I'm not very conversant with metres etc but think it is probably four by eight so, even for me, a tad tiny. However, I now paddle devotedly round and round the perimeter for half an hour, always solo. I go when it opens so am in the pool by seven; sometimes there's a grim-looking woman who runs on the treadmill nearby for, quite possibly, an hour. A grim task indeed. So there is the background, pounding noise just audible but otherwise, it is my private space. Choice of two showers, dress then a swift walk home to breakfast. Even with guests staying I can do this as I'm back home by eight, feeling a trifle smug!
This Bruggean adaptation of my normal routine extended, this week, to going to see a film. SO glad that this is also incredibly easy; the cinema is named the Lumiere and is about five minutes walk away, with three screens [but alas no Direct Transmission so beloved in the UK] and a fourth to be soon added, AND a super terrace plus a large seating area with a bar. Even better, there is another place, no doubt a Plastic Palace, on the outskirts of the town, which caters for blockbuster fans etc. That 'etc' covers action films, violent films, vulgar and pathetic films. I hope this means that the out-of-town place is the Go To Cinema for popular stuff, leaving the central one for decent films; the Lumiere does UK, US and European films with the emphasis on the latter. Went with neighbour-who-lives-above to see 'Still Alice' with Julianne Moore and have a vague memory that she won an Oscar for her stunning performance. It was heart-wrenching, as well as beautifully directed and acted, to see the descent from professorial articulate confidence to the lower slopes of dementia. Afterwards, a beer in the bar and now can't remember the new-to-me beer I ordered. Delicious, like all Belgian beers, whatever the staunch fans of warm, flat British beer profess!
To briefly continue the beery theme, had an old friend of my husband's staying a week ago and one of the sights he wanted to see was the one remaining brewery in Brugge, De Halve Maan which produces differing strengths of Straffe Hendricke and Brugse Zot. There are frequent guided tours, something I hadn't done for twenty years, so it was a revelation to be brought up-to-date, even with the 120 so-called 'steps' which were steel ladders in the main and required concentration and confident footwear! Part of the premises is virtually a museum with everything part of the history of the site and its gradual modernisation over the last one hundred and fifty years; it was impressive. And remember, this brewery has belonged to the same family since its inception. Apparently, the main difficulty for the present brewery is that it is spatially locked-in, given the constraints of the built-up environment so that delivery of goods or dispatch, presents major problems with road closure [very early in the day] essential. SO, dazzling to discover that the present CEO, the latest member of the Maas family to inherit, is exploring the practicality of piping the finished beer for bottling to the premises beyond the canals where bottling has taken place for years. Indeed, it is more than exploring; with the help of the town council of Brugge, it will happen next year.
As I remarked once before, computer friend, Bernard, says blogs must include photographs so here is the splendid exterior of a cafe nearby which seems to get passersby busy, snapping away. Must get a camera; had to use my Ipad which is both a feat of memory and effort.
And whilst on the topic of pretty pictures, also took Derek to see the delightful Beguinage which I think I have mentioned before. It really is a peaceful haven; a delight to the senses in every way.
Before we entered the gates as we crossed the canal with its usual heavy crowd of busy white swans, my eye was caught by two elegant birds almost dancing in unison on the water; they stayed close, brought their long sinuous necks together in an almost convulsive, simultaneous shudder before dipping beaks and heads into the water, again in unison, and then re-emerging to continue their self-absorbed passion. They were oblivious to the approving crowd which quickly assembled and even to the crowded, noisy tourist boat which scythed the water perilously close to them, simply continuing on what were obviously the early stages of courtship. Soon after, we noticed two more ivory-feathered couples, further upstream, gliding and swaying and dipping together, and realised that it is April and Chaucer's Prologue came to mind:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote.
When April's sweet showers have penetrated the dry roots of March, hydrating them ...
I had to check the spellings online of the Chaucerian English which I thought I had remembered, but hadn't quite! Only then did I see
' And small fowles maken melodye '
which I had quite forgotten. But it perfectly described the loving swans in their unrestrained and joyful overtures; they were making melody!
And there is a picture! But a rather small one of the smitten swans!
And to finish, a mention of a lovely exhibition in Sint Janshospitaal. It is called Right, Before I Die by Andrew George, a photographer from Los Angeles. It is one of the most moving I have ever seen. George somehow persuaded about twenty people who were in the final stages of dying, to have their photographs taken and to answer questions in writing. Their individual testaments, as Alain de Botton says in his foreword, show that the dying are the great appreciators; they notice the value of the sunshine on a spring afternoon, a few minutes with a grandchild, another breath. This exhibition doesn't depress; rather the contributions, instead of trying 'to crush us with the remembrance of death, have an unexpected joyful quality.' And on that jolly note, au revoir with a photo of the distinguished-looking Abel.
