Breakfast at Blackbird

 

 Inspiring example of photography near the Minnewater.
Enlarged, this image has splendid views of airborne birds,
alas, almost invisible on this scale.
The dramatic clouds would not disgrace Constable!



Happy New Year
 The Rozenhoedkaai Canal, beloved of tourists, and with the wonderful festive 'fruit' of
lighted globes in the tree leaning over the canal.

 Breakfast at Blackbird

A lovely first week of the year with Alain visiting from Cologne for a few days and life in my flat as charmed as ever. Alain is a musician, teacher, composer, choirmaster and also by chance, an admirer of both Brugge and my apartment. He is only 41 but it already planning, when the time comes, to retire to Brugge which he loves! We had a memorable breakfast at Blackbird this morning, [Thursday] and yesterday visited the Groeninghe Museum to see the exhibition on Justice, de Kunst van het Rechts. Luc accompanied us to act as guide and though the exhibition was interesting and informative, there was little great art to stir the blood. Immediately we finished the Justice exhibition, we found ourselves in the middle of some of the Groeninghe's great treasures, the Flemish Primitives, where the art DID appeal so the Memlings and Jan Van Eycks were seized, almost subliminally, with both eyes and hands and the one heart. Masterpieces to touch the soul for sure.
 

 The reference to Churchill below, triggered
the memory that in the late forties
he indulged his hobby of painting,
in Brugge.

I was impressed with Alain's photographs of which he took many; they were so creative and special and I privately resolved to Try Harder with my own photographs. I have taken virtually none for weeks, even over Christmas; a certain lethargy seems to have seized me over marshalling the camera's focus and my own. Even when several of my English-speaking group drove to Blankenberge to visit a sick friend and member, I didn't get out my camera, leaving it to someone else to take some delightful shots and send them on to the rest of us. Seasonal Affective Laziness [S.A.L.] perhaps or Temporary Photographic Block [T.P.B. to the cognoscenti].

 

And now it is January 8, and overnight have arrived several little tranches of Alain's photographs which are magical. He has threatened to send ALL that he took, well over 1000 which might be too much of a good thing for my time and energy to deal with. [Every time I finish a sentence with a preposition, I flash back to Churchill's admonition re prepositions: 'This is something up with which I will not put.' referring, of course, to the sin of  placing prepositions last in the sentence.] I absolutely must include some of Alain's photographs in this blog; after all, I write about Brugge and its delights and his images are exceptional. There are, in fact, two images of his, heading this blog with more to come!

Here is one black and white of the view taken from the grassy mound below one of the windmills on Kruisvest ; it is mysterious, reminiscent of Bruges la Morte, and giving the photographic impression of an earlier period.


 The Belfort to the right photographed from a distance away.
Cannot decide definitively which are the other two spires!

A curvilinear view of one of the windmills,
strangely denuded of tourists.















All photographs this week taken by
Alain Gehring
except the one from the Churchill archive.


 

Before I finish, must mention a delightful concert last evening under the series heading of Podium voor Passie. A young Ukrainian pianist, Inna Shyshkovska, played music by Ravel, Beethoven, Chopin; I am no judge but she was fluid and passionate and so involved that her total disconnect when she stood up to acknowledge the audience applause, was unexpected. She gave a little nod, almost a smile and moved away; it was as if she had never before performed in public and was unsure of what to do. Unexpected but her music was lyrical. She is a Master in Music from Gent Conservatorium and has taught for the last five and a half years in various Flemish towns, including Brugge. A gifted musician.

And so back to Alain's photographs:


 A favourite, canal-side, mediaeval house with wooden façade
near the St Bonifacius Bridge.