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Editorial — Spilling last week’s tea

🍍 Dear Pineapples,

If Brida were a novel, September would be the chapter where confidence orders dessert first, WiFi throws a tantrum, and failure quietly changes into freedom. Nine meetings, plenty of laughs, and one half-finished retirement party later, the question isn’t “what happened?” — it’s “how do these stories fit together?”

This month had everything: the Mayor forgetting his art therapy, Fruitloop dropping haikus like breadcrumbs, and Nuggets the chicken insisting on her own storyline. Brida wasn’t calm — it was buzzing.

Every meeting had its own flavour. In Bangalore, resilience. In Brazil, humour. In Seoul, bright lights and questions about life. Add some rugby rivalry, a dose of imposter syndrome, and a Mayor’s todo list that’s still waiting for ink — suddenly September feels more like a novel than a schedule.

But these aren’t just stories. They’re invitations. To laugh when the WiFi fails. To see failure as freedom. To notice confidence when it quietly shows up and asks for dessert. The more we share, the more Brida feels like one town — not just separate meetings.

So, pull up a chair. Coffee in hand. Curiosity in pocket. Keep reading — because what follows isn’t just a recap. It’s a map. A way to see how all these little stories connect — and maybe find a piece of your own.

Past Conversations

Crème Brûlée · 10.09 — When Confidence Looked in the Mirror

Does confidence grow or shrink when we compare ourselves to others?

Picture it: Wednesday night, the Brida Café glowing with its usual mix of seriousness and silliness. Fruitloop slid a deceptively simple question across the table: Does confidence grow or shrink when we compare ourselves to others?

Sarah stirred her coffee thoughtfully. The Mayor tilted his head in that way he does when he’s about to challenge the obvious. And off we went.

Turns out not all comparisons are villains. Racing against your own stopwatch? That’s fuel. Comparing handbags or Instagram likes? Pure poison. We redrew the line between envy and inspiration a dozen times that evening.

And then came age — the quiet teacher in the corner. With age, the silly competitions lose their bite. You can laugh at them, choose peace over torment, and — if you’re lucky — accept your pizza toppings (pineapple included) without apology.

By the end, we weren’t just talking about confidence, we were living it. Each story revealed something: confidence is less about being louder than others and more about listening, learning, and daring to order mozzarella with meaning.

Lunch with Janita & Frank · 11.09 — When Confidence Ordered Ice Cream

The Café table was buzzing again. Fruitloop held court, Monica and Rosii leaned in, the Mayor scowled at his coffee (too strong, too serious). The theme was the same — confidence — but the flavour different.

This wasn’t the shiny, untouchable kind. It was the shaky, wobbling-on-a-bike kind. Small wins stacked into big belief. Monica reminded us how parents plant seeds of self-belief early. Rosii waved a caution flag at social media’s endless comparison treadmill.

Then came the line that became the week’s heartbeat: Confidence is not gifted — it’s grown. And naturally the serious melted into the silly. Could confidence really come from ice cream? Or the right pair of shoes? The Mayor muttered something mysterious about socks — half joke, half sermon — but refused to elaborate.

Nudge: Confidence hides in the ordinary. The next spoonful, the next laugh, the next small “yes” is already training your confidence muscle.

Peeling Potatoes · 12.09 — Zen & the Art of Bad WiFi

You thought you were tuning in for a gentle podcast on gratitude? Ha! Instead, Fruitloop vanished mid-sentence more times than the Missing Spoon, leaving the Mayor to raise his eyebrows so high they nearly left his forehead.

And yet — through frozen screens and awkward silences — gratitude stopped being a talking point and became the lived moment. We laughed at the glitches, found beauty in coffee cups, figs, and even the irritability of waiting.

This wasn’t mindfulness as a lecture. It was mindfulness as chaos, showing us how joy sneaks in through the cracks when everything “goes wrong”.

Atlantic Corridor · 15.09 — Mistakes that Mattered

On Monday, in Brida Café’s “Atlantic Corridor”, Ismar and the Mayor brewed a bold blend: What exactly counts as a mistake?

Ismar poured the first cup: a mistake is when things go wrong, leave us sad, and give nothing back. Think accidents, heartbreaks, wasted chances — pure loss.

The Mayor stirred in a different flavour. What if some “mistakes” are really secret teachers? Tuition fees life charges so we grow wiser. Even his own tangled romance at 30 — ignored warnings, heartbreak, chaos — taught him that love without self-respect isn’t love at all.

Ismar dreamed aloud: imagine being born fully prepared, no blunders, no prisons, no wars. The Mayor grinned: boring. Without missteps, what would life even mean?

They wandered through classrooms, commandments, and politics. Why do some learn and others repeat? Why do laws fail to stop folly? The Mayor’s answer: tolerance. The mistake isn’t disagreement — it’s refusing to respect each other’s views.

In the end, both agreed: mistakes sting, but they also mark us as gloriously human. Sometimes, as the Mayor dared to say, making a mistake is itself an accomplishment.

💭 What about you? Which “oops” turned into your best teacher?

Brida Life

Spud Meeting Minutes

This wasn’t peeling — it was juggling flaming tubers. The Mayor and Fruitloop spread their Potato Lists on the table: Zoom links, tutor agreements, who writes what, which events land where.

Time zones tangled, Sarah hovered close, Monica waved from afar until spring, and even Nuggets was pencilled in (she refused to sign the attendance sheet).

Yet buried under the soil: Future Fries. An Annual Events Calendar ready for January. Mystery Boxes sprouting. A Monthly Themes book bubbling away. October will be “Life,” November “Skills,” December “People.” The energy? Half committee, half comedy — and the heartbeat of the town.

Celebrations & Late Editions

20% Retired, 80% Cake. Manfred is retiring… just 20%. Which in Brida means: one balloon, one slice of cake, songs cut halfway.

Gift ideas included train socks, a model railway, or a caravan voucher (because he’s secretly plotting holidays). The point? Goodbyes don’t have to be absolute. Sometimes they’re just a wink.

Stuck in Traffic (The Late Edition). Remember Ralf’s tale of traffic jams? Turns out two more ideas got caught in the same jam and only just arrived.

🚗💨 Sylvie’s Sky Plan: sell sausages from a hot-air balloon while floating above cars.
🌊🚙 Martin & Manfred: drive an amphibian car, splash past ducks instead of traffic lights.

🍍 Moral? In Brida, even late ideas arrive with wings or fins.

Saturday Morning — Brida Time…

While the All Blacks and Springboks clashed in New Zealand, the Brida Café had its own little commentary box. Fruitloop’s patriotism glowed green and gold, while the Mayor, also rooting for South Africa, followed along the old-fashioned way — through newspaper updates and Fruitloop’s spirited match reports.

The result? A Springbok victory, a very proud Fruitloop, and a Mayor who proved you don’t always need a streaming service to be part of the game. 🏉

Haikus · Week 38

Haiku artwork — Iris · Koy · Tide · Umber · Waxing

This week’s Haiku words washed ashore like curious treasures: Iris, Koy, Tide, Umber, Waxing. Even the Mayor had to dig out his old dusty dictionary (he sneezed twice in the process). Fruitloop, of course, just grinned — because when the tide of words rises, Brida writes.

The only catch? The Mayor is woefully behind on both his Art Therapy and his Haikus. (Somewhere, there’s a pile of half-sketched doodles and unwritten verses waiting for him to catch up.)

👉 Drop your Haiku in the Tea House before the tide goes out — or if you’re a Non-Resident, slip it straight to the Mayor on WhatsApp.

Kitchen Co-Op Mystery Box — Simple Garlic & Sardine Spaghetti (for 2)

Last night the Mayor danced between pots with an Italian Chardonnay. Here’s the dish behind the twirls.

Ingredients

Spaghetti (180–200g)
1 tin good sardines in olive oil
2–3 garlic cloves (thinly sliced)
Pinch chili flakes
Lemon zest & a squeeze
Handful parsley
Salt & pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil

Method

Boil pasta in generously salted water.
Warm a pan with a little sardine oil; gently sizzle garlic to pale gold.
Add chili, broken sardines, lemon zest; loosen with a splash of pasta water.
Toss in the pasta, add parsley, adjust with more pasta water and olive oil until glossy.
Finish with lemon and pepper.

Wine pairing: Italian Chardonnay — crisp, a little cheeky, and gone before the spaghetti leaves the pan.

Bonus: Send us a snapshot of your pasta and your dance floor. 💃🍷

Theme of the Month: Mindset

Nine Stories, One Thread: The Mindset Tapestry

Nine meetings. Nine voices. Nine different angles on “mindset.”

Letting Go & Not Knowing. Ismar in Brazil wrestled with faith, politics, and his own harsh inner critic. Saying “I don’t know” turned out to be growth in disguise.

Confidence, Comparisons & Silence. Monica’s story of 1950s Australia, where men bottled up their pain, echoed into today. Sarah in Saudi showed how comparison can lift us — or steal joy. And in the Café, we learned confidence isn’t born — it’s baked, step by step.

Failure Forged into Freedom. Ritesh’s exam loss cracked him open to another kind of success. His line — “If you’re happy, you are successful” — still hums in the Café walls.

Gratitude in Chaos. Frozen screens, missing co-hosts, talking shoes. We didn’t just discuss gratitude — we practiced it, in the mess.

One thread connects them all: mindset isn’t theory. It’s lived. It’s shared. It’s the bridge we build.

Pineapple Challenge: Drop one word that sums up your September mindset. Together, we’ll weave nine stories into one Brida story.

Mindset & Confidence — Fruitloop’s Sparkler

Fruitloop didn’t tiptoe into September — she marched straight into the Brida Haven and dropped a sparkler called Mindset & Confidence. Not a lecture, not a textbook, but a short, sharp overview that makes you stop mid-scroll and think: Wait, how do I actually see myself?

Then came the questions. Not just any questions — the world-famous Fruitloop questions. The kind that sneak into your head at breakfast and won’t let go. The kind that make you laugh, then suddenly wonder if you’ve been playing small all along.

This is Brida at its best. A place where ideas aren’t locked in classrooms but tossed like confetti across the Plaza. Where a simple document becomes a doorway to reflection, comments, replies, and those “oh wow, me too” moments that stitch strangers into a community.

And here’s the secret: if you don’t dive in now, you’ll miss the live conversation as it unfolds. You’ll miss the chance to be seen, heard, challenged, and maybe even quoted in next week’s Pineapple.

Q1: What is more important for confidence: competing with others or competing with your past self? Why?
Q2: What if the stars in the sky showed everyone’s progress: what would your constellation look like?
Q3: What is the link between your mindset, confidence and trusting yourself?
Q4: If confidence were a magic potion, what would it taste like?
Q5: If you could send your future self one confident message, what would it be?

From the Town Council

October in Brida: Life, Unfiltered

September was about how we think. October asks: how do we live? From your stubborn plants to your morning coffee, from overstuffed calendars to late-night talks — life is already happening. Let’s share it, unfiltered.

Join us in October. Don’t just read it. Live it.

From our Sponsors

Brida: A Town That Lives in English

Brida isn’t a classroom. It’s a playground, a café, a council hall, and — on good days — a comedy club with chickens.

The serious bit: Residents come here to gain clarity, find their voice, and craft their message in English. Sometimes reflective, sometimes funny, sometimes messy — always real. A safe environment where participation is the prize.

The Pineapple bit: The Mayor forgets his dictionary. Fruitloop turns rugby into philosophy. Nuggets the chicken starts international incidents. Through it all, you discover your English isn’t just words. It’s you.

👉 Join us at brida.eu. Your voice belongs here.