So the “historical’meeting as all the News agents keep calling it has happened. What is supposed to be historical about an uncouth childish man from the 2nd largest economy of the world meeting a dictator of a quite unimportant country? The little guy has been rattling his sword- read been shooting off rockets towards the rest of the world and bragging about his nuclear arsenal- and the bully from the US could not resist and first threatened him and when that not worked tried to show the world that he could make him stop rattling his sword.

The meeting happened and Trump was oh so proud until he will have figured out- he is not very clever- that nothing has changed. North Korea will still pretend to disarm and to treat their own people like slaves in a 1984 reality world. You know that 2/3 eds of the North Korean people are unemployed? Because it is easier to suppress the poor. But maybe one day too many people have nothing to loose and a revolution happens. I live in hope.

The handshake I was looking forward to was long and this time Trump met his match because Kim did not let himself be pulled in. 

In the mean time the Economic world leaders have lost a deal with the US because Trump could not handle the bitchy remarks of the Canadian president Trudeau about counter measures when Trump goes through with his measures,
Girls I think we should start taking over. Angela cannot do it all by herself. I can imagine her not having had any children having to deal on a day to day basis with these male childish men with their overlarge egos. 

But as long as women keep themselves out of the real rat race that will never happen.Definitely when they start moaning in #metoo actions about how badly they are treated. This will probably be met with a lot of booing but Ann Robinson who has been working in a male dominated environment for most of her life agrees with me as she expressed her total impatience on the One show with women complaining that they are being treated differently and do not get the same chances. She said if they were still in the sixties, seventies that was true but now women can go to university, keep working after they marry and/ or have children, so according to her women are just often very bad in negotiating salary and position in their job. She bluntly asked the two presenters a male and female :”What are you two earning then? Is it the same?”Never saw two people so lost for words. And they changed the subject immediately. Whereupon Ann said:”So not equal then”. Hilarious.

Now for my grumpy old woman moment: In Belgium, UK and the Netherlands there is so much attention going to the students who are in their exam month. They have to work so hard and the weather was so hot for the poor little lambs. Even saw some misguided young woman weeping and wailing on Youtube or Facebook because she could not finish her exam paper. Then there are the numerous court cases about the content of exams. Too long, not clear, mistakes in the questions?? There was an interview with a tv-psychologist about how bad stress is for these young people. To maybe do away with them. Let me enlighten all these young people: Life will be full of stress and the faster you learn to cope with it the better. I must admit it should not be the one moment in your 6 years that counts if you get your paper or not, but I think this is not the case anymore anyway. But to test a pupil on what you have taught him or her is still the only way for both students and teacher to assess if the lessons have made an impact. Though I am not a believer in learning by heart. When I used to give a test I allowed my students to look everything up, because I did not test memory skills but understanding of the subject. The facts you will learn when you start using your skills in real life. That is probably why I always loved technical/mathematical subjects best as a student when you get it you don’t have to remember anything. In this age of easy access to all the information in the world it is actually obsolete to memorize anything.

Reading an interesting novel Uprooted. It is a bit YA but still keeps you more or less wanting to now how it will end. At the same time I am reading Some Luck, one of those long family sagas located in rural America. Both well written but not original. But that is probably more due to the fact that after starting to read at the age of 5 I have read thousands of books and am very hard to impress.
Sometimes I go back to the 19th century writers, because in my opinion that era produced some of the best books I have ever read. My husband sometimes wonders if I notice that I am on holiday as I often have my nose in a book instead of taking in the view. The best invention of this century has definitely been the E reader. I kept the first article I ever read about this new invention: e ink . And now it is normal to have books at your fingertips anywhere and everywhere. 

I still remember the local Library bus being the highlight of the week. And later my many library visits. Now I have a digital library in my Calibre app of more than 10.000 books. Though visiting the secondhand bookshops in the UK will never loose its appeal to me. The smell and the chance to find a book that you never heard of before. Hay-on-Wye is of course the ultimate destiny for this. Though Arundel has a lovely hidden bookshop as well. Both in the UK.
Life is so much better if you love reading. It never gets old.

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