The chief irritation since returning from California has undoubtedly
been the nine hour time differential and attendant jet-lag. The
erstwhile traveller, not ill, merely adrift; not alert, merely
sluggish, nevertheless is easily moved to shortage of temper and
tolerance. So, a further accretion of vexatious occurrences was not
welcome!!
Thus, I left my swimming cap in the hotel shower the second morning
back, and it naturally vanished from the earth. The very next day, the strap
on my swimming goggles, broke. With no spare and no sports shop
whatsoever in the Egg, I ordered two new pairs online. And waited!
The large cellar of my building was [unusually] flooded at the end of
November and I keep several small items in my allotted ‘room’
down there. So, enormous was the vexation to find it still flooded on my return, at
the beginning of the year! AND THEN, a registered letter from the
Brugge tax office, obviously part of a ‘sweep’ of the
foreign-born, with 13 questions, the answers to which the Tax People
already have somewhere in the electronic bowels of their offices. I
then broke a very useful, small cooking dish. I administered a quick Duvel when the little dish broke which set the tone for a swift recovery!
And here we are, two weeks after my homecoming with, I hardly dare
whisper it, everything sorted!! Or almost. Viewing the slight
disasters of the previous week, I shall deliver the information by
hand to the Tax Office to be sure I shall miss the threatened fine!!
In the meantime, yesterday I witnessed the annual [for four years]
joyful procession of a large group of international performers in
their Venetian Carnival gear, parade through town. The Costumes de
Venise people, around 100 normally, have to produce their own
costumes I believe and the outfits are outstanding. They are
imaginatively conceived, creatively wrought, and oh so stylishly
worn. I hear that their presence here on a cold January weekend,
stems from an initiative by the combined Hotels of Brugge; brilliant
idea that underlines the occasional refrain that Brugge is the
‘Venice of the North’, a claim no doubt echoed by many Northern
cities with canals such as Amsterdam!! But, well done Hotels of
Brugge for such gorgeous subliminal advertising.
For the freezing spectators, the procession was like a parade of peacocks.
Pageantry personified!
Pageantry personified!
