The Bookshelf: a London-style hangout in the heart of Alentejo

I knew I was in the right place when, as I described the farm to which I would be moving and my satisfaction over the many rosebushes there, which would enable me to make rosewater for my mint tea, my conversation partner said "Oh, you need rosewater? I have some extra!", then fumbled around in his inventory and sent me off with half a bottle of good Algerian rosewater brought from London. I had given up on finding anything like that in the Alentejo. But then I knew it was the right place long before, with the many delicious herb teas, coffees and good food, sometimes vegetarian, offered at this very metropolitan hangout in my sleepy Portuguese university town. The couple who own and operate the business, a local woman and her Kosovar husband, lived for a few decades in London and brought some of that city's style with them to this unique café in Évora.

So when I need a quiet, air-conditioned retreat to enjoy a book, brandy and coffee or perhaps a good curry, I know where to go. And it's great to have a good chat in English about common interests in cuisine and beverages and share the latest delicious infusions of Aswan hibiscus, doum palm fruit and mint from herbs kindly provided by a colleague in Egypt. And who knows? Perhaps some of those cookies for the Portuguese will make an appearance there.

The Holten Lectures: upcoming CPD events

After its debut with a day on corpus compilation and analysis for legal terminology last June, the Stridonium series of Holten Lectures will continue with two events planned for this autumn at the venue in the east of the Netherlands.

September 30th will present concepts and strategies for "The Third Way" - methods and technologies to support teams of translators collaborating and exchanging information effectively from any location. The day will include presentations and practice with simple tools for small "conferences" for project planning, content consultation and instruction, practical guidelines and hands-on practice for dynamic terminology exchange and maintenance, making translation memories available even to those who do not use CAT tools and a basic overview of "interoperable" formats to determine the most effective strategies for data sharing. Workshop instruction will be a blend of on-site and remote teaching to better emphasize the day's lessons. The fee for this workshop, including the hotel room Sunday night (but excluding the cost of dinner) is €250 (€225 for Stridonium members). The availability of rooms included in the workshop fee is limited, so book early. Online registration will open next week but arrangement can be made before then with the e-mail contact below.

On November 17th, there will be a one day workshop on the Open Source translation environment tool OmegaT, taught by Marc Prior, who has been involved in advocacy, education and coordination with that tool for many years. I've been frankly amazed by the range of function offered by this free software and the fact that it often provides features and file compatibility not available in leading commercial tools. And, as with many other tools, there are options for integrating various kinds of server resources. For individual or even corporate users this is a tool worth taking seriously and perhaps including in your workflows.

Each Monday event in Holten offers a Sunday night arrival and networking dinner to prepare for a refreshed start early the next day with the sessions running from 9 am to 5:30 pm. The days I spent at this venue last summer impressed me with the quality of its intimate meeting facilities, outstanding staff service and cuisine and beautiful natural environment around the hotel on the outskirts of the village.

An application for continuing professional education points has been made for these events with the Bureau BTV for those in the Netherlands who require them to maintain their certified status.

More information on these and other events will be forthcoming; for further details on schedules, content and availability, you can also contact info (at) stridonium (dot) com for updates.