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?!

 

Falling masonry and fine architecture

As my sister does not read my blog .......
this is included to show the Beguinage at its most beguiling.

 Fell in love with the boy but .....

 ...also loved the face of his companion
even though her head is too big for her body!

Having a sister to stay is a Full Time Job but also an opportunity for great fun. We did lots; going out for coffee and patisseries to two separate friends, one of whom had only recently moved so giving us the chance to see a super apartment in Academiestraat nearby; out for lovely meals; to shops; to the Saturday market for plants and flowers; to hear Luc Vanlaere and his harps again [gentle, interesting, innovative music in Oud Sint Jan]; to my English group to hear an English friend speak on the subject of his dissertation currently under-way; to whit, the deliberate Ijzer flooding in the Autumn of 1914 which temporarily halted the German advance. We sampled the uplifting April show of daffodils at the Beguinage; took a friend to breakfast at Blackbird and spent a most productive time at Bomberna at Maldegem for extra pots and compost ready for the imminent arrival of Spring. En route home from the latter, to a fab architectural salvage place where, temporarily ignoring post-Brexit poverty, I bought a pair of charming statues of a boy and girl for the terrace. AND  later in the week, a Louis Reckelbus, bought but unwanted by a friend at an auction. Fortunate indeed that I shall spend no euros during April when I visit my daughter and her family in California. A period of restraint is called for, both impulse and fiscal restraint!!

En route home from the station after H’s departure on Wednesday morning I wandered into the Markt, busy with the weekly mixed market but with a difference. In front of the Belfort were two fire engines and many helmeted firemen plus two men in a raised basket on the ladder extending from one of the engines. Spectators galore gazed upwards as did I but nothing seemed changed or happening. I eventually discovered that one huge crenellation had fallen intact from high up, narrowly missing the friet van that is usually there. It must have weighed an extraordinary amount but the gods were kind and no one was hurt. I immediately assumed the cub reporter role [is this a redundant expression now?]and busily photographed events/objects for this blog such is the importance I place on this timeless record!!

 Voila!

To the funeral of a dear friend and member of my English group, near Antwerp on Friday. My first visit but not my last; we saw only a relative glimpse of the splendid centre of Antwerp but we left from the glorious and stately central station where we had time to sit and toast our late friend’s memory. I was told that Delacenserie was the architect of Antwerp Centraal and it is a magnificent structure for a memorial to a fine architect. In tribute to the saying that one can take the girl out of teaching but not the teaching out of the girl, I have gone on to look up a little about the background of the Centraal. Really interesting stuff! It was indeed Louis Delacenserie who was the architect between 1895 and 1905 and on the 1905 opening, it was regarded as the finest example of railway architecture anywhere. In 2014 it was confirmed as the most beautiful station in the world by the British/U.S. magazine, Mashable. In the preceding hundred years it had had a chequered history; the Centraal suffered huge damage to the train hall from V2 rockets during WW2 though it was subsequently considered to be safe, structurally. However it was closed as unsafe on January 31st 1986 for restoration between March and September of that year when it safely re-opened. In 1998 reconstruction began, to enable the through passage of high speed trains, and was completed in 2007. In 2011 Antwerpen Centraal was awarded the Grand Prix in the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage. Until now I had thought of St Pancras, in London, as the most beautiful railway station I had seen but now, it is easily surpassed by the majesty of Antwerp!

Antwerpen Centraal in all its glory. 

At the Helm

Time to wax lyrical [again] about the almost military precision of the organisation of the city’s affairs by the Town Hall, the Stadhuis. The processes could be described as a touch bureaucratic but it is a fearsomely efficient machine and has a human face, mostly! This mini-paean is brought on by the simultaneous appearance of the terraces of various cafes and restaurants on March 15. With the

Stadhuis, Brugge
 

smooth faultless perfection of a synchronised swimming team, many terraces were in place when I walked to the Crowne Plaza soon after 6.00 a.m. And during the morning, one could see the more ambitious, verandah-style constructions taking shape with numerous workmen intent upon their jobs. Some of the terraces are very chic like the glass elongated box in front of Tom Pouce in the Burg. Marvellous place to sit when warm or cool, windy or still, sunny or grey, but its construction is a complex undertaking. Ultimately, in place, it is a money-spinner one imagines for the Chinese owner.
 

The re-appearance of the terraces is one of the welcome signs of Spring following on from the dawn chorus which I noticed a couple of weeks ago; it greeted my leaving the hotel after my

 The extra-chic Spring terrace of Tom Pouce, the Burg.

swim around 7.20 but now sings its song from the dark as I leave home to go to the Burg at 6.05. This performance added to the gaiety of the sunny, warm days earlier this week as I dithered over no coat, long cardigan or what? I couldn’t wait to buy a camellia plant and several polyanthus on the Wednesday market to plant on the terrace, sun-ready, smiling under blue skies.

Elvis Costello has been and gone, after a stunning performance according to my enthusiastic informant. I am not a fan but elder daughter was devoted to him long ago when in her twenties I always imagine him as the thinking person’s pop singer, though he may have a more specific title. Whatever, my description greatly gratified my friend-who-is-a-fan! A tiring day Friday, with Dutch in the morning; Dutch in the afternoon and tax friend who came to advise me on ‘next steps’.

Elvis Costello

I have an ongoing struggle to gain proof of the status of my teachers’ pension [to continue being taxed in the UK] for the Belgian tax office here so that I can begin the process of trying to get a refund for tax paid on the other two pensions which are to move to the Belgian system for the years 2015-2017/18. Overall hangs a current bill for several thousand pounds of euros payable by March 24 to the Belgian tax system. Ik reis hoopvol which may mean, I travel hopefully! Interesting that I am still so upbeat after a phone call to the UK tax people on Tuesday which lasted for 41 minutes, followed by my failure to unearth promised information online and  another call of 39 minutes, a quarter of an hour later. I now watch the post with heightened interest.

And now to a heart-warming story involving the Mayor of Mechelen who is in all the media having won the World Mayor Prize for transforming his city, Mechelen, into a proud home for its diverse residents. Mechelen, between Antwerp and Brussels, has had Bart Somers as Mayor since 2001 and was the only Belgian city to ask the Government to send some refugees at the height of the recent crisis.

 Bart Somers, current World Mayor but for 15 years so far,
Mayor of Mechelen
 

The London-based City Mayors' Foundation was looking to celebrate mayors and cities that showed excellence in the integration and acceptance of refugees and newcomers into their communities. Mechelen housed 200 people, provided Dutch lessons as well as classes on social skills and involved around half of the 200 in volunteer activities.

This is a relatively small number of refugees [think Lesbos and Lampedusa] but it is the latest echo of the continuous and enlightened efforts of Somers to transform his city of 86,000 into a desirable and inclusive place in which to live. In 2001 Mechelen had been voted the dirtiest city in Belgium and crime was rampant. Somers focussed on greening the city with new parks and car parks, placing the spotlight firmly on cyclists and pedestrians. The Mayor says his three main aims have always been safety, improving public space and fostering inclusion. Fifteen years later, Mechelen [with 138 different nationalities] wins awards like the international Entente Florale and heads the Financial Times’ Cities of the Future ranking. Bart Somers feels simply that a good mayor should be able to affect how people feel about their city. “That is the most beautiful thing a mayor could aspire to”.

 Mechelen in flower

He is sure that it is not a new building project, not the level of local taxation, not the number of jobs. In fact he has succeeded in making the residents of Mechelen, the Mechelaars, feel proud of their city.

Rik Wouters and Old England

Five of the ‘girls’ including me, from the Hotel Martin’s coffee morning each week, went to Brussels for a Day Out last Friday. I love sight seeing alone generally but a small group outing is hard to beat! We had an unbelievable amount of chat and shared moments throughout the day but the two main objects of desire, Museum of Musical Instruments in the building marked Old England, and the Musee des Beaux Arts for the Rik Wouters’ exhibition, more than lived up to expectations. The Old England is part of the Art Deco and Art Nouveau treasures of Brussels and is a delight to see. The museum itself with over 2000 historical musical instruments on several floors offers myriad interesting and often arresting examples of musical art. We had lunch in the restaurant on the top floor and that is stunning in its architecture and views. We genially tolerated the slow service [too many diners with too few staff] as we talked and feasted on the glorious windows and ironwork. Almost all of the senses were satisfied when I tasted my boudins blancs et noirs with apple. It is a mark of maturity to savour the disparate sensory pleasures in a conscious way which we did, rather noisily.

 Dame en Bleu Devant Une Glace
 

 Nel, Rik Wouters' wife and muse

Afterwards a stroll to the Musee des Beaux Arts to see the first day of the Rik Wouters’ exhibition. I had never heard of Rik Wouters till two members of my English group at the Amsterdam on Thursdays told me about him and said an exhibition of his work was coming to Brussels. Next morning, before leaving for the station, I Googled and discovered the exhibition was opening that very day. I am SO grateful not to have missed it. It is a large and important retrospective of his work with loans from many collectors, virtually one hundred years after his early death in Amsterdam in July 1916 at the premature ago of 33. He was a prolific artist, given his short and rather sad life, and considered avant garde throughout that life. How bereft Nel, his wife, muse and inspiration, must have felt when he died, she having been almost entirely his sole model; they must have spent almost all their time together. He was a Fauvist painter and sculptor, influenced greatly by his hero, James Ensor, and later by Cezanne and Renoir. Indeed, there are distinct echoes of Impressionism in his highly colourful work which consists almost entirely of domestic scenes. His sculpture is memorable; many busts of Nel in different guises; several of children, my absolute favourite being the clay model [for a subsequent bronze] of Baby Dribbling. I think it could evoke maternal emotions in the average female S.S.guard. Particularly impressive is the three quarter length model of a middle aged James Ensor. There is a majestic presence about it which commands attention and respect.

The majestic James Ensor

As a gentle start to the following day’s post-excursion fatigue, after my Saturday coffee at Cafune, to the Sue Ryder Boutique in Katelijnestraat to take clothes I love but never seem to wear. Unusually, I took time to look around and was rewarded with a frightfully upmarket black and white, slightly padded jacket by Anne Belin of which label I have never heard though the assistant adopted a most respectful attitude towards it which impressed! And then home to read the excellent New York Times, a favourite occupation these days, made all the more desirable since I have learned it is on Trump's list of Despised Media apparently peddling Fake News.

Post Script

Wandering homewards Saturday early afternoon, I saw an interesting group of jesters on the Markt. Further investigation revealed one elf was carrying a Brugse Zot carrier bag so it was perhaps not an expression of group levity; just an advertising stunt. 

One giant chief with his elves

Give music a chance

Realised suddenly on Tuesday March 2^nd that it was the sixtieth anniversary of my wedding in 1957.

My first husband died just over a year ago so I am the sole survivor left wondering what on earth happened between 1957 and now. Sixty years unbelievably happened and I hardly noticed the speed

  Summertime, and the living was easy.

of the journey, so busy was I in keeping on, keeping on, as Alan Bennett might say. I DO notice the accelerated speed now of the passage of a day, a week, a month, in common with the elderly everywhere. And I do remember that one year seemed an eternity when I was very young. Even the six weeks’ summer holiday used to stretch luxuriously ahead when we had a lifetime of no school, playing in our gang in the woods near home, organising competitions, giving shows on top of the barricade [erected to stop Hitler and his acolytes from driving up our country lane and there long after the war had finished!], having picnics and games in the long narrow garden full of Mum’s dahlias, making the annual trip to the cinema, hugely anticipated. Oh yes, six weeks then was a gift of gold to me and my sisters.

On Saturday I went with a friend to the Concertgebouw to see Anima Eterna performing Gershwin. The concert itself was a total joy with a new discovery for me of Claron McFadden, an American soprano of inspiring rhythm and great warmth. She so clearly enjoyed herself and the orchestra so clearly adored her. It was an infectiously happy occasion. However, en route to this important concert hall in ‘t Zand, I had been stunned to see what appeared to be the aftermath of

Claron McFadden performing
in Amsterdam

 't Zand under siege. Trees will be planted
within the circles on the right.
Note the reduced space for café terraces!

Sarajevo. I hadn’t been there since the end of January when the dismantling of the splendid fountain was just beginning in the first phase of the redevelopment of 't Zand, estimated to finish in June. The entire area has been dug up but worse, so has much of the surrounding area too; the devastation extends into Steenstraat, one of the two major shopping streets of the city. And goes behind and to the side of the Concertgebouw. It makes the Concertgebouw and adjoining cafe and In en Uit, the major tourist information centre accessible only by muddy duckboards while restaurants, cafes and bars which line 't Zand are similarly besieged. Cannot be good for business; I certainly resolved not to go to two evening concerts towards the end of this month because the approach from any direction is unlit and perilous. And I now don’t dare attempt perilous!

 Geef musiek een kans

In the Concertgebouw I discovered that the Music Fund was in action. People were donating old instruments to be given new lives and provide support for musicians in conflict areas and developing countries. Since 2005, the organisation has collected over 4000 instruments of which more than half were immediately ready to be played and sent off to partner projects in Africa, the Middle East and Central America. The fund also assists in training specialists in music instrument repair and in contributing to musical dialogue between Europe and the rest. We arrived apparently between acts as there was a running programme throughout the day of jazz and pop, piano, gospel plus the afore-mentioned opera/jazz singer Claron McFadden providing a musical intermezzo. Worth spending the day here next year!!

Before beginning this blog, I hurried off to Aux Merveilleux de Fred, a palace to coffee and little cakes, opened over a year ago in the Eiermarkt. I haven't been for some time and had rather forgotten the chandelier, the busy patissiers at work in the window before an audience of admiring tourists outside, and especially the enticing little confections on display. I bought four tiny, frothy bonbons for coffee with a new friend who was coming round later and proudly carried the chic dainty little container home giving thanks yet again for the proximity of Good Things in Brugge!

 A merveilleux sight chez Fred!

The time of our lives ...

 Jonna in performance
[See below]

There will apparently be a million more septuagenarians in the UK during 2017. An astonishing figure and rather frightening I imagine for the boss of the NHS. I read it in The Times on Saturday, so it must be true! I fear that The Donald  is also around that age which gives pause for thought and fear, as the Times article opines that the Seventies are possibly the best decade of one's life. I do  NOT wish more power to Trump’s elbow; indeed quite the reverse; a swift decline or a complete disappearance would suffice and improve the global landscape immeasurably.

 Joanna Lumley looking Ab Fab at 70

However, the article did remind me of how lucky many of us are in the seventieth and in my case, eightieth, decades. Not all of course,
pensioner poverty is dreadful, but compared to previous generations, we have good diets, enough money, exercise, education and boundless self-confidence based on wide experience. Much of this could even delay dementia with luck. Sunday morning to an aperitief concert at the Crowne Plaza hotel where I also go swimming every day. I arrived to a full audience but got a seat near a lovely couple who turned out to be Belgian [her] and British [him]; they live here now after some travelling, losing, then finding, each other again after many years. Afterwards over a glass, we chatted and also met an elderly German couple on holiday. Ages cropped up and I was amused at the compliments for me; quite reminded me of a fossil on view in a museum. ‘No?! A million years old. Amazing!’ Saturday morning I went for coffee to the apartment of a new friend age 79 who has a large house in twenty hectares in Normandy but realised she was just watching the grass grow. So she is selling and has come to live here. I think it is the unfettered confidence of so many elderly people these days that is so impressive; the confidence to search out good, satisfying, interesting lives as a matter of right, almost. To be recommended and attitude helps!

Emma Wauters

 Saturday evening I went to a super concert in the Ryelandtzaal to hear two sisters, Emma & Mathilde Wauters playing a harp each SO beautifully. The whole evening was such a treat; Franck, Bach, Liszt and John Thomas of whom I had never heard. His Fantasie on a theme from Bizet’s Carmen was great fun. I think they had arranged the whole concert themselves with family and friends on hand to help with the audience entering and then enjoying a glass of wine before leaving. Mention was made in the programme notes of a professional cellist sister to add to the claim of being a musical family. The Sunday morning concert was dominated by Jonna, a young jazz singer, guitar player, pianist and composer; incredibly, all of her lyrics were in English. Her accompanists were Olivier Penu on drums; Jered Kerstens on piano and Benny van Acker on bass. They were very loud but accomplished and the audience loved them.

 Mathilde Wauters

I have spent a Long Time during the last two weeks over discovering the tax status of my pensions. It matters. I have a bill for 9000 euros payable by March 24th! Governmental pensions continue to pay UK tax; non-governmental, i.e. private, must pay Belgian tax. I believe I have now finally discovered the situation but must obtain written proof of the Governmental status of my Teachers' Pension [so far refused]; start proceedings [six page form] to reclaim relevant UK tax; and when I obtain the afore-mentioned written proof, apparently I must face Sandra in the Brugge Tax Office to seek official approval [without which I cannot reclaim UK tax]. This is definitely the most difficult, time-consuming, convoluted task since arriving here and I am trying to remain up-beat and positive!

 This is NOT a drawing of Sandra-in-the-Brugge
Tax Kantoor.

Happy families

Keen to return to normal life, I have been feeling energetic enough to be out and about in Brugge for most of the past week. Tuesday for the all-important hair appointment; highlights and trim and yet another attempt to persuade Patrick, the master cutter, not to cut my hair too short. In what I thought was a master stroke, I took along a photograph taken at my first husband’s 80^th party, in 2012, of a large family group, including me with slightly longer hair. I showed him that that was what I really wanted instead of the cut which caused friends and acquaintances to cry last month, ‘Gosh, you have gone short. New hairstyle?’ No, just an over-enthusiastic clipper/kapper. Patrick glanced at the photo and said, ‘With great respect, that hairstyle is old-fashioned.’ No I protested, same hairsyle, my hair is just a little longer. He shrugged, resignedly, and proceeded. I THINK my hair is a little longer than after previous scalpings but not sure. Surely for 108 euros I should get my own way, she sighs pathetically.

 My terrace two days before the harbinger of Spring arrived
 

The weather has been much improved and one afternoon I ventured on to the sunlit terrace to chop down or uproot dead stuff, sweep the leaves and dead twigs, and generally begin what felt like a real move towards Spring. En route home today I bought some lovely twigs with nascent blossom buds on, from the marvellous flower shop on Wapenmakerstraat nearby. The round bursting buds are pregnant with promise and bring the message that Spring cometh. One only needs the combination of pale sunshine and buds-about-to-burst to initiate a kind of Spring fever.

 Three days after the snow, taken during a sunny wander
around the canals.

 

Twice this week, en route home, I have been spontaneously invited in for a coffee. That's in addition to two other arranged meetings in coffee houses and a tea party at a friend's house. Definitely, all this convivial lubrication signifies the approach of Spring!

Thursday, passing a marvellous shop crammed with an Aladdin’s cave of discarded saints, Jesus statues, putti, old books, etc which I love, its owner, whom I now know, popped out and we chatted. He showed me a photograph of his estranged father, now displayed in the window in honour of his demise a few days before. Almost immediately he began to recount an amazing and long story of his fractured family, mostly re-told in its length, over a coffee nearby. It reminded me of the opening of Anna Karenina: ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Unhappy families may be individually woebegone but the unhappiness is always grounded in human relationships and the betrayals and malign behaviour which emerge from dysfunctionality. I thought of a young man, a talented immigrant working in the hair salon where I go, who had formerly spoken warmly of the need to be close to family, this week waxing quite angrily about his family not appreciating him, or supporting him, only wanting him to send money home. ‘I’m going to live for myself,’ he fumed. And the girl who comes to fix my feet every so often rhapsodising about her second husband and their new young son, and her two other much-loved children. Family first in all sorts of ways, a universal unit, universally important to the healthy development of children and the continuing well-being of adult members. I moved away from my family in old age, confidently assuming that their love and support would still be there, wherever I chose to wander.

Saturday evening to the gorgeous Opera House in Gent, a centre for music lovers and aesthetes alike in its slightly-faded, extravagant, multi-tiered auditorium and the opulent glass and chandeliers in the bar and sitting areas. It is a space confident in its place and with assured pretensions to be a serious focus for musical art. It is a pleasure to go there, none more so than to see and hear the Symfonisch Orkest Opera Vlanderen. I know little about Gustav Mahler and have never heard any of his liederen performed; last evening they were from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the long first half of the concert consisted of all his songs from that work performed by soprano, Barbara Senator, and bass baritone, Josef Wagner. I was enchanted with the richness and variety of the music and the art of the soloists. The second half was a tumultuous Symfonie No. 2 in D, opus 73 by Brahms, both challenging and passionate. A great evening.

 Opera House, Gent