The Sound of Silence!

This is what you have heard on this blog lately. I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden the
real world took over most of my attention! In March, my parents came to visit for two weeks. Great fun, since we don't see each other that often. At about the same time we sold our flat in Mallorca, which generated a lot of preparations.  For Easter we went there to finalise the signing and moving out of the flat. It was sad in a way, but we will come back to Mallorca. It is a lovely place!

Our plan was to buy another flat in Sweden. I knew already where and had seen the flat in a viewing some years ago. We settled down to wait for the relevant flat to come on the market, expecting to wait even a year or two. You can imagine the surprise when it came on the market this April! We went to Sweden for a day to have a look. I already knew I loved the flat, having seen it before, but the good thing was that my mister also loved it! We gave an offer and got it.

So you see I have been busy with contracts (boring but necessary) and all the administration around buying and selling. I have hardly had time, or could concentrate, to read, and only finished a few books. Now when everything is 'up and running' I will have time to concentrate on my blog again!

The five books I bought!

I did manage to visit the yearly Book festival in Mechelen, a suburb east of Brussels. Managed also to buy a few books, although I try to limit myself, as promised!. Most books were for my junk journaling ideas, and only a few for reading!

These I bought to use for junk journaling!

This book market also has a lot of scrap booking material, so this is where I spent a few euros! With all the new material coming in, I realised I had to organise my set of drawers where I keep most of it. More about that in a later post.

For journaling and scrap booking

...and these as well

This I bought for my son who is studying Geology
50 Minerals, the history that changed the world

...and this for my husband! 

In April, so far, I have read five books. Selected works by Alexander Pushkin, with some of his longer poems. Blekingegatan 32 by Lena Einhorn, is an historical fiction about the early life of Greta Garbo. Excellent book and review will follow. The Circle by Clive Eggers, I read for one of my book clubs, about the world being taken over by a huge digital company. Very much actual today, but I did not really like the book. It was interesting but a little bit repetitive and I could not connect with any of the characters, except maybe one. The Aspern Papers by Henry James, I read for the "Brontë Reading Group". I am really into Henry James for the moment and we had a very interesting discussion on the book. The last one I finished is How can one not be interested in Belgian History. The chapters collected from a symposium held in Dublin in 2005, and it is an interesting account, from various international authors. Review will follow.

I am presently reading a historical fiction by Lauren Willig The Secret History of the Pink Carnation which is about a history student obsessed with the Scarlet Pimpernell and his accomplices, and are looking into a still undisclosed spy from that time. This is one of the books I picked up from the book market!