Hello to 2018

Oops, a blog laguna during which I went to the UK, principally for the annual family lunch and theatre trip but also to catch up with the Suffolk branch of the family.

The actual lunch was simply superb; at Kricket, an Indian restaurant with a difference in Soho, on Denman Street to be precise. As we were sixteen in number, we naturally chose the sharing option and were rewarded with multiple offerings of four sets of trio platters containing food of a positively Paradisal nature, Cannot identify any single dish but all were spicey and full of taste. Our two junior members, Nicholas age 4 and his sister Eloise age 2, behaved impeccably and the other fourteen members of the party made up for the little ones’ good behaviour by being very noisy, full of shouted and shared news and

An unlikely scene from a delightful farce!

memories. A splendid start to the New Year indeed, followed immediately by a trip to the Criterion nearby to enjoy a farce, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery which fulfilled all expectations aroused by its predecessor two years ago, The Play That Went Wrong. It was ridiculously silly, full of intentional mishaps, occasional double entendres, convoluted plot and inventive stage business that had the audience convulsed with laughter and gasping with admiration. The actual plot involved a priceless diamond, an escaped convict, mistaken identities, love triangles and hidden agendas. In fact the Mischief Theatre Company did the audience proud!

The day after was quiet! I was exhausted and I simply read the paper, drank occasional coffees and juices while my eldest grand-daughter and her good friend nobly produced a marvellous roast dinner, something I now never have in Bruges. Eventually, my daughter drove me to my sister's to be in place for our trip together to Brugge the next day. And so another week since then has sped past, with no blog as my computer inexplicably would not fire up! But my sister and I were busy putting the world to rights, occasionally remembering childhood incidents while I tried to persuade her to think of downsizing while she can. Since my sister’s departure two days ago, I have managed to take my end of third level Dutch exam; meet up with friends and importantly register my Euthanasia application at the Town Hall, now named the Huis op Bruggelingen. On the whole, quite a productive period!!

Gary Oldman as Churchill in an amazing performance

The real Winston and Clemmie

My sister and I really enjoyed Darkest Hour at the Lumiere [still under massive renovation]. Top flight performances came from Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas and the film looked terrific and generated an uncanny air of authenticity. The film claims to give an authentic account of how Churchill and the freshly-formed coalition government responded to the very real prospect of
imminent invasion. It also painted a tumultuous picture of the unwillingness of the Conservative Party and the Tory grandees, plus KIng George V1, to accept Churchill instead of the universally-preferred Lord Halifax as Prime Minister. I had never realised the depths of opposition faced by Churchill nor the Machiavellian manoeuvres to depose him. The only unequivocal support came from his darling Clemmie and Attlee and the Labour Party though the latter is hardly highlighted in the film. I was surprised to see the Groene Zaal in the Lumiere was absolutely full for the showing we attended. I had not expected such interest in a British film about WW2 though, of course, both World Wars were experienced in such first-hand, immediate and often calamitous ways in Belgium.

And now, back to my usual routines of early swimming and fixed points like the coffee with the girls in the Hotel Martin's and Mah Jong on Thursday mornings plus my favourite evening activity of meeting up with my conversation group in the Oud Huis Amsterdam. I have a whole week off from Dutch but Niveau Vier looms from Tuesday next with an 8.30 start in St Kruis, a half hour's bus ride away. Phew! This coming weekend I must investigate Wintervonken in the Burg, a free event

involving lots of beer with the looks of the waiting bar waggons loitering in the Burg this morning!

Free Beer

Off to the UK in two days, chiefly for the family annual theatre trip; this time to the Criterion to see the The Comedy about a Bank Robbery . A farce by the same team as the one we saw two years ago entitled, The Play That Went Wrong and which went down a storm. So this choice is by popular request!

t

An enthusiastic marching Oompah Band of drums and portable

xylophones provided a robust soundscape!

But today, Sunday 7^th January 2018 I stepped out on a sunny, crisp beautiful day which was also numbingly cold. The purpose was to investigate whether or not free beer was being handed out to residents, possibly to visitors and tourists, in the Burg. I found a huge delighted, buzzing crowd of hundreds milling about, queuing for free beer, gluhwein and coffee. The atmosphere was joyful and upbeat; couples, singles, families all greeting each other with the compulsory triple Bruggean kiss-on-the-cheek and chatting away as if just released from long solitary confinement. I circumnavigated the square to find the shortest beer queue [all beer was Brugse Zot as far as I could ascertain, from the Halve Maan, the local brewery.] and then joined it. The ambience was happy, happy, to say the least and the ten minutes for which I queued gave me time to look and listen and consider. I assume the Burgemeester and his council were behind the generous gesture; rather more than a gesture in fact. A reward to the long-sufffering townspeople for tolerating the huge, long assault on ‘t Zand which continues. One year of chaos down there with buses re-routed and pedestrians constantly challenged to find the new but perilous path on traffic-strewn roads to reach the bus shelters, the Concertgebouw or simply to cross to the other side. The chief challenge after negotiating the traffic without the protection of zebra crossings or lights, is to stay upright amid the edges of the rubble. That so many do that, in generally good humour, time after time over what will be at least eighteen months, suggests a free Brugse Zot [Bruges Fool] per sufferer is earned. But full marks to the Town Council for doing it with the good ambience it creates AND, after all, whisper it not in Gath, elections are not far away!

Loving Vincent

The artist who painted for ten years only.

After a lapse in Lumiere visits lately, I went on almost the last day of 2017 to see Loving Vincent and was thrilled with the work of art I was privileged to witness. It is just gorgeous to behold; original and mesmerising. It is strictly speaking an animated biographical drama about the life, and more particularly, the tragic events leading up to the death of Vincent Van Gogh. It is the first fully painted animated film, and is an international co-production between Poland and the U.K.

It felt as if one was watching Van Gogh's paintings become alive; living cartoons in all his wondrous hues, the blues and greens, the yellows and oranges, all 

Auvers-sur-Oise where Van Gogh died.

  painted in his swirling, highly-personalised style AND on canvas. In fact, there are 65,000 frames painted by 125 painters, selected from hundreds of artist applicants, a process which deliberately excluded experienced animators. It is unique and a dazzling achievement which has already won plaudits and awards in its short exposure to audiences. It premiered the 2017 Annecy International Animated FilmFestival and was awarded Best Animated Feature Film Award in the 30th European Film Awards in Berlin. The creative  impetus for the film came from the duo who wrote and directed Loving Vincent;  Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman.

After the original idea had been mulled over, the logistics to future action were not simple. It took the couple four more years to develop the proper technique to achieve their unusual concept. Loving Vincent was shot as a live action film with actors, to begin with, then the directors recruited an army of artists to paint each frame in the style of the

The Keeper of the Inn where Van Gogh died.

Master. Of the 125 artists commissioned, the most working at any given time was 97. The team of up to 66 people worked in Gdansk at a studio near the film-makers’ home in northern Poland. Smaller groups of painters worked in western Poland, in Bratislav, and in Athens. To capture changing backgrounds, facial expressions and movement, each canvas was re-painted an average of 76 times. Between them, the artists executed a total of 65,000 frames in oil paint. Each second of the film equals 12 frames! Surprisingly, the directors said that this process went relatively smoothly. ‘Animation is about preparation and we spent a lot of time preparing’, said Welchman. 

The Old Man thatching the roof

Dr Gachet

A tiny section of the artists involved.

At the end of the shooting, the directors were left with 845 paintings, each depicting the last frame of each shot. While many artists took home a painting, several canvases were eventually for sale at prices between 1,200 and 9,500 dollars! The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam helped with research and both it, and the Musee d’Orsay plan to screen the film. The real Dr Gachet bequeathed 26 Van Gogh paintings to the Musee d’Orsay. He was the only man to buy from Van Gogh during his life and he bought one.

Christmas en Famille

Christmas staff in the kitchen 

Another pause in the blogs due to late-onset panic over Christmas fast approaching. In the event, all was serenely ready chez moi with absolutely no evidence of feet paddling furiously below water! Lights, tree, greenery, berries, tinsel; all was in place. The Suffolk branch of the family arrived safely on Friday the 22 Dec while the Californian contingent appeared on Saturday 23. They had vowed to bring Christmas to me and they kept their promise handsomely. Cait and Olivia had done a mega Waitrose shop of food and drink to cover the four days of celebration; Sian and Rob arrived with copious quantities of alcohol bought in England between their UK arrival on Friday and departure for Brugge on Saturday. My own generous quantities of beer and wine were hardly touched though the sheer number of empty bottles by D for Departure Day on Wednesday 27 was awesome. My terrace, windswept and far from its lovely autumn-hued best, served nonetheless as a capacious outdoor repository for the alcohol, the turkey the ham, etc. ‘Repository’ seems an appropriate word for the wealth of food and drink on display.

 View from our breakfast table

in Blackbird on Christmas Eve.

Outside, almost deserted;

inside, candle-lit and humming.

‘The Family’ was marvellous in doing everything and not permitting me to do anything. Any number of times as I slunk away from the kitchen area [kitchenette is a more accurate word] in the face of a barrage of ‘Go and sit down; we’re doing it all,’ which was marvellous in lots of ways, not least

letting others face the challenge of a single oven and a tiny kitchen area in which to prepare, cook and serve Christmas dinner for seven. I pondered other nuances not dreamt of by ‘Those In Charge’ but felt subliminally by me. And not always subliminally! Irritation, resentment, the immediate consequences of ageing, of slowing down, of Not Being In Charge as usual. AND the reluctant acknowledgement that, in fact, I just couldn’t have managed to cook the super Christmas meal [and other meals] that the lovely others produced. I sometimes congratulate myself silently on being well-balanced in letting go of things I can no longer manage, like running or the complex organisation of an event, for instance. I tell myself that that is mature ageing; embrace the many things I can do and relinquish those I can’t without a fuss. But somehow, with Christmas and family meals, there was an inner discord which jangled; an unintended undermining of the Essential Mother, the Inner Matriarch, which I hadn’t expected or perhaps didn’t know existed. On some level, I minded and unreasonably felt displaced, while being incredibly grateful for all that my daughters, grand-daughters and son-in-law [the lone brave male present!] so cheerfully did, so well.

It was lovely to spend so long a period with grand-daughters too; mine are aged between almost 7 and 24, I rarely spend an extended time with any of them. The uninhibited dance routines, boisterous singing including rap, hugely cheerful and loving presence of the six year old proved to be irresistible to all of us. The quiet beauty and elegance, plus the interesting depths of the sixteen year old were a delight to observe. While the incredible amount of work, planning, list-making, organisation while remaining so willing and cheerful, by the oldest was an astonishing and impressive performance.

In the New York Times of Friday 29 December, I read an interesting article, Can Kindness Be Taught? A number of American pre-schools are trying to do just that, thanks to a challenge from the Dalai Lama. The Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin has developed a Kindness Curriculum through which very young children are helped to pay attention to their emotions. This is interesting particularly because I noticed this Christmas how transformed in many ways is my youngest grand-daughter. When I was in California in April, she could best be described as ‘tricky’; sometimes co-operative and charming but often surly and unco-operative. This time, a much more mature girl was present; not only helpful, funny and entertaining but also with an underlying concern to be kind and thoughtful towards others. Any number of times she quoted how important it is to be kind and sensitive to others’ needs. Her parents said that the Roman Catholic school she attends sets great store by sensitive behaviour towards others and it also encourages its pupils to look into their own emotions; how they feel, etc. I have no idea if this is simply far-sighted school policy or perhaps

adherence to the Kindness Curriculum but the result was impressive; hugely so.
.

This is not a kindness!

One example of regal Festive rest.

The Scars of Catalonia

16th Midwinter Market in Balstraat, Brugge

From the beginning of November, I have started Dutch class which I enjoy though the journey, carrying heavy books, is not to my taste!! Ivo, the school, is in St Kruis so it involves walking, waiting for the bus, then walking some more after the bus. Would be fine were it not for my little mobile library hoisted on my shoulder. I go twice a week to the Writing half of Level Three; the other kids in the group all do four times three hours a week for which I sincerely admire them. However, it is too much for me as I also need energy for fun and socialising!! I have decided not to do the Speaking half of the week’s lessons though I need it. If allowed will continue, if I reach the grade, to Niveau Vier and beyond!! Reading, writing, but hardly speaking!

The Homeless Jesus by Timothy Schmalz

My first day home, Saturday 9th December, I joined a large crowd of people in the Heilige Magdalena Church near Astridpark for the dedication and unveiling of a new statue called The Homeless Jesus. The ceremony was in the church, fortunately because the weather was sub-Arctic, and though I could understand nothing, I did enjoy three pieces played by a young man, on different cornets, I think. Amazing Grace sounded particularly plaintive. Various men spoke; the priest in charge; someone in charge of Church Fabric; the OCMW voorzitter, Dirk de Fauw; a lovely man

 who works with refugees here, and the Bishop, Lode Aerts. Predictably, the Bishop’s homily seemed endless. Perhaps my non-comprehension of Flemish exacerbated the undue length of the speeches but one hour did seem over-long! Outside, a huge wooden crate was magically opened to reveal the recumbent, anonymous figure lying on a bench and it is life-size and impressive. It will remain in front of the church I believe. I will go back tomorrow to find space and peace to look at this modern sculpture properly. However with the help of the indomitable, omniscient and frequently annoying Google, I discover that, since 2013, this statue, by a Canadian, Timothy Schmalz, has been installed in major cities a round the world. Glasgow was the first to be honoured in the U.K. The whole enterprise, speaking as it does to the insidious homelessness problem which has grown, is backed by Churches and homeless charities.

En route home I was impressed by the tourist throng, assuming it to be more crowded because of the Christmas Market which is dazzling this year. But not so. I learned from a Flemish friend that the frequent flags and drapes in red and yellow 

Catalan demonstration in Brussels 9th December

seen around Brugge, signalled the invasion of the Catalans. Apparently, the local head of the NVR, a right-wing party seeking Flemish independence, [and therefore, one might add, fellow travellers] had invited the Catalans to visit Brugge after the enormous demonstration they had mounted in Brussels last Saturday, in support of Carlos Puigdemont, the fugitive Catalan Prime Minister who fled to Brussels recently rather than face arrest in Spain with his fellow politicians. As readers will recall, the Catalan ‘problem’ boiled over into quasi-rebellion this Autumn and the Prime Minister of Spain, Rajoy, withdrew Article 155 of the Spanish constitution to suspend the regional autonomy of the Catalans. I read a recent article by Paul Preston in the New Statesman, [December 1-7] which described in detail the history of the Catalan situation over the last hundred troubled years. The scars of Catalonia were revealed but also the widespread Spanish distrust of the Catalans.

Lea Stein's artistry

As friends had a stall at the 16^th Midwinter Festival on and around Balstraat in the St Anna district of the city, off I valiantly trudged through the snow Saturday late afternoon. It was delightful but a little less successful than normal I suspect because of the slush and rain and cold which deterred some, understandably. This particular market is notable for the number of craft stalls present and it is altogether rather more upmarket than many Rommelmarkts here. I spent ages admiring some marvellous brooches by Lea Stein, a Parisian jewellery designer of impeccable taste and style, practising in the 1930s. I have had one of hers and loved it for several years. Dismayingly, I discover that they have grown in popularity which means ‘have become more expensive’. Damn! Eventually I bought a wooden jewellery tree for my six year old grand-daughter due here for Christmas and a sort of pale wooden Christmas tree about ten inches tall, which magically folds flat for transport home……

A Catalan visitor in Brugge,

waving to a boat load of friends below.

I stopped off at ‘Terrastje’ on Genthof nearby on my way home for a chat with Ian and a Brugse Zot. There I learned that I had missed ‘the Catalans’ who had been in, and further, that there were reputed to be 50,000 of them in Brugge this weekend. I had seen a number around the streets plus two boatloads on the canals and all were looking remarkably content. They didn’t seem to represent a secession crisis which is threatening to rip Spain apart.

Terrasstje, Genthof, Brugge

Return to Blogeroo!!

WHAT a pleasure to be back on my blog, unvisited since November 6. There has been a chapter of electronic accidents, the first of which was my inability to access my computer. Now, after having been sent back to England for a respite, the computer seems well-behaved and obedient!! I now have a computer with a new hard drive, thanks to the Wye genius of Bernard; a new, ultra modern Ipad which seems somehow in charge of me instead of the reverse! A mouse which I am rapidly learning to click, nonchalantly, instead of the dear, familiar pad/pulse familiar for over twenty years! Beloved grandson Dan has restored me to Tunnel Bear, awol for about a month, which enables me to illegally access BBC I player and its goodies. If only the BBC would organise itself and charge illicit users overseas for using the Iplayer, all would be harmony. I would gladly pay for my nightly hour fix of Good Drama and documentaries.

The Park, Minderbroederstraat, Brugge

We just had a super weekend here with two thirds of my son’s family here to celebrate his 55^th birthday. We had a superb meal out on Saturday at the The Park, Minderbroederstraat, adjacent to Astridpark. Gorgeous décor and great service too. Then on Sunday, a delicious lunch courtesy of Crista at Trium, delivered to my table, and for once, a little in-house entertainment of guitar, keyboard and song by Alexander Makay and Simon de Kuyper. Great way to spend the weekend and celebrate my son’s birthday.

I am not sure what I have done during my blog-silence; Mah Jong, coffee mornings, friend from Wye to stay for several happy days; three visits to the Pieter Pourbus exhibition; breakfast at Blackbird in Jan Van Eyckplein made even more decadent with the addition of a glass of Bellini for Rosemary and me. The excuse was that it reminded us of Venice, her favourite city.

St Michael and St James,

Linby-cum-Papplewick

During this time, however, an unexpected event indeed. My sister, whom I have featured before on this blog, died unexpectedly. Such a shock for her children and grandchildren, and indeed, for her two sisters and the extended family also and her many friends. SO, although this post was begun, it has been halted by my journey to England this last week. I returned on Friday evening [Dec 8] after Esme’s funeral on Thursday. My few days in Nottinghamshire were marked by much family emotion and disbelief but the service itself was wonderful. The little Linby church, charming and intimate, was full to standing and so many people had travelled far to be there. One young man, a long-time friend of my youngest nephew, had changed his travel plans around and flown in from Denver on Thursday morning to catch the funeral service, and was then to resume his journey to his original destination of Australia on Friday morning. My sister had mothered him when he was a fellow-student and friend of her son, many years ago and he had remained a devotee though he hadn’t seen her in years, living, as he does, in Colorado. I gave the funeral address, but my other sister and half of her family missed the service after a journey from Suffolk took twice the expected time. Hence, she couldn’t read the poem she intended. But the wake, afterwards, in the village pub was crowded with family and my sister’s admirers, and life-affirming, a celebration in fact of my sister’s life. So that gave a warm and loving feeling to the whole day that lingers still.

My tribute to Esme came as a result of much remembering of our childhood and in some ways, it was a pleasure to recall and compose, in spite of our unexpected loss. I finished by sending a message to her which went:

I hope your onward journey was good. I am pretty sure that right now, you are wandering the Elysian Fields with Derrick and the dogs. You left the party too soon and we didn't see you slip away, but Heather and I are right behind you and we'll see you down the road, quite soon ...'

Eighteen months ago, enjoying her 80th.

A Good Life

 By David Fitzsimmons of the Arizona Daily Star

In an article which I recently read was the sentence: “A dignified death completes a good life”. I thought how well that expressed a thinking person’s attitude to Life! It is one I share and accordingly, I am getting my act together, through a glass darkly it must be admitted, to put in place the necessary formalities here, for euthanasia, should I need it. I am fumbling somewhat only because of the language difficulty which is serious though not terminally so! It will be accomplished and though one hopes that the instructions for Nil by Mouth, and for Euthanasia won’t be necessary, the fact that all is legally in place in the event of necessity, then that is very reassuring to a person in her eighties. It is most interesting that, with age, comes the complete comfort to talk about, consider, envisage, one’s own death, not a comfortable topic for younger people normally. When life is no longer a joy; conversation no longer a possibility; walks in the sun or the rain no longer viable; reading, an irrelevance, then a dignified end, decided autonomously by the sufferer in earlier, happier, healthier times, rounds off a life lived as fully as possible, in a satisfying way.

 By Wasserman in The Wall Street Journal

It is salutary to note that Desmond Tutu has managed to reconcile his belief in the sanctity of life with his call for assisted dying; in his case, with his expressed desire for his own assisted death should it be necessary. Lord Carey too, a previous Archbishop of Canterbury, has publicly supported euthanasia. Both eminent church men demonstrate compassion and understanding for those in pain, or worse, at the end of their lives and both live in countries where their publicly-stated positions are outside the law. When I moved to Brugge I had no idea that euthanasia had been legalised in Belgium since 2002 and it is an aspect of living here which seems to enjoy huge support in spite of this being a Roman Catholic country. It is surely the mark of a civilised nation to have high ideals and the necessary sophisticated State machinery to enable those ideals to be translated smoothly into practice. However, Belgium is in small minority of countries permitting euthanasia. One thinks of Hamlet and his ‘Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew/ Or that th’ Everlasting had not fixed/ His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. Oh God, oh God.’ Five hundred years after Shakespeare wrote those words, the same immutable laws, though now man-made, obtain almost everywhere.

By an amazing coincidence, my sixteen year old grand-daughter is doing a school assignment on Euthanasia at present. Brownie points for the school I reckon; early consideration of difficult topics
is an important aspect of education and offers hope and enlightenment for society; so shines a good deed in a naughty world!

Not exactly on the same topic but close; I noticed a sweet notice in the window of the Gulliver Tree, a tea room not far from the Markt a couple of weeks ago. The English owner who had founded the place about twenty years ago and nurtured it into a real popularity, had passed away and her grand-children had left a quote from Winnie the Pooh, her absolutely favourite story, with an illustration, in the café window with Oma written below.

The good life now, was further embellished last evening when a large group of friends in various amazing fashions [the women, that is; the men wore DJs] assembled by invitation to play Roulette and Blackjack, all for no real money, which was comforting. Inexperience notwithstanding, it was all great fun and I now know that for me, Roulette is boring [never did get the scoring system!] but Blackjack is such fun. However, an evening at the casino in Knokke is not a priority!

Sunday afternoon, a brief exposure to youthful idealism when I joined the first beat of the Pulse of Europe, in the Burg. Organised by students from the College of Europe situated in Brugge, it is described as a citizens’ initiative to demonstrate for a united Europe, and it was replicated simultaneously in 120 other cities, giving many Europeans the opportunity to express their opinions and publicly share their values. There was an open mike for members of the public to express their support for the European values of peace, individual freedom, justice and human rights. Our Brugge effort was quite sparsely attended, perhaps by thirty people, but it was a heart-warming first public demonstration of the importance of visible support for the concept of a united Europe. The next meeting, on the first Sunday in December I shall have to miss so must wait for February for the next available. I do look forward to it and will make use of the open mike as I missed my chance today.


Great to see so many young people in the
modest group of Euro-devotees.This
was about half of the supporting cast!