was the year in which Christine and I truly became an integral part of the Italian social life here in the Emilian mountains and when we were embraced as fellow inhabitants of this gorgeous region. It's astonishing what a bit of good will can achieve... just trying to speak the language, even if we still make a lot of mistakes, just trying to blend in and respect the original culture of the local people, participating in the social events... it all takes you a long way and the local people return your efforts tenfold. The result is that we now have more friends over here than Christine and I probably had during our entire lifetime in Belgium and that we are very much appreciated for the new things that we've brought with us, such as Christine's delicious cakes and my English lessons. We celebrated Christmas eve with the local people, at a hostel of one of our closest Italian friends. Christine offered to do all of the cooking so that our friend, for the first time in her life, could truly enjoy Christmas without having to do all of the work. It was a bit of a culture shock for our friends because Christine wanted to offer them a taste of Flemish cuisine. Italians are generally not eager to try something from beyond their boundaries so she took a bit of a risk there. But everything she prepared, from the dried plums with bacon, the scallops with mashed peas and basil, the sellery-salmon-blue cheese soup, the Flemish "witloof" (chicory) with fried potatoe mash in an almond crust and chicken rolls stuffed with mince/onions/raisins, dressed with a port-fig sause up to the cheese pie desert... it was devoured like they haden't eaten in months.

Needless to say that Christine are now truly settled here and that we never ever want to go anywhere else anymore.

Merry Christmas everyone, and we wish you all of the best for 2012!!!

The master-decorator

Something I forgot to mention yesterday... When Christine was making her buiscuits, she got a little help from Flora, the master-decorator. Flora was so enthusiastic about it that she even did a bit of decorating on herself... :-)

The Christmas Fair

Yesterday Christine and a close friend organised the first Christmas Fair in the whole region. These types of fairs may be a major happening in some countries and especially in Germany, in Italy they haven't caught the Christmassy bug yet. Christine thought that she had to change all that and together with one of our very best Italian friends she went for it. The venue would be the small town of Casalino di Ligonchio, even higher up the mountains than where we live but a very cosy little place indeed. In the end there were seven stalls, but actually our stall counted for three because Christine sold her home-made buiscuits, I sold my special egg/honey brandy and we olso put a lot of Christmassy stuff on offer for a local shop, the owners of which couldn't be present unfortunately. 

For many days, Christine worked day and night making and decorating her special buiscuits: 

Here's our little stall:

In the afternoon quite a number of visitors showed up, not really by the hundreds but still a few dozen. Not bad for a first-time event in such a little town. Christine and her friend are determined to do better next year and make the Christmas Fair grow little by little. The comments were all very positive so that's what counts the most, isn't it?

Some more of her buiscuits... Christine was surprised at how much of them she eventually sold because she didn't want to sell them very cheaply after all the work she had put into them. But her work was obviously appreciated... :-)

And this is the special brandy I made, after an old, traditional, Flemish recipe. It's called "Advokaat" in Flemish and it's actually a kind of sweet and thick liquor which goes very well with fruit, cake, ice-cream, pancakes or other sweet dishes, or on its own of course. The local people loved it so much that at the end of the afternoon I was completely sold out! :-)

At the end of the day we were both exhausted, especially Christine because she had worked so hard for this. But we left with a deep sense of happiness because her efforts to bring some life into this region were appreciated a lot by everyone. It was fun, it was cosy and we did good trade, so what else should one wish for? Roll on next year!!!