Sunshine, planets, stars and birdsong

This morning I watched the sun rise.

It was quite something.

After a sleepless night in our new flat it seemed the thing to do.

I stood at the windows of our east-facing living room seven storeys up. Everywhere the sky was that clear blue-grey, the last stars had blinked out and the dawn chorus had quietened.

It was obvious where the sun would emerge - one patch of the horizon a dusky purple turning pink, orange, brighter and brighter - and then a flash of gold between chimney stacks, just a peek at first, but as soon as it appeared the whitewashed walls of the room turned rosey and I could see my faint shadow.

It always seems that the sun speeds up when it rises and sets. The rest of the time we barely notice its progress across the sky. As I watched, beams tentatively fingered their way across the rooftops rendering all into silhouette and suddenly, wrenched free of the horizon, it blazed and it hurt to keep looking.

Such a scene! If only I could paint!

The nights of course hold a different wonder. Anyone glancing upwards can't fail to notice the triangular conjunction of our moon and the planets Venus and Jupiter in western skies.

I wonder how this unusual, stunning, happy circumstance of orbits - all science, gravity and physics - would have been received long ago when people turned to the heavens for portents or omens.
What would they have read into this spectacle that so dominates the sky and generates wonder now even in those who have previously taken little interest in things astronomical?

You know I always loved gazing skyward, have always taken comfort from the great wheeling heavens, the vastness of space a reminder of our utter insignificance, of the miracle that we are here at all. Even more so now, I think, since you left. That old saying, we are all made of star dust...not just some romantic phrase to me any more.

And so I spent yesterday evening, restlessly hopping from the living room where Mars rose in the east, all pinky hues, to the back bedrooms where through one window Orion stalked the skies, its angry red giant star betelgeuse glittering while, through the other, Luna, Venus and Jupiter hung low, odd, almost unnatural decorations, before dipping beneath the horizon once more.

That's the fun of a new place...working out where everything goes, not just on the inside, but outside too. Perhaps little wonder sleep wouldn't come.

After the sunrise, and a glorious day beckoning, trying for shut-eye seemed pointless - so I sit here on the terrace, watching and listening.

I can hear a chiff-chaff - a true sign that spring has arrived. Also a great tit (they seem to have a different song here - instead of 'tea-cher, tea-cher' they go 'tea-cher-cher, tea-cher-cher - collard doves and wood pigeons, a dunnock. And joy, a blackbird.

I can't see waterbirds but I can hear geese honking like they do, from the nearby Ixelles ponds and two ducks fly overhead.

The parakeets are, as yet, quiet. Late risers perhaps. My enchantment with these new, bright flashy red-beaked creatures has turned to irritation of late - their harsh shrieks drowning the gentler notes of the native songbirds.

There are crows here too, strutting the roof tiles and I'm struck by the glossy creature perched on the roof opposite whose caw is exactly the same as a mallard! It's doing it again! 'Quaack quaack' - it sounds a bit camp, a bit foolish, and I'm thinking he needs to gruff up a bit if he wants to attract a mate.

Some birds are such impressionists and he reminds me of the starling who thought he was a curlew, who fooled us for so long with his burbling, bubbling spiralling call; who had us scouring the fields near our Hipperholme house with binoculars until we saw it on our roof, giving an exact impression, there in suburbia, of a bird of the wide marshes, the salty shores, the desolate moors.

It's not all birdsong here though. There is, of course, the constant background roar of the traffic and the sirens - always the sirens. And the planes weaving contrails across the sky always heading right to left, right to left, parallel to the rooftop horizon. Tiny, slow moving, like toys.

But at least here, in our new pad, I can hear the birds and from this terrace I see trees and green parks and blossom and buds and forsythia and magnolia.

And I can see the stars at night and, best of all, I can watch the sun rise from our living room.

I'll be window-hopping again tonight, never, never able to get enough of the wonders of our skies...

On the Buses

Thinking today how you made the ordinary extraordinary.
A bus ride, for example.
To see the excitement in your eyes, your barely contained delight as you stepped up, strode along the aisle; your giggles as you were bounced back against the seat as the bus pulled away...and all those nice metal bits to bang!

To you it was an adventure. And we'd have to pull you back to the seat, time and again when you leapt to your feet like a jack-in-a-box, unable to contain all that energy.
Your joy was so evident that even though your unfettered, gleeful yells turned nervous heads, people couldn't help but smile.

This past week ferrying suitcase-loads of stuff from old flat to new flat I've been averaging around three bus rides a day.
I'm thinking how much you would have enjoyed them.

They can be a bit perilous though, to put it mildly. If you don't hang on tight you can be in big trouble and I've seen passengers tumbling and crashing into each other, caterpulted onto laps, people tottering helplessly from front to back as the driver puts his foot down and the bus leaps from a standing start.

Most journeys pale in comparison however, to the one I've just stumbled off.
How to describe?
Well, there's that long scene in one of the Harry Potter films when young Harry is on a bus, a magic bus. It leaps and it veers, it sweeps and it swerves, it careers into traffic and, at the moment when collision seems inevitable, it veers again, avoiding calamity by a hair's breadth.
Being on this particular bus was like this. Only no magic, just madness.

It was clear the driver was in a mood. He'd already speedily left the terminus having briskly shut the doors  ignoring the pleading cries of several people running to catch it, hoping to be let on. A lot of people do this and most drivers are more than tolerant.
Then, next stop along, 20 or so businessmen (I think they were Russian) got on.

None of them had the required tickets or permits and, as they coppered up and loudly debated among and themselves, minutes passed, the tension grew and the driver fumed.We feared an explosion.
Anyway, they all paid and ambled on board, smart suits, identical folders, and they lined up in the already-full aisle, grabbing the hanging safety straps above them and the bus finally lurched away.

The driver clearly felt the need to make up lost time and stepped on it...and braked hard, sounding the horn at some helpless motorist who'd got in his way....and put his foot down again. They looked comical, these businessmen, all standing together, all in a line, and as the bus speedily swerved its way up-town they lurched first one way and then the other, then forwards and back again, all in rhythm, all in time, exchanging 'can you believe this!?' type glances.

Two stops later, break slammed on, a final lurch and the doors opened. The men let go of the straps, one rubbed the reddening weals on his palms, and they stumbled off, a bit dazed by the look of it.
At this stop two women got on; one of them much, much older than the other. A frail mother and her large, in charge, daughter.

The daughter positioned her clearly-confused mother near the front in one of the few spare seats. She shouted a few commands at her and then lumbered towards the back, scrappily, bad-temperdly nudging people out of the way.

I lost track of them for a while. But suddenly the daughter was in front of me again. She was pressing the 'next stop' buzzer and gathering herself and her bags, readying to get off.
But her old mum was still in her seat.
The bus stopped, the doors opened and the woman looked about her, possibly as if she'd just remembered she'd forgotten something.

Then loud, shrieking panic. She whipped round to look at her mother, bags flailing and, like rounds from a machine gun, rattled forth a series of commands at high-pitched top volume. Her mother, dazed, startled, began to slowly lift herself from her seat.
The driver hadn't heard all this...or had he?

Anyway, too late. Too late.
As the old lady staggered towards the exit, the doors closed. Mother inside, daughter outside and the daughter thump, thump, thumped on the door and shouted and someone on the bus shouted at the driver....but he was on his way.
The woman left behind loudly howled. It was quite distressing.

 A woman moved to reassure her and another passenger said he was getting off at the next stop (fortunately just a short distance along the same road) and said he would make sure she found her daughter again. He helped her down, put his arm around her...the kindness of strangers....and we saw no more.

Relief on the bus was short-lived however.
For then came the next batch of passengers and now the bus was heaving. Among them was a woman and children: an older girl, a smaller girl and a baby in a pushchair. The woman, their mother presumably, though who would know for sure, pulled a shopping trolley.

It was the eldest girl who got our attention.
For 'eldest' read about 11 or 12.
She got on last and was trying to manage the heavy pushchair and a huge bag of shopping and, as mum pushed her way to stand at the back, it was clearly also down to the girl to sort out payment with the driver.
She struggled valiantly, speaking in a language the driver couldn't understand and he was quite aggressive with her.

The shopping, in a large, full-to-bursting plastic bag, was heavy and she staggered and dropped it, groceries spilling out.
The driver made no allowances for this. When the bus sprang forward, the pushchair - no brakes - lurched with it, dragging her down to her knees across the aisle, one hand scrabbling for the shopping while the other hung on to the pushchair.

The baby began bawling and she tried to shush it, tried to pop the dummy back in its mouth, still on her knees, feeling under chairs for tins and packets.
When she finally righted herself, pushing her long mousey-brown hair away from her face, there were large dark bags under her eyes. She was pale and clearly a very tired girl.
I thought about your average 11 or 12-year-old and how they would have reacted with all this going on. With anger? Upset? Tears? Embarrassment? A plea to mum?

None of these things happened. Her eyes though suggested a weary resilience far beyond her years.
Each time the bus lurched she lurched too, struggling with shopping and pushchair and baby, hands full, unable to use the hanging handles above. Indeed, unable to reach them.

The woman ignored her; her little sister, all blonde curls and snotty nose, clung to the shopping trolley.
Then, after the bus veered so wildly that she almost toppled again, a young man a few seats away, stood and offered her his seat.
The girl looked awkward for the kindness, but then made as if to manoeuvre the pushchair towards it. Her little sister was faster though. She got there first and plonked down, defiant. Thumb in mouth.

I was enraged by this. Waited for mum to say something. To do something. I caught the eye of the man who'd given up his seat. A shrug. What could we do?
The girl stayed standing, dead eyed, exhausted, and a couple of women near her held on to the pushchair to try keep it from rolling away again.

When the bus reached their stop, spilling the family on to the street - the girl to a future unknown - a small squad of burly, uniformed men leapt on to the bus - I genuinely thought for a moment it was a police raid.
One of them spoke loudly and everyone began rifling in pockets, handbags, rucksacks.

It turns out the ticket inspectors operate mob-handed here. The driver, suddenly quiet, lingered at the stop as the seven-strong team, navy-blue uniforms, large ticket scanners resembling old fashioned brick mobile phones slung from their belts, moved through the coach. No-one escaped the inquisition and I don't think anyone was found wanting...this time.

And then I got off Thomas.
The whole adventure made me remember that funny story we used to read of the Naughty Little Truck that caused chaos 'with a rattle and a rumble and a jangle, screech, vroom!'.

I know, I know. This was a bus, not a truck! And it was hardly fun, this journey. But it was a story all of its own, all the same....

A different kind of Mother's Day

It was always such a bittersweet day, Mother's Day.

You never knew, of course, what day it was. Your busy little head full of other things.
But kind, thoughtful friends and family always made sure the day was marked.

A card with your signature scrawled across it,  guided by an adult hand. A bunch of spring flowers beautifully tied, or perhaps my favourites, yellow fuscias, in their plastic wrapping.

They'd be put into your hand and you would be gently prodded in the back with an eager, excited 'go on Thomas, give it to mum'.

You would walk across to me, in your puppet-like way, and nearly drop them somewhere in the vicinity before turning your attention elsewhere, so I had to grab them quickly. And I would be effusive and so pleased but it always made me sad that you didn't really care one way or the other.

Sometimes I would get such a lot of cards!
 In the early days, when it was just you and me, and my poor family didn't quite know what to do, different people would drop in a card just to make sure I got one: 'Thomas asked me to get you this,' they'd say.

And then, of course there'd be the card from school that you'd 'made yourself': folded card, green crayon stems and leaves and yellow tissue paper for daffodil petals.
Again, your messy 'Thomas' signature scrawled inside.

And I loved them and I treasure them. But each time it broke my heart because I wanted, wanted you to be able to do it all by yourself but you couldn't...and you never would be able to. And why were we pretending that this wasn't the case?

It was same with the pictures they sent home with you at the end of term. I know it was all from a teacher's hand. I know you'd have been bored to tears being made to faff about with felt or macaroni or crepe paper to make a collage of a tree or whatever. Creatively crafting was not your thing at all.

Now, a radiator and a wooden spoon to bang it with, that's more like it! A washing machine and something to clatter about inside it, now you're talking!

I hope this isn't making me seem ungrateful to the people who made the effort, for Mother's Day, on your behalf but I know they understand that the day made me a bit down. And they were sad too, behind their smiles. Sad for me, for you, appreciating that Mother's Day was difficult, different, not what it was supposed to be.

In truth though, every moment you 'cuddled in', every moment you giggled as I recited, off by heart, 'Room on the Broom', 'The Gruffalo', 'The Snail and the Whale', 'Bold Little Tiger', 'Chicken Licken', 'Monkey Puzzle' (my, what a repertoire!), was worth more than all the Mother's Day cards in the world to me.

Every time you said 'please' in Makaton sign language when I asked you if you wanted a sing-song, every time you sniggered as I made a bash at 'My Grandfather's Clock', 'Two Little Girls in Blue', 'Wouldn't it Be Loverrrly' and  'Moon River' (quite the virtuouso!), are moments so precious they were all the Mother's day presents I would ever need.

I still recite the stories, to make sure I don't forget. I still sing the songs too.

Now you're not here. And I'm in this new place, this new country, this new city, meeting new people. And I know I will have to face, so many times, 'The Question'. It's a question I dread, but I'm always braced for it - and I wait for it every time I'm introduced.

'Do you have children?' people ask.
And I breathe and smile and then I tell them. Smack 'em in the face with it, gently though.

 'I had a Thomas,' I say. 'But he died.'.

And I can see the horror appear in their eyes and how they want to back off, run away, take back the question, they want the earth to swallow them up, they flounder, they stammer and they genuinely don't know what to do.

I try make it easy for them, of course I do. I pre-empt them. I tell them it's ok, that I'm ok, that all is well and that they must, please, not worry. But then they ask your age, they ask how you died and they express astonishment and I feel so terribly guilty when I tell  them you had 'special needs', as if that explained your departure!

 I wish I didn't have to because sometimes I see them almost relax as if I've suggested, in that case, perhaps it's not so bad.

But I can't deny you. I was your mum. I still am your mum. And I would shout your name from the rooftops every day if I could.

And on this day, this day that caused me so much mixed-up stuff when you were alive, I remember, above all things, how lucky I was to have had you at all.

Where the heron is king

Dear Thomas
I have never seen a heron* this tame!
It's odd. It's not normal. They are without doubt among the flightiest and most nervous of birds when humans are near. This one clearly enjoys city living.

It might seem an odd thing to note when there is all Brussels to explore and the sun has turned everything, everything that was so grey into glorious technicolour.
But it's the birdwatcher in me. I can't help it.

He boldly, brazenly, stalks the cropped grass by the water's edge, eyeing passers-by, completely unphased, parading around a flock of pigeons feeding on chunks of bread. And I wonder, does he KNOW he's a heron? Perhaps he thinks he's a pigeon.

There are two people who think it's a game to chase him. One is a toddler, wrapped in his red winter coat (it's still brisk in the shade).
He is all glee and energy as he runs and stumbles at the bird with his arms open wide, yelling with delight, and the heron leaps into the air, spreads his wings and casually lands a few hundred yards away, as if gently teasing him.

The boy's mother runs after her little son and scoops him up, laughing, gently scolding him for running too close to the water.
Then a second person picks up the game - and he is old enough to know better. He must be in his 60s! He creeps and creeps and slowly opens his arms and I want to shout at him to leave the bird alone.

The heron is motionless, fearless in its stance, its blinking eye scrutinising him.
The man moves closer and, just as it seems he might actually make a leap to grab it, the bird lifts again, all elegance and smooth take-off.
Unbelievably the man runs after it, flapping his arms like wings. Fool. He doesn't chase the pigeons though, for them he pulls out a plastic bag and throws them more crumbs. Perhaps he feared the heron would steal their food.

This time the bird lands in the shallow lake, its long legs making ripples through the reflection of the Crowne Plaza and the Hilton.
It's a beaming day and we are a strange and not entirely comfortable mix in this little oasis, the Jardin Botanique, right in the centre of Brussels where we are surrounded by the glass-fronted commerce of a buzzing city.

A woman reads a novel in the sunshine, an elderly man in trilby, black coat, black trousers and black shoes reads a newspaper, its front page dominated by the faces of the children killed in the Swiss coach tragedy.
A couple stroll with a pushchair and a woman walks her French bulldog - so hard does it pull on the lead it's very clear who is in charge, and it isn't her.

We are all here of course because the sun is shining. Because we need to feel the sun on our faces, because we are all awakening from a long, long winter. We are emerging, I think....just like the buds opening on the hawthorn bushes.

Typically, having dressed entirely inappropriately for the weather: boots, jumper, big jacket, I park on a bench out of the direct glare, in the best sunlight of all, the dappled kind.
Although only a few hundred yards from traffic and its constant roar, only a step or two from the big hotels and big business, a stone's throw from the grinding and growling Gare Du Nord, this is a park teaming with wildlife.

Near the heron, in an island of bamboo, sparrows whizz in and out and chirrup loudly. A dunnock pierces the traffic racket with its shrill song.
I recall reading a piece about birds of the city, how they apparently sing louder than their country counterparts and, as a siren wails by, it seems it must be the case for these are the loudest of sparrows.

There is a rustling in the leaf litter under the bushes behind the bench and the yellow beak and bright eye of a male blackbird is easy to spot, flipping leaves, seizing a centipede, downing it in one. His dowdy brown mate is nearby.

Another rustle and this is no blackbird. Too much noise, heavier somehow..and I sit quite still.
It seems herons are not the only bold creatures of this park. Just an arm's length away, the pointed nose and black eyes of a brown rat emerge. It sees me. I move slightly to pick up my camera and it scuttles back into the undergrowth but in a second it is back, eyeing me and nibbling on crumbs near a waste bin.

I'm trying to think when I last saw a rat. Probably the ones scampering along the waters' edge on the other side of the flood wall near the car park of Yorkshire Post Newspapers in Leeds. Or, actually, no, the very last time was on the muddy bank of the River Don in Sheffield, me looking down from the Lady's Bridge. I remember feeling repulsed on both occasions.

Today I am surprised that I feel benevolent towards this creature. His eyes suggest an intelligence and his cute boldness impresses me. Though it would make me think twice about putting down a picnic rug. Perhaps those old yarns about never being more than a few feet from a rat in a big city are true after all.

Blue tits play kiss-catch in the twig-ends of branches above, stopping to nip a bud before it has even had the chance to sprout; another dunnock sings its spangled song from its habitual perch - the very top of a bush, and egyptian geese scull lazily across the water, not the least bit interested in the lumps of bread being hurled in their direction.

There is a group of older men in the shade near a cluster of benches on the other side of the lake. They have cans of beer and they are standing, staggering occasionally and eating from plastic bags. They aren't noisy but they are drunk.
They have been there some time - under one of those Narnia-style old-fashioned lamp-posts that looks still lit with the sun's rays bouncing off the lantern. A woman walking her dog spots them and about-turns to walk the other way.

You could speculate endlessly about who they all are, why the hell they're blathered before the clock's even struck 11, whether they have any other place to go. When I ask about these men and others like them, so many of them, randomly asleep or perched on benches, cans at their feet, I'm told that supermarket beer is ridiculously cheap and people get used to seeing them...and it's true, most seem quite unperturbed by their presence, oblivious, even.

At the top end of the park, as lunch-hour approaches, the benches fill with office workers who bring baguettes and fruit juices and teenagers plonk on the lawns with paper MacDonalds carrier bags and tinny iphone music.
The doors to the grand, domed iron glasshouse are thrown open. No greenery inside now -  it is home to the French Community Cultural Centre and hosts plays, concerts and exhibitions.

 This end of the park is altogether more cultivated, cropped and polished and quite formal with its maze-like box hedges and greened bronze statues. It is stunningly beautiful and a joy to sit, watch and listen to the plashy fountain.

But it's too hot to rest here, unbelievably. And taking a longer route to avoid the men who look as if they are there for the day, I head back to the shadier areas where trees are sprinked with blossom and offer welcome shade.
I prefer this bit, the bit that feels more woodland than garden. Where the heron is king and struts his turf as the sirens wail.

xxx

* Yorkshire Post birdwatching columnist Bill Teale has queried the type of heron mentioned above. I can confirm that it was, indeed, a grey heron. To reassure Bill of this and others who prefer further evidence here's the chap himself!

And while we're at it, here's the rat...Cute little fella!