Reasons to be cheerful (Part 4)

Dreaming of the Great Outdoors.....

Why don't you get back into bed?

Without wishing to make those who are confined to their homes feel even worse, here's a little sample of what is going on outside. The wintry skeletons of oaks are fuzzy at the twig-tips with buds about to burst....

Though things may well change, despite the nightmare of the Covid-19 virus, at the moment we are still able to get out of our homes for exercise, and, with the blessing of a few days of bright spring sunshine, it is uplifting.....  Blackthorn is in full flower.....

Yes, despite the ravages of this life-threatening infection, the world (in the Northern Hemisphere) is springing into life.  The other day I heard, and saw, my first ChiffChaff, a dear little herald of hope and rebirth....

And today I found my first Bluebell.....

The hedgerows are splashed with Dead Nettles.....

The Gorse by the rail tracks is in gorgeous staining yellow....

And the coppiced Hornbeam in our ancient woodland is unfurling its tender green leaves.....

Bird life is excited.  The crow family are everywhere, with rooks being particularly raucous....

I spot a handsome Kestrel perched on a dead tree...

A Heron turns its back on a passing Little Egret.....

And a beautiful Red Kite glides past the quiet woods....

While the lambs play hide and seek getting ready for Easter.....

On my allotment plum blossom tempts another late frost.....

And by the Badgers' Sett in Heartwood Forest the Dog Violets are smiling.....

You wouldn't know there's an invisible killer out there. You wouldn't think that we all need, A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it..... Very challenging times, and everyone has their story. Friends in Italy describe their confinements in painful detail. People in my street WhatsApp each other asking for essentials to be dropped at the doors of those in isolation.

I believe we will come through. I believe it will pass.  And there are good things.... The air is, despite the grisly virus, cleaner.  The streets are quieter.  People seem friendlier....  

I grin, and try to bear it. Amanda doesn't understand, and it is hard for her as she cannot entertain herself, and I cannot treat her as a child, give her games and puzzles.  She needs to be out, twice a day; she misses her routine swims and her various attendances at church.  

If it were just me, I wouldn't mind so much - I have my books, and the garden, and so on....  But it is very hard for someone whose comprehension of the world has slipped away.

So it is with this in mind that I celebrate these spring days, and the power of flowers, and recognise that there are reasons to be cheerful.....

Reasons to be cheerful, part three

Reasons to be cheerful, part three

Reasons to be cheerful, part three

Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three

I don't mind

I don't mind, don't mind, don't mind, don't mind

Ian Robins Dury

1977

Scapes....

Pictures from an Exhibitionist

I love travel....  And so does Amanda.  Only yesterday she went to Harlow, taking the wrong bus from St Albans and then resolutely refusing to get off it.

No matter. With the help of several vehicles full of the boys in blue from Welwyn Garden City, a sat nav and a Chinese tracking device (thank you Huawei!) we were reunited and spent an hour or so exploring the delights of Essex and Eastern Hertfordshire (never thought that Bishops Stortford was where Bishops used to ford the river Stort, whose soggy flood plain reaches Harlow, about whom I only knew Jean....)

Anyway, I digress (as I am won't to do....)

I love travelling, and seeing.....  [And, having recently been told that I have the beginnings of both cataracts and macular degeneration, I appreciate the wonders of sight with particular acuity.....]

So, from my room with a view on Hoog Straat (Rue Haute), Les Marolles, Brussels....

I contemplate the attractions of Benelux....

And they are many, from the Maison du Roi (1870) in the Grand Place, Brussels....

Through the Galleries Royales Saint-Hubert (1847)....

To the sweeping arches of the Liège-Guillemins train station (Santiago Calatrava, 2009),

To the cobbles and vaults around the Basilica of Saint Servatius (11th century) by the Vrijthof at the heart of Maastricht (whatever happened to the EU?)

Another train ride whisks me over the soggy plains of Flanders, flashing past the cities of Ghent, (what?)

and Bruges, (where?)

To the sand sea and sky of Ostend, where I look out across the Southern Bight of the North Sea, towards Eastern Anglia, as was.....

And see nothing.....

Or is it just me?  Is there no one there?

Il y a deux sortes de temps

Y a le temps qui attend

Et le temps qui espère

Il y a deux sortes de gens

Il y a les vivants

Et moi je suis en mer.

There are two sorts of time:

there is the time that waits

and the time that hopes.

There are two sorts of people:

there are the living

and me, I am at sea.

l'Ostendaise - Ostend girl

Jacques Brel

Yes, I love travel; going places, coming back, seeing things, meeting people.....  

Long may it last.....

{NB Composed before Belgium shut down bars and restaurants, etc.....

O tempora!  O mores!}

Sexual Healing....

Pas de Masques....

Baby, I got sick this mornin'

A sea was stormin' inside of me

Baby, I think I'm capsizin'

The waves are risin' and risin'

We have much to lament, I guess, but also much for which we should be grateful....

And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

Revelations 9:20

The time is out of joint..... 

In Ostend, I dance to the music of time at Anglo-Belgian painter James Ensor (and the his friends of the Cercle Cœcilia)'s masquerade the Bal du Rat Mort, which was initiated in 1898 after cheesy trips to Montmartre....

James Ensor: Masks Watching a Turtle, 1894

Ensor had a thing about masks, but, as above, is it the mask, or the person wearing it, that does the watching?  In Brussels, for a moment, I think Dumbnik Kummins is watching over me, swinging high on a wall (if only).....  His wooden face devoid of humanity, maybe full of opiates.

Though the pharmacies here are out of masks, the atmosphere in the Place du Jeu de Bal, in Les Marolles, is more laid back, and plenty of carved wooden masks are available, though this vendor is having a zizz (that's no way to make a living)   

There are people all around.  Some ignore me, pointedly, their fashionable stances ensuring medical metres between us....

Others keep a discreet distance, while they imagine their memoirs, 

While still others immerse themselves in accounts of others.....

And others simply have to talk to others, ignoring my innocent fellowship.....

The streets are full of intrigue, with pretence and suspicion rife....

Indeed, some do make me feel a tad guilty, for stealing their souls....

Some make a show of ignoring my shadow....

While others seem to wonder what I see in their quizzical gazes,

Or gently sympathise with my idle clicking....

The thing is my face is masked, and we are not understanding each other, even though my heart wants to reach out......

Who builds these walls?

Where's the fun gone?

Back in Ostend, at Residence Jane, Number 77 Promenade Albert I, Marvin Gaye sits at his table, composing Sexual Healing.

Ah, maybe I am wrong.....  he did that in 1982.  

A couple of doors down, at the Taverne Floride, I drink Leffe, as he did, and think that in this time of pandemic, maybe his formula wasn't wrong.....

Though sadly it didn't stop his preacher father shooting him.  Twice.  Once in the heart and once in the shoulder.

No wonder the angels are crying....

And the windows are full of masked ghosts....

Pas de masques.....

Please

And when I get that feeling

I want sexual healing

Sexual healing is good for me

Makes me feel so fine, it's such a rush

Helps to relieve the mind, and it's good for us

Sexual Healing

David Ritz / Marvin Gaye / Odell Brown

James Ensor: Death and the Masks, 1867

What's Going On?