Holy Days and Processions

I must stop buying plants to beautify my terrace; I am not really a gardener for I treat my terrace as I did my Kentish garden; as an outside room to be made as decorative as possible while retaining basic functionality. That said, a sunny Wednesday [May 24th], a crowded market transferred to the Burg temporarily to make way for the seating for tomorrow's Holy Blood Procession and a wealth of flowers and plants on stalls beneath the trees and around the huge bronze statue, Les Amoureux.
Et voila! I bought flowers as usual [this week, luscious paeonies] AND a splendid plant. Soon there will be no room for people!

 Les Amoureux spooning beneath the chestnut spires
in the Burg.

To coffee with the girls this morning at Hotel Martin's in Oude Burg and the town is at its best; young foliage, chestnut spires, bright sunshine and thousands of bewitched tourists. The flower and plant display in the Burg markt is the prettiest ever; stalls overflow with strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, nectarines, peaches. May, the loveliest month, presents a visual feast but the news from Britain with the deaths of so many young people in Manchester is unbearably sad, wretchedly nihilistic, utterly wasteful of young life and potential. The young terrorist was, perhaps, also among the victims of a mystifying, anarchic, destructive ideology. And it is still May. Read a lovely quote recently about the month of May by Samuel Scoville in his Wild Folk. Not a major writer, one might assume; sounds American, folksy, a minor rural writer one might say. But his lyricism about the most special of months, arrests the attention:
Honey-sweet May, when the birds come back and the flowers come out and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year.
Simple and inspiring.

 Paul van Abeele, he of the Dumery bell, playing a portable
klokkenspiel in the procession.



And early this morning [Thurs 25th] walking back from swimming in the Crowne Plaza pool, I was struck by the absolute silence in the streets; it is Ascension Day, a Feestdag, and as a Belgian friend observed yesterday, a Holy Day. This last thought had never occurred to me and I doubt there are many English people who would describe it as such. But this is still a Roman Catholic country though active church-going I hear, is on the decrease. However, a Feestdag so, deserted, waking, sunlit streets lacked buses, cars and people at 6.00 and again at 7.00 this morning and it was magical.

 Rounding a tight corner from Oude Burg into
Wollastraat.

For the Procession of the Holy Blood, I chose not to occupy my seat in the Markt; the bank of seating was in the full sun and untenable for me. Much better, in fact, to roam the streets and photograph and view from the shadows of tall buildings. I had not expected anything so major; the whole production is massive and impressive with often glorious costumes and seemingly no expense spared. Now can't remember how many donkeys were taking part, six at least, four dromedaries, maybe a dozen Shire Horses [not sure of the Belgian equivalent], a little flock of sheep and scores of compliant, happy children in mediaeval garb.

One of the donkeys displaying its customary sang-froid

The centrepiece is the Relic, a cloth with  the alleged blood of Jesus Christ, brought to the city by Thierry of Alsace after the 12th century Second Crusade. The Procession of the Holy Blood seems to have emerged as a civic ceremony by the late thirteenth century. Instituted in 1303, the ceremonial procession commemorates the deliverance of the city, by the national heroes Jan Breydel and Pieter de Conynck from French tyranny in May of the previous year, and which takes place on Ascension Day. Bruges residents of the area perform an historical re-enactment of the phial's arrival together with similar dramatizations of Biblical events. For this secular spectator, the stunning historical continuity is the most impressive with splendid costumes and wigs, coming a close second.

 A masterly touch; Himself with baby