Nuns are this week's feature!

I am definitely walking more and with less grotesque movement! Prolonged physio continues but now have added a daily anti-inflammatory which seems to be making a difference. Thus I was able to stagger to have my nails done yesterday, a walk which took 35 minutes one way, but which enabled me to feel that things were returning to normal. Long live the day, not too far ahead, when I can return to the daily swim; the only impediment [an appropriate word in this case] is the short ladder, flush up to the tiled wall, which I must clamber up and down; probably could get into the pool, but the exit would more problematic at present.

I found a friend as I walked home one day this week from the kinesist, the physiotherapist, and we returned to Woensdagmarkt by a slightly different route thus passing the little convent next door to my building. I have long admired its architecture, the sound of the lovely hourly little bell and the tantalising corner of its garden, visible on tiptoes from my terrace. I have also fantasised about knocking on the door to ask if I might see the garden but never have, thinking it almost certain that the nuns would not speak English. I mentioned this to my friend and suggested he might ask for me so we rang the intercom and he explained our request. The elderly voice was hesitant, clearly not too happy but he managed to persuade her and the sister allowed us reluctantly in. He and she chatted, he, an elderly Bruggeling, giving a fine performance of interest in the convent itself, while I wandered around the delightful garden admiring its gorgeous flowers, especially the hydrangeas lining one old wall, and the neat clipped little hedges and the high standard of loving care expended on it. I have seen from my terrace eyrie, one nun tending the garden and also an elderly male gardener, but whoever cares for it, loves it. The tranquillity envelops one. I commented to the friend that it would be a marvellous idea for the nuns to allow it to become a community space for quiet contemplation for neighbours, available during the day, but he declined to translate that to the sister.

Until I saw the sign outside the front door as we left, 'Ter Castaegneboom.... Zwartzusters van Bethel'


The indefatigable Sister Constance Foulon



I had not joined up two obvious facts. Of course, these were the descendants of the mediaeval sisterhood who had occupied the enormous convent and hospital along one side of the square which is Woensdagmarkt, since the fourteenth century. Then it was known as the Klooster van de Zwartzusters and the nuns cared for the sick in their own homes. Many nuns were given bed and board in aristocratic homes to look after, often, single patients and this custom developed in accordance with 'the natural order' of life in Brugge. I have discovered that in 1926 when Sister Constance Foulon was appointed Superior General, she stopped the practice avowing that the poor needed care equal to that given to the rich. The Woensdagmarkt building became a hospital, with Saint Francis Xavier as its patron, and the next hundred years saw a huge expansion of the hospital's premises and services, and its gradual modernisation and development as part of the state hospital provision. 
 

And having spoken briefly to a nun, I was reminded of another recent connection with nuns contained within a most interesting book I have just read: The End of Memory A Natural History of Ageing and Alzheimers by Jay Ingram. The writer refers to the Nun Study of 678 sisters, an American experiment begun in 1986. Two results in so far are stunning: First, there were many nuns like Sister Mary whose brain was dissected after her death at 101 and found to be full of the plaques and tangles typical of Alzheimer's. But right up to her death, she had demonstrated no mental or behavioural symptoms of the disease. A possible contribution to this happy state might be found in the context in which Sister Mary lived; she worked hard, constantly using her brain in organisation and social interaction; living in a community requires, and probably maintains, intellectual activity. Presumably, the active brain, afflicted with Alzheimer's, can find other neural pathways to get round the degeneration. Second, incipient Alzheimer's, or the tendency to it, may be detectable in the early twenties. Some of the nuns when they were young had been asked to write autobiographical sketches and these had been kept. Analysis revealed a correlation between low 'idea density' [how much information was economically packed into a single sentence] and the onset of Alzheimer's decades later. The Nun Study found that the lower the idea density score of women in their twenties, the higher the likelihood that these individuals would eventually get Alzheimer's. Although the numbers in the study were comparatively small, 90% of those with Alzheimer's had recorded low idea density compared to 13% of those who were disease-free. There may be several reasons for this: intelligence, socio-economic background, education, but one of the possibly 'protective' essentials against the development of Alzheimer's does seem to be education. It does not prevent the development of the typical plaques and tangles in the brain, but it appears to limit the impact. But one must note nonetheless, many nuns do die of, or with, Alzheimer's; living the convent life does not guarantee continuing mental good health.