Bye, bye Brugge for now ...

Just as the Spring is settling sunnily in, I am going tomorrow [April 6th[ to visit my eldest and her family in California. In Silicon Valley to be precise, to see them and their new house in Emerald Hills which sounds beautiful! And to spend time with six year old Genevieve who Likes To Be In Charge and who, indeed, may offer more sense than the present occupant of the White House.

 Sunday's walk, past the windmills, with tree-sentinels
still ungreened, biding their time for May to arrive.

I was walking home a few days ago after collecting an item from Mustafa, the Afghan who has a shop on Gentpoortstraat offering to do alterations and remodelling of clothes. He is from a family of tailors in Kabul and has a beautiful wife and family. As I strolled through Astridpark, I could see already that some trees were beginning to awaken and I was struck with the sight of groups of people already sitting on the grass enjoying the weak sunshine. It is, I have learned, one of the first signs of Spring in Brugge. Couples and families luxuriating on the grass while leaves are bursting into early bud above them. That and the ever-earlier dawn chorus; now tuning up as I leave the flat at 6.05 for the early swim. As Chaucer has it, “And after winter folweth grene May.” For, by the time I return home from America at the beginning of May, all will be serenely warm and light at both ends of the day and May, that loveliest of months, will be mine to savour. Indeed, all things seem possible in honey-sweet May and the grass in Astridpark looks greener than grene in my photo. 

 

Short note this time; still check-in to do and final packing to complete. Bye bye beautiful terrace for now, with its camellia in bloom and multi-coloured polyanthuses offering their petals to the sun. And the bright pink rhododendron bursting forth. Is this the right time to go away, even to somewhere as beautiful as California?!