Finally we reached half term. It was a great relief
as the beginning of the term was very stressful due to different reasons, the
most testing one was the fact that the international school where both my
husband and I are teaching is unfortunately closing at the end of the school
year. The consequence is that we are looking for a new job.
Just before the holidays we had the International
Languages Day at school to celebrate the different languages and cultures
present at our school, that is more than twenty. Students and teachers were
encouraged to wear their traditional costumes and parents prepared delicious
typical food from all the countries. There was an assembly at the end of the
day where all the groups could perform a song, a poem or a dance linked to
their culture. It was amazing to see how the students were proud to represent
their country in different interesting ways. My Italian colleague and I dressed
up in traditional costumes as well (she was wearing a costume from the area of
Naples, I was wearing one from Sardinia, which I had made together with my mum
last summer looking at some pictures of Sardinian costumes a friend of mine had
sent me. It took a long time to complete it but it was worth it). We danced a
tarantella with a twist (part traditional, part hip hop) with our Italian
students. Pardon my boasting but it was a great success!
During half term week we planned to see all of our
children. My daughter came from Edinburgh to see some friends in London so we
could spend part of the weekend together. We visited a stunning orchids
exhibition at the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens, I had never
seen such an astounding display before. The variety of the orchids species and
the way they were arranged was absolutely superb. Some were on huge baskets
hanging on water, others arranged in columns, or forming a peacock or on
display on a cart. Special ones were hanging from the ceiling like floating
multi-coloured angels, their brightness standing out from the glass ceiling of
the hot-house, the stringy roots coming down like frozen green worms. The soft
music in the air helped imagine the dancing orchids similar to unattainable
damsels or precious jewels out of hand. There were all colours, from purple to
striking pink, all shades of yellow, maculated ones, pure white, blue, burgundy.
There were slipper orchids, spiky ones, tiny and big, solitary and in clusters.
All of them incredibly attractive. It is such a unique flower, fleshy, sensual,
with an unmistakably harmonious shape, a natural beauty. In the same
conservatory just before entering the orchids exhibition, there was a display
of cactuses and other prickly plants, an extraordinary contrast with the
orchids.
During the week we went to Oxford for the Poetry
Society annual lecture featuring the German poet Jan Wagner, and saw our son as
well. He is definitely absorbed in his Physics studies but could find the time
for a pizza with us and have a tête-à-tête on truths in Physics and in
Literature.
Jan Wagner’s lecture (The shedding of skins and
schemes. A voice of one’s own and the voices of others) was very interesting.
It was about the different ways in which poets are influenced by other poets;
they imitate the work of their models at first and then develop their own
voice. Jan Wagner’s models were the great masters (Shakespeare, Heine, Goethe,
Brecht) that influenced him in the first place inspiring love for poetry, his
prosody and vividness of imagery. Nevertheless, the continuous readings allowed
him to reconsider their legacy and let his originality emerge. This confluence
of many voices from different poets and different poems results in the
inevitable intertextuality that is present in all texts, an important topic for
me at the moment as I am studying intertextuality in Margaret Atwood’s work. I
bought two books: Jan Wagner’s Self-portrait
with a swarm of bees, translated by Iain Galbraith, and Love Poems by Bertolt Brecht, translated
by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn.
We also headed north to spend a few days with my
autistic daughter Valentina near Doncaster. She was not well, a flu probably
and a lot of coughing, but had enough spirit to take us around the school,
showing us a new engaging sensory wall and see the new house where she is going
to move into in two-three weeks. It’s a bungalow they enlarged for her, brand
new and especially thought for her. I must say she looks eager to move there.
Finally we spent a day with my other son and his
fiancée in Leeds. We visited their new apartment and had an update on the
wedding preparations.
Coming back home we didn’t feel so well, probably
Valentina gave us influenza.
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