Kindness

Hello again

Thank you, everyone, for all your notes and e-mails and letters and cards -- just so, or for my recent birthday. I am deeply gratified by your comments and compliments on my blog. What a wonderful circle of friends! Thank you!

I've not had time to process the few photos I've taken recently: too much work everywhere, too many projects started and not completed, although a couple are coming along very nicely, thank you. And one reason why I've not been doing much blogging is because I've been wonderfully busy developing a social life here. More about that some other time.

Today, three plain but nice new tall bookcases arrived and are now ready to take the books that have been languishing in boxes.

Also today, my light and airy "workstation" arrived -- a fancy computer desk with glass shelves and metal tubular struts and legs. It's on wheels so with a bit of caution and quite a bit of force I can wheel it from one room to the next depending on where I am happier to work. The fact that all the surfaces are glass will mean I'll see no end of dusting, but it also means I have a very good idea of where everything is. Very pleased I am. Photo will follow soon, I hope. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that one glass shelf is rather cloudy and I can't seem to get the residue off. And there are -- despite the glass being tempered and supposedly unbreakable -- a couple of very small chips off the edges, and one very nasty-looking scratch that runs parallel to the underside of the main tabletop. A real shame. I called the supplier and they'll have replacements in for me next week. But it will mean that the whole thing has to be dismantled and I'm sure that's not very good for it. Oh well...

Despite lack of time I attended a book launch this evening, which was very pleasant indeed. As I recently joined the local Book Club -- we meet once a month -- there were one or two familiar faces there and it was lovely to be included in the friendly chit-chat. What a difference from similar events in Bern where I often attended without speaking to anyone, because -- I don't really know why. It's just the way it is, and one of the reasons why I no longer live there.

Finally, I simply must share the following with you -- I was so chuffed at receiving this message tonight:

"Hello,
I too am a translator (Hebrew to English).
Recently, I came across your translation of the history of the "Hotel Wilden Mann" in Lucerne. I was struck by the fluency of the English, and the fact that it was almost impossible to discern it as a translation - so rare in Germany and Switzerland. I did not see the original German, but your name appears on the document as the translator.
May I say how impressed I was by your work!"

Needless to say, I wrote back to J.D. in Tel Aviv, and I also wrote to my client in Lucerne -- without them, and without the excellent original text, I could never have produced this translation -- which was a joy to do, by the way.

Nuff said, must get back to work.