Beads of sweat are rolling into my eyes and I can taste salt on my lips.
The heat is unbearable.
There are two large fans on one wall belting out hot air and placed around the floor are those small, white, fan heaters, all set to level three, to the highest, hottest setting.
Together all these fans make for a thunderous noise.
I had imagined dainty Indian bells, some kind of Yoga-appropriate music, oh I don't know, scented candles. This is the very opposite of everything I had in mind.
I can't breathe. It's a simple as that. I can't breath. My chest feels tight and my mouth is full of hot, dry, sweaty air.
I am stunned, appalled and nauseous in equal measure. It is like walking into a furnace.
I look about me.
Everyone else appears serene. I venture up to one woman - we'd exchanged 'Franglais' pleasantries in the changing room - and I crouch down next to her. 'It's hot isn't it?' I say, stupidly. 'Is it meant to be this hot..I mean it's too hot isn't it? Isn't it too hot?'
The woman smiles sympathetically but I'm aware of hard stares from others in the room. The Englishwoman needs to shut up, I'm thinking.
Ok then. Feign nonchalance.
And while feigning, consider options for escape.
But I don't know what to do.
I am 'in the room'.
I am not allowed to leave 'the room'.
The sign on the door had been ominously clear. "Do not leave this room for the next 90 minutes".
And I'd had the no-nonsense brief from the woman on reception: "For first time you might feel dizzy, you might need to rest, you can kneel, you can sit, you can lie down...but you must not leave room, we don't leave room.'
All I can think of is the cool air in the real world on the other side of the door.
The plan, well, what passes for a plan, had been to take the opportunity during this time out to get more exercise, to improve health, wellbeing etc etc.
So I started running again (for cardiovascular!) and today is yoga (for serenity, wisdom, flexibility and general at-one-ness-with-the-universe type stuff). My first ever class.
I should have done the research.
I should at the very least have taken the trouble to read the detail on the website instead of merely noting that the Bikram Yoga studio, being just a few hundred yards from where I live, would do as much as any other sort of yoga studio. And drop-in classes too. Perfect.
'Blimey...you've gone for hot yoga!' my brother emailed when I sent him the link.
I thought he meant 'hot' as in 'trendy'. I know.
He meant 'hot' as in 100 degrees.
It's a horrific, unexpected, nightmare...
But if I leave this room now, thinks spiritual me, I will have stumbled off the path to inner peace before even making a first step. And anyway, says rational me, I've paid 25 Euros for a week's trial membership. That did it.
I look for somewhere to sit - at the back, obviously.
I roll out my rented mat, pop my towel on it and sit down.
Even the slightest movement, from standing to sitting, brings out droplets across my hairline and I can feel sweat running down my back. I try a few tentative stretches and stop when the rooms starts swimming and spinning.
Lots of the people here are extremely bendy. And they are hardly wearing anything at all. One man wears just swimming trunks and the women are in those bikini-type outfits you see on Olympic athletes.
The woman I'd spoken to earlier stands upright, lets her head loll back and the rest of her body follows, folding in on itself, until she is a crab, she..er..scuttles about like this, left to right, but then, extraordinarily, she walks her feet even closer to her hands until her hands can grab her ankles. She is running with sweat, it is falling off her in heavy droplets on to her small, blue towel.
The class hasn't even started yet. Some people are lying flat on their backs, eyes closed. Others are sitting cross legged facing the wall, meditating...presumably, garnering strength for what is to come.
Everyone is wet through. The smell is not pleasant.
I dread what's about to happen.
The door opens and a diminutive woman walks in, much, much younger than most of us. 'Stand up!', she says loudly, firmly. 'Class begin'.
And what happens after that is the most gruelling, most challenging workout - and the heat, designed to enable deeper stretching, while reducing stress and tension, makes even the slightest movement a huge trial.
We begin with a deep breathing exercise, standing tall, hands together, fingers intertwined, clasped under the chin. We talk a long, slow, measured gulp of air, raising our elbows, keeping our fingers clasped, holding breath, then throwing our head back and loudly exhaling. My shoulders start to ache, my head is already swimming and dreaded black spots start to gather in the peripheral vision.
This is the first of the 26 poses* that make up a Bikram yoga class. I am conscious of fabulous bodies doing incredible things all around me.
I work very hard, so anxious, I suppose, to restore that suppleness I once had and I push and push and despair at my lack of flexibility and it hurts and I am suffocating.
The instructor barks across the room: 'Beginner, sit lower...good beginner....beginner focus, relax your face....beginner stretch higher...'
It's the 'focusing' that does for me. I stare hard into my own eyes in the mirror trying to perfect the 'Standing Bow Pose' and I stare so hard at my beetroot-red face that I feel like I'm falling into the mirror and I realise that I am going to be sick. My face, my vision, is obliterated by black spots and I keel over - a self preservation thing, stopping the faint before it takes hold.
I am on my hands and knees on the floor, sweat is dripping from my chin and my nose onto my towel.
I break all etiquette. I put my hand up. 'I'm sorry, I need to leave the room. I feel sick,' I say to the instructor.
She doesn't let me. And she is very firm about not letting me.
'Lie down. Lie down now! Do not disrupt class. What you are feeling is perfectly normal. Just lie down and take deep breaths until you feel better.'
I do as I am told. I can't believe this.
I can't believe I don't walk/crawl out of there. But I turn over and lie flat on the mat, waiting to throw up all over myself in front of the whole class.
I stay there, while the others go through 'balancing stick', 'separate leg stretching' and 'triangle' poses. And slowly the spots fade and the nausea abates ....
Something in me - the fear of being the ridiculous English person, mainly - tells me to crack on and I slowly roll over, haul myself back to my feet and try to join in again.
But I sit down a lot now, backing off at the least feeling of discomfort and I move at a snail's pace, reflecting, as I watch these amazing, supple, super-beings, that I haven't exactly excelled in the 'wisdom' stakes so far. I should have taken it easier instead of ploughing in as if I was still the teenage ballet dancer of so many years ago.
There are people like me at the back who sit down too. I realise, unlike in a ballet class, there is no disgrace in giving in, in resting.
The last 13 poses are much more floor-based with relaxation time in between and so it's manageable, though barely.
And oh, the best bit, the very best bit, when the instructor comes down from her podium and 'flick, flick, flick' each of those monster fans is switched off . And we lie there and there are gentle tendrils of cool air.
The very last thing we are instructed to do is lie on our backs, legs stretched, heels together, feet relaxed, arms by our sides, palms facing upwards, eyes open, gently breathing, for two minutes, without moving.
The 'Savasana' or 'dead body' pose. Appropriately enough.
Then 'Namaste' and the teacher is gone.
There is little conversation in the changing room. I'm not surprised.
And as I look at myself in the mirror (the horror, the horror!), I have to decide whether I can face it again - or am I jacking it in...
Later I do the research I should have done before the class.
I was foolishly unprepared and, while a quick Google search reveals there is as much to be said about the negatives of Bikram Yoga as the positives - lovers and haters seem to be out there in equal number - I know I cannot judge on that one experience.
Those 90-odd minutes in that room were, without doubt, among the most physically challenging I have ever encountered.
So all-consuming was the experience, there was no time for thought, for worry, for preoccupation with anything other than what was happening then and there.
A big change for someone who's never been good at 'in the moment' stuff, always thinking ahead, always planning, working out the next step, always fretting about something or other.
It's a flaw, I know. And it drives me to distraction that my brain will not be still unless I'm asleep.
But in today's 'hot yoga' session I was incapable of thinking about anything. And I think that was probably a very positive thing.
And it's for that reason, above all else, which means I'm going back for another go tomorrow. I know...I can't believe it either..
* http://www.bikramyoga.com/BikramYoga/TwentySixPostures.php
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
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...
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...
Monday, 26 March 2012
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 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....
Sunday, 18 March 2012
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.
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.
Friday, 16 March 2012
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.
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!
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.
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!
Friday, 24 February 2012
The man who raged at the sky
I watched from the flat today as an old man in a tattered trilby and long coat lay flat on his back across a bench and started shouting at the sky.
Was he raging at himself? At life? At his God? I couldn't follow his tirade. The tourists just pretended he wasn't there, carried on strolling the wet cobbles, snapping the vast baroque frontage of the church behind him.
He lay there for full minutes, shouting, at the top of his voice, disturbed, gutteral, hoarse, his right arm raised, forefinger jabbing upwards into the mizzly air that had sucked all colour from the city. The bench must have been wet.
Then, as suddenly as he started, he stopped. His arm flopped down acoss his chest, and he lay there in silence.
Slowly he pulled himself up, swungs his legs to the floor and leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees.
He walked tall when he got up; ignored the woman begging a few feet away from him - all big skirts, patched jacket, shawl and headscarf, with her paper cup. He paid a call at the pissoir at the side of the church then walked around the corner and disappeared from view.
And it was as if he was never there.
I think he was one of this city's lost souls. One of the wraiths who live and die on these streets as we go about our business.
On the way to the No 38 bus stop just near the flat and post office there is a kind of nook where a nail bar meets the back of the BNP Paribas bank.
Actually, to call it a nook suggests a prettiness it doesn't deserve. It's a concrete corner all ugly angles, stained pavements and bad smells.
In there, barely sheltered from the wet, saturated morning, was a man, abed, fast asleep. His dirty double duvet and once-pink cellular blanket were opened out to their fullest, his form all lumps and bumps beneath it, his head on a stained roll-mat, his nose and whiskers the only flesh visible between duvet and pulled-low woollen hat. Was his back on bare concrete?
His presence was a shock. Like some crude, Emin-type art installation. It was the blatantness of his pitch, the amount of space he'd taken. He must have know when he laid down that he would get in the way, and known as well that we'd all circumnavigate him. Almost step over him.
Everyone pretended he wasn't there.
The vagrancy here is so obvious, so unashamed, the begging so....polite. The women in church doorways with their paper cups pour blessings as you walk inside and as you exit; the man who gets on your tube carriage, spends several minutes politely explaining to you that he's hungry, homeless, jobless and will now sing to you on your journey.
And he does, he sings, and I don't know what courage or desperation it has taken for him to do this.
Then afterwards he walks down the carriage, holding his paper cup, and we all look down, away, those with the escape of headphones close their eyes to fake concentration on music or we gaze out of the dirty windows finding interest in the blackness of the tunnel. Anything rather than meet the desperation in his eye. We feel a mix of shame, anger, irritation that he has dared to intrude on our journey. We'd all just rather he went away. It's embarrassing.
On another day this happens, only it's worse. A mother and her two chldren. An eastern European family, I think. The mother's age impossible to tell, but she is young. The children impossible to ignore: beautiful, upright, unaware, unafraid. They got on at the far end of our relatively empty carriage and the mother spoke earnestly, proudly.
And then her little daughter started to sing loudly. A folk song, tuneful, painful, singing in that way children do when they are trying to impress, the words interspersed with quick gasps of breath.
The boy made his way through the carriage with paper cup. And the carriage silently cringed and convulsed as we sat, locked in, as the girl sang and the boy looked accusingly into our eyes and we, especially we mothers, smiled and shook our heads at the boy and felt useless and helpless, enraged that a mother should put her children up to this and horrified that she felt she should have no option but to do so. Or had someone else forced her into it?
The couple opposite, elderly, start a quiet argument after the man pops a couple of cents into the boy's cup. The woman chastises him. She thinks it will merely encourage them. He lifts his palms upwards from his knees and shrugs his shoulders in that universal 'what can you do?' gesture.
How do you choose? Who do you choose?
Do you look at the smiling, jolly man playing Boccherini on the violin near the European Parliament and think, 'Well, at least you're doing something, at least your earning it, making an effort!'....and then ignore the weary, bleary, dishevelled chap near the butcher's with his crutches, his long hair and his paper cup because he's just sitting there...?? Is he not trying hard enough?
What about the couple who stand outside the Delhaize supermarket on Anspach, as if they have been posted there on guard, watching you as you walk in, watching you as you walk out, watching as you guiltily hurry past, laden.
What about the men who lie pathetically in an almost comatose state surrounded by beer cans at the entrance to the Carrefour?
What about the pile of bodies huddled together for warmth, motionless, sleeping a few hundred yards from the great cruciform that is the European Commission.
Every city knows this shame. This misery.
And those rushing from here to there, those with work to get to, a job to do, another sight to see, an errand to run learn to side-step, to ignore, to watch the pavement.......learn the shame of turning the other cheek.
Links:
http://www.euronews.net/2012/02/03/brussels-homeless-battle-big-freeze/
http://www.servethecity.be/brussels/
Was he raging at himself? At life? At his God? I couldn't follow his tirade. The tourists just pretended he wasn't there, carried on strolling the wet cobbles, snapping the vast baroque frontage of the church behind him.
He lay there for full minutes, shouting, at the top of his voice, disturbed, gutteral, hoarse, his right arm raised, forefinger jabbing upwards into the mizzly air that had sucked all colour from the city. The bench must have been wet.
Then, as suddenly as he started, he stopped. His arm flopped down acoss his chest, and he lay there in silence.
Slowly he pulled himself up, swungs his legs to the floor and leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees.
He walked tall when he got up; ignored the woman begging a few feet away from him - all big skirts, patched jacket, shawl and headscarf, with her paper cup. He paid a call at the pissoir at the side of the church then walked around the corner and disappeared from view.
And it was as if he was never there.
I think he was one of this city's lost souls. One of the wraiths who live and die on these streets as we go about our business.
On the way to the No 38 bus stop just near the flat and post office there is a kind of nook where a nail bar meets the back of the BNP Paribas bank.
Actually, to call it a nook suggests a prettiness it doesn't deserve. It's a concrete corner all ugly angles, stained pavements and bad smells.
In there, barely sheltered from the wet, saturated morning, was a man, abed, fast asleep. His dirty double duvet and once-pink cellular blanket were opened out to their fullest, his form all lumps and bumps beneath it, his head on a stained roll-mat, his nose and whiskers the only flesh visible between duvet and pulled-low woollen hat. Was his back on bare concrete?
His presence was a shock. Like some crude, Emin-type art installation. It was the blatantness of his pitch, the amount of space he'd taken. He must have know when he laid down that he would get in the way, and known as well that we'd all circumnavigate him. Almost step over him.
Everyone pretended he wasn't there.
The vagrancy here is so obvious, so unashamed, the begging so....polite. The women in church doorways with their paper cups pour blessings as you walk inside and as you exit; the man who gets on your tube carriage, spends several minutes politely explaining to you that he's hungry, homeless, jobless and will now sing to you on your journey.
And he does, he sings, and I don't know what courage or desperation it has taken for him to do this.
Then afterwards he walks down the carriage, holding his paper cup, and we all look down, away, those with the escape of headphones close their eyes to fake concentration on music or we gaze out of the dirty windows finding interest in the blackness of the tunnel. Anything rather than meet the desperation in his eye. We feel a mix of shame, anger, irritation that he has dared to intrude on our journey. We'd all just rather he went away. It's embarrassing.
On another day this happens, only it's worse. A mother and her two chldren. An eastern European family, I think. The mother's age impossible to tell, but she is young. The children impossible to ignore: beautiful, upright, unaware, unafraid. They got on at the far end of our relatively empty carriage and the mother spoke earnestly, proudly.
And then her little daughter started to sing loudly. A folk song, tuneful, painful, singing in that way children do when they are trying to impress, the words interspersed with quick gasps of breath.
The boy made his way through the carriage with paper cup. And the carriage silently cringed and convulsed as we sat, locked in, as the girl sang and the boy looked accusingly into our eyes and we, especially we mothers, smiled and shook our heads at the boy and felt useless and helpless, enraged that a mother should put her children up to this and horrified that she felt she should have no option but to do so. Or had someone else forced her into it?
The couple opposite, elderly, start a quiet argument after the man pops a couple of cents into the boy's cup. The woman chastises him. She thinks it will merely encourage them. He lifts his palms upwards from his knees and shrugs his shoulders in that universal 'what can you do?' gesture.
How do you choose? Who do you choose?
Do you look at the smiling, jolly man playing Boccherini on the violin near the European Parliament and think, 'Well, at least you're doing something, at least your earning it, making an effort!'....and then ignore the weary, bleary, dishevelled chap near the butcher's with his crutches, his long hair and his paper cup because he's just sitting there...?? Is he not trying hard enough?
What about the couple who stand outside the Delhaize supermarket on Anspach, as if they have been posted there on guard, watching you as you walk in, watching you as you walk out, watching as you guiltily hurry past, laden.
What about the men who lie pathetically in an almost comatose state surrounded by beer cans at the entrance to the Carrefour?
What about the pile of bodies huddled together for warmth, motionless, sleeping a few hundred yards from the great cruciform that is the European Commission.
Every city knows this shame. This misery.
And those rushing from here to there, those with work to get to, a job to do, another sight to see, an errand to run learn to side-step, to ignore, to watch the pavement.......learn the shame of turning the other cheek.
Links:
http://www.euronews.net/2012/02/03/brussels-homeless-battle-big-freeze/
http://www.servethecity.be/brussels/
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Quartet, Pastels & Flats
Dear Thomas
It was an odd time for a recital, in my view
But clearly I was the only one to think so.
The Bozar (Palais Des Beaux-Arts) was thrumming with chatter as people sat for an 11am peformance of Haydn* and Debussy** by an 'up-and-coming' quartet, the Quatuor Modigliani - an impossibly young, impossibly talented, impossibly handsome foursome, who played exquisitely.
The audience had paid just €8 for the privilege. It was a mix of older types - the women all chignons, lippy and eyeshadow, the men jacketed but casual; smart teenagers (they get out of bed before mid-day here!??) and families: mums and dads with children, with their very young children.
This amazed me.
Who takes a toddler to a classical music concert? Who would dare? Certainly not me. Certainly not anyone I know! (I imagine Tom how you would have offered your own unique, loud, fulsome accompaniment...).
But note this, no-one batted an eyelid.
And note this too, these were miracle children. These were children who sat, watched, listened...in silence!
I watched one toddler sitting on her father's knee a few seats away. A full hour she sat, quietly, not taking her eyes off the musicians on the stage. Occasionally she looked about her, snuggled in a little, but her attention never wavered.
Another child, seated at the front, was similarly behaved. Only one much tinier tot, made gentle coos during the Debussy, and no-one minded. No crisp packets, no sweets, no fidgeting, no complaining.
I was reminded of a book published recently detailing the differences in the behaviour of children on the continent, especially the French (good) compared with the behaviour of those in the UK (bad).
Was I seeing the evidence? Not sure. But I wanted to ask the parents their secret, then bottle it and sell it, maybe.
Later we strolled along Rue Neuve. The shop windows full of pastels; pastels, cropped trousers and long, patterned, summery scarves.
Just walking into these overheated emporiums and seeing spring/summer collections transforms the spirit somehow, fast-forwards these last wintry weeks, catapults the casual browser into May, to June!
I run my fingers through oranges, pinks, lemons (none of these colours actually suit me by the way), grimace as I hold them against me in front of the mirror, but imagine that one day, ONE DAY, it might actually get warm enough to wear this sort of thing....
Oh to wear pretty things, instead of boots and jumpers, instead of this sweater, knitted on Mull to keep the Western Isles gales at bay, which has been worn so often since I got here that the sleeves now hang about three inches off my fingertips.
To think that some day soon we might all discard our hats and gloves and instead waft through the city bare-armed, basking....
A work colleague told me he imagined that once I got to Brussels I'd 'go all continental' and become 'that type of woman who wears scarves'.
I snorted at him, but he was right. He was! Though I don't imagine when he said it he was thinking of a long woollen job wrapped 10 times around the head to stop nose dropping off from frostbite.
We all looked the same during the recent 'grand froid': a population united in thermals. On the tube we were a gang of robbers on a bank job - only our face coverings were more cable-knit and bobble than balaclava.
Still, it is milder by the day and each morn the sun comes up a little earlier, rises that bit higher and stays that bit longer.
We have settled on a flat, at last! It is in a green part of the city near a park and the Ixelles 'ponds' which, when we visited last week, were a skating rink of swans, ducks and geese (canada, greylag and egyptian).
We had lost a good flat only the week before because we didn't understand the 'system' properly. This time we got lucky.
To call it a penthouse would be to make it sound grand and it isn't grand, so we'll call it what it is: a top-floor flat in a seven-storey building.
It is small, just 80sq m to call home but the lounge is flooded with light, the terrace faces south, I can see lots of trees and (a bonus!)two shreeky parakeets flew overhead as we looked at it. Four good reasons to sign on the dotted line.
It's far from posh, the spec isn't anywhere near as 'finished' as other places we've seen. But when you know it's the one, it's the one. It is also significantly under the meagre budget!
Now we wait for our British removal firm to liaise with their 'European arm' and hopefully, we'll be moving in towards the end of March.
I don't want to be in on moving day. The prospect of all our precious stuff being hauled seven floors on an external lift through an open window..!
I'm already day-dreaming about curtains, hangings, cushions...there's a shop I pass often on the busy Anspach road. It's called Maisons Du Monde. It's bit Dunelm meets The Pier and it's all cushions, curtains, glassware, lighting, chenile throws and those Buddah heads (miniature, life-size and gigantic, super Buddah!) and I wander round it, planning.
Meanwhile our little Chesterfield home is finally rented. At last. They seem good people. They have young children who visit every weekend and they want to teach them to play our piano.
I hope they love our little home.
Xxx
* Joseph Haydn: Streichquartett, op.76/1, Hob. III:75
** Claude Debussy: Quatuor a cordes, op.10
It was an odd time for a recital, in my view
But clearly I was the only one to think so.
The Bozar (Palais Des Beaux-Arts) was thrumming with chatter as people sat for an 11am peformance of Haydn* and Debussy** by an 'up-and-coming' quartet, the Quatuor Modigliani - an impossibly young, impossibly talented, impossibly handsome foursome, who played exquisitely.
The audience had paid just €8 for the privilege. It was a mix of older types - the women all chignons, lippy and eyeshadow, the men jacketed but casual; smart teenagers (they get out of bed before mid-day here!??) and families: mums and dads with children, with their very young children.
This amazed me.
Who takes a toddler to a classical music concert? Who would dare? Certainly not me. Certainly not anyone I know! (I imagine Tom how you would have offered your own unique, loud, fulsome accompaniment...).
But note this, no-one batted an eyelid.
And note this too, these were miracle children. These were children who sat, watched, listened...in silence!
I watched one toddler sitting on her father's knee a few seats away. A full hour she sat, quietly, not taking her eyes off the musicians on the stage. Occasionally she looked about her, snuggled in a little, but her attention never wavered.
Another child, seated at the front, was similarly behaved. Only one much tinier tot, made gentle coos during the Debussy, and no-one minded. No crisp packets, no sweets, no fidgeting, no complaining.
I was reminded of a book published recently detailing the differences in the behaviour of children on the continent, especially the French (good) compared with the behaviour of those in the UK (bad).
Was I seeing the evidence? Not sure. But I wanted to ask the parents their secret, then bottle it and sell it, maybe.
Later we strolled along Rue Neuve. The shop windows full of pastels; pastels, cropped trousers and long, patterned, summery scarves.
Just walking into these overheated emporiums and seeing spring/summer collections transforms the spirit somehow, fast-forwards these last wintry weeks, catapults the casual browser into May, to June!
I run my fingers through oranges, pinks, lemons (none of these colours actually suit me by the way), grimace as I hold them against me in front of the mirror, but imagine that one day, ONE DAY, it might actually get warm enough to wear this sort of thing....
Oh to wear pretty things, instead of boots and jumpers, instead of this sweater, knitted on Mull to keep the Western Isles gales at bay, which has been worn so often since I got here that the sleeves now hang about three inches off my fingertips.
To think that some day soon we might all discard our hats and gloves and instead waft through the city bare-armed, basking....
A work colleague told me he imagined that once I got to Brussels I'd 'go all continental' and become 'that type of woman who wears scarves'.
I snorted at him, but he was right. He was! Though I don't imagine when he said it he was thinking of a long woollen job wrapped 10 times around the head to stop nose dropping off from frostbite.
We all looked the same during the recent 'grand froid': a population united in thermals. On the tube we were a gang of robbers on a bank job - only our face coverings were more cable-knit and bobble than balaclava.
Still, it is milder by the day and each morn the sun comes up a little earlier, rises that bit higher and stays that bit longer.
We have settled on a flat, at last! It is in a green part of the city near a park and the Ixelles 'ponds' which, when we visited last week, were a skating rink of swans, ducks and geese (canada, greylag and egyptian).
We had lost a good flat only the week before because we didn't understand the 'system' properly. This time we got lucky.
To call it a penthouse would be to make it sound grand and it isn't grand, so we'll call it what it is: a top-floor flat in a seven-storey building.
It is small, just 80sq m to call home but the lounge is flooded with light, the terrace faces south, I can see lots of trees and (a bonus!)two shreeky parakeets flew overhead as we looked at it. Four good reasons to sign on the dotted line.
It's far from posh, the spec isn't anywhere near as 'finished' as other places we've seen. But when you know it's the one, it's the one. It is also significantly under the meagre budget!
Now we wait for our British removal firm to liaise with their 'European arm' and hopefully, we'll be moving in towards the end of March.
I don't want to be in on moving day. The prospect of all our precious stuff being hauled seven floors on an external lift through an open window..!
I'm already day-dreaming about curtains, hangings, cushions...there's a shop I pass often on the busy Anspach road. It's called Maisons Du Monde. It's bit Dunelm meets The Pier and it's all cushions, curtains, glassware, lighting, chenile throws and those Buddah heads (miniature, life-size and gigantic, super Buddah!) and I wander round it, planning.
Meanwhile our little Chesterfield home is finally rented. At last. They seem good people. They have young children who visit every weekend and they want to teach them to play our piano.
I hope they love our little home.
Xxx
* Joseph Haydn: Streichquartett, op.76/1, Hob. III:75
** Claude Debussy: Quatuor a cordes, op.10
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
A Long-ish Walk
Dear Thomas,
It's not been as I imagined, so far.
To think, in my head it was all museums, French lessons, aimless but tranquil wanderings, peace, yoga, a blissful doing of nothing.
Not so. Well, not yet, anyhow.
I'm not settled, not by a long shot - incredibly restless actually.
I'm not sure why this is. I think part of me still feels like it's a holiday - living out of a suitcase (because there's nowhere else in this flat to put my pathetically small set of clothes!) and maybe subconsciously I'm still waiting, perhaps, for someone to tell me it's time to go home. A bit of new life jetlag? Could be.
I need my things with me. My stuff, the stuff that is me.
I need your things too (not all your things - just the bits and pieces that show you really did exist and I didn't invent you).
Also, frankly, this flat is neither suitable nor appropriate for long-term living. I adore the view - the setting really couldn't be more stunning - but it isn't a home. The kitchen doesn't really work, the bed doesn't fit in the bedroom; the bathroom, well, let's not go there, and the staircase? Woah - you take your life in your hands every time you descend those 50-odd precipitous spiral steps!
And so we are flat hunting in earnest....which isn't easy in a city you don't know at all.
You listen to word-of-mouth, you study the expat sites, but when all an estate agent puts in his advert is a picture of a washing maching, or a table with a vase on it and doesn't really give any other details at all, you really have no choice but to go and see for yourself. It is, therefore, incredibly time-consuming.
Still, there's no better way to get to know a city and find your way about.
Yesterday I walked 8km to view a place. I could have taken public transport - the way buses, trams and tubes link in with each other really is exceptional - but I argued with myself (I do that a lot) that walking would be a good way of getting a firm grip on the city. After all, it always bugs me about London that I never know where anything is in relation to anything else, because you travel like a mole, dropping down into an abyss in Kennington then snuffling back up again and 'Hey, It's Madame Tussauds!'
I passed the cathedral during bell-ringing practice, skirted the environs of the European Parliament and onwards and onwards, past the vast, intimidating European Commmission building and then into the beautiful Parc Du Cinquaintenaire.
The sudden change of pace, the vivid absence of street noise was delightful. Birdsong, at last.
Parakeets, emerald green with vibrant red beaks were shrieky, flashing among the bare branches, and gloriously unexpected; great tits, blue tits, a blackbird (hopping and listening, hopping and listening, still not ready to sing); crows wheeling, pigeon wings clapping, starlings doing that whistling thing they do.
I sat for a bit, just to listen, watch, and breath a little. The air is warmer now and having left the flat in multiple layers with hat, scarf and gloves, it was a chance to catch a cool breeze and, literally, chill, for a moment.
At the far end of the park, after passing underneath the huge triumphal arch and the sweeping u-shaped buildings of the museums is a lake with a fountain.
Unlike other water features which were shut down during the recent 'grand froid' this one was still in operation and, every few minutes or so, it shot forth a jet of water high into the air, smaller mini jets spewing at an angle all around it.
Ice had taken a hold at the base: great lumps and bumps of it, like a strange collapsing dessert. As the water streamed out there was a kind of subterranean clunking, clocking, blocking sound, as if big chuncks of ice were being knocked together by the force of the water.
Those of us watching - and listening - stood for longer than we might have, convinced, I think, that the whole thing was about to blow its top.
Back into the frenzy of Brussels city traffic and across countless roads and junctions, never knowing whether anything will stop when you pop your foot onto a zebra crossing. It's always a bit fraught when, no matter how hard you think, your brain still won't remember at the crucial moment which way to look for oncoming traffic.
The same pedestrian crossing system applies here, but whereas in the UK we have the 'beeps' of the little green man, over here the signposts emit an almost mechanical-sounding 'tinck tinck tinck tinck' when it's not safe to cross, turning to a frantic, tinny, 'tickertickertickerticker' when the traffic stops.
Woluwe St Pierre was the destination - a beautiful town/suburb. But it dawned pretty quickly during my route march as blisters started to form that this wouldn't be for us: simply too far away from the city centre.
Didn't I realise that when looking at the map??? Well yes, probably, but I wanted to explore and be sure.
After viewing the flat - beautiful inside but quite gloomy and, I'm sorry, me and the estate agent clearly have differing views on what constitutes a terrace (this was little more than a concrete windowsill) - I walked to the market square where the friterie was doing brisk business. Then, as the heavens opened, I dropped down into the Metro.
I think the people running the underground that day couldn't quite decide between hailing the singer Adele's success at the Grammy's or mourning Whitney Houston's tragic demise. So they opted for both: underground celebration and commiseration.
Each time the doors opened at the different stations between Stockel and St Catherine we were greeted by either 'Someone Like You' or 'I Will Always Love You' on a gush of warm air.
The former got a group of young teenage girls singing along to each other - English in a glorious French accent.
The latter quite got to me.
It's mawkish I know. But hearing it at this time of the year - when the 12th marks your death and the 16th your birth - well, we all put our own meaning on lyrics to suit the occasion, don't we Tomble?
xxxx
It's not been as I imagined, so far.
To think, in my head it was all museums, French lessons, aimless but tranquil wanderings, peace, yoga, a blissful doing of nothing.
Not so. Well, not yet, anyhow.
I'm not settled, not by a long shot - incredibly restless actually.
I'm not sure why this is. I think part of me still feels like it's a holiday - living out of a suitcase (because there's nowhere else in this flat to put my pathetically small set of clothes!) and maybe subconsciously I'm still waiting, perhaps, for someone to tell me it's time to go home. A bit of new life jetlag? Could be.
I need my things with me. My stuff, the stuff that is me.
I need your things too (not all your things - just the bits and pieces that show you really did exist and I didn't invent you).
Also, frankly, this flat is neither suitable nor appropriate for long-term living. I adore the view - the setting really couldn't be more stunning - but it isn't a home. The kitchen doesn't really work, the bed doesn't fit in the bedroom; the bathroom, well, let's not go there, and the staircase? Woah - you take your life in your hands every time you descend those 50-odd precipitous spiral steps!
And so we are flat hunting in earnest....which isn't easy in a city you don't know at all.
You listen to word-of-mouth, you study the expat sites, but when all an estate agent puts in his advert is a picture of a washing maching, or a table with a vase on it and doesn't really give any other details at all, you really have no choice but to go and see for yourself. It is, therefore, incredibly time-consuming.
Still, there's no better way to get to know a city and find your way about.
Yesterday I walked 8km to view a place. I could have taken public transport - the way buses, trams and tubes link in with each other really is exceptional - but I argued with myself (I do that a lot) that walking would be a good way of getting a firm grip on the city. After all, it always bugs me about London that I never know where anything is in relation to anything else, because you travel like a mole, dropping down into an abyss in Kennington then snuffling back up again and 'Hey, It's Madame Tussauds!'
I passed the cathedral during bell-ringing practice, skirted the environs of the European Parliament and onwards and onwards, past the vast, intimidating European Commmission building and then into the beautiful Parc Du Cinquaintenaire.
The sudden change of pace, the vivid absence of street noise was delightful. Birdsong, at last.
Parakeets, emerald green with vibrant red beaks were shrieky, flashing among the bare branches, and gloriously unexpected; great tits, blue tits, a blackbird (hopping and listening, hopping and listening, still not ready to sing); crows wheeling, pigeon wings clapping, starlings doing that whistling thing they do.
I sat for a bit, just to listen, watch, and breath a little. The air is warmer now and having left the flat in multiple layers with hat, scarf and gloves, it was a chance to catch a cool breeze and, literally, chill, for a moment.
At the far end of the park, after passing underneath the huge triumphal arch and the sweeping u-shaped buildings of the museums is a lake with a fountain.
Unlike other water features which were shut down during the recent 'grand froid' this one was still in operation and, every few minutes or so, it shot forth a jet of water high into the air, smaller mini jets spewing at an angle all around it.
Ice had taken a hold at the base: great lumps and bumps of it, like a strange collapsing dessert. As the water streamed out there was a kind of subterranean clunking, clocking, blocking sound, as if big chuncks of ice were being knocked together by the force of the water.
Those of us watching - and listening - stood for longer than we might have, convinced, I think, that the whole thing was about to blow its top.
Back into the frenzy of Brussels city traffic and across countless roads and junctions, never knowing whether anything will stop when you pop your foot onto a zebra crossing. It's always a bit fraught when, no matter how hard you think, your brain still won't remember at the crucial moment which way to look for oncoming traffic.
The same pedestrian crossing system applies here, but whereas in the UK we have the 'beeps' of the little green man, over here the signposts emit an almost mechanical-sounding 'tinck tinck tinck tinck' when it's not safe to cross, turning to a frantic, tinny, 'tickertickertickerticker' when the traffic stops.
Woluwe St Pierre was the destination - a beautiful town/suburb. But it dawned pretty quickly during my route march as blisters started to form that this wouldn't be for us: simply too far away from the city centre.
Didn't I realise that when looking at the map??? Well yes, probably, but I wanted to explore and be sure.
After viewing the flat - beautiful inside but quite gloomy and, I'm sorry, me and the estate agent clearly have differing views on what constitutes a terrace (this was little more than a concrete windowsill) - I walked to the market square where the friterie was doing brisk business. Then, as the heavens opened, I dropped down into the Metro.
I think the people running the underground that day couldn't quite decide between hailing the singer Adele's success at the Grammy's or mourning Whitney Houston's tragic demise. So they opted for both: underground celebration and commiseration.
Each time the doors opened at the different stations between Stockel and St Catherine we were greeted by either 'Someone Like You' or 'I Will Always Love You' on a gush of warm air.
The former got a group of young teenage girls singing along to each other - English in a glorious French accent.
The latter quite got to me.
It's mawkish I know. But hearing it at this time of the year - when the 12th marks your death and the 16th your birth - well, we all put our own meaning on lyrics to suit the occasion, don't we Tomble?
xxxx
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Today is Day 2...
Dear Thomas,
This is Day 2.
Day 2 is better than Day 1.
Day 1 was all soggy tissues, tangled blankets, feverish cold mixed with a sense of absolute loss I haven't felt in a long time.
Which is strange when you think of all the good things before me.
Change is tough. Some adapt to it easily - but for most of us, well, it takes a bit longer.
And I suppose leaving your job, moving house and saying goodbye to home, family and country all in such a short space of time was always going to knock an amount of stuffing out.
And so we'll write off Day 1. I don't care to dwell on it.
Now, today! Today I have held conversations in French with the concierge, Fawnzi (I know! Though the resemblance to the '70s TV star ends there!), I have whirled like a dervish with dusters, limescale remover and multi-surface cleaner and I have partaken of a simple lunch. Now that's progress!
I have heard footsteps on the stairs as neighbours have come and gone, but have not yet ventured out to say hello. Feeling, idiotically, a bit wraith-like, I have wandered from room to room, feeling not quite here. 'This is it', I keep telling myself, 'this really is it'...but part of me isn't listening. Part of me won't compute.
Outside, the sky over our cobbled square is that sharp, hard-frost blue and the sun makes long shadows on the impossibly-grand church making it stand out more sharply somehow, as if in high-definition.
There is a huge flock of pigeons wheeling across the sky. Round and Round, their shadows flashing across the buildings, round and round until they settle on a ledge, all in a line - a long line! - on the old hospital building across, to the left, from us. They are hassled by crows and fly off again en masse before settling as before.
Below, in the square, everyone is wrapped, bobble-hatted, booted and brisk.
Brussels beckons. And at some point I will find the 'courage' (spoken in French accent, of course) to venture out and do things like open a bank account, buy a phone and some light bulbs, order chocolate chaud, sit in the Grand Place and watch the world go by.
That all feels a bit beyond me at the moment for some reason. For now much smaller steps are required. I have mended the shower and, most importantly, have found out how to stream reassuring, comfortable, solid Radio 4.
I think they call it nesting Thomas.
All is calm at last. The fact that I'm writing to you, on Day 2, is testament to that.
Xxxx
This is Day 2.
Day 2 is better than Day 1.
Day 1 was all soggy tissues, tangled blankets, feverish cold mixed with a sense of absolute loss I haven't felt in a long time.
Which is strange when you think of all the good things before me.
Change is tough. Some adapt to it easily - but for most of us, well, it takes a bit longer.
And I suppose leaving your job, moving house and saying goodbye to home, family and country all in such a short space of time was always going to knock an amount of stuffing out.
And so we'll write off Day 1. I don't care to dwell on it.
Now, today! Today I have held conversations in French with the concierge, Fawnzi (I know! Though the resemblance to the '70s TV star ends there!), I have whirled like a dervish with dusters, limescale remover and multi-surface cleaner and I have partaken of a simple lunch. Now that's progress!
I have heard footsteps on the stairs as neighbours have come and gone, but have not yet ventured out to say hello. Feeling, idiotically, a bit wraith-like, I have wandered from room to room, feeling not quite here. 'This is it', I keep telling myself, 'this really is it'...but part of me isn't listening. Part of me won't compute.
Outside, the sky over our cobbled square is that sharp, hard-frost blue and the sun makes long shadows on the impossibly-grand church making it stand out more sharply somehow, as if in high-definition.
There is a huge flock of pigeons wheeling across the sky. Round and Round, their shadows flashing across the buildings, round and round until they settle on a ledge, all in a line - a long line! - on the old hospital building across, to the left, from us. They are hassled by crows and fly off again en masse before settling as before.
Below, in the square, everyone is wrapped, bobble-hatted, booted and brisk.
Brussels beckons. And at some point I will find the 'courage' (spoken in French accent, of course) to venture out and do things like open a bank account, buy a phone and some light bulbs, order chocolate chaud, sit in the Grand Place and watch the world go by.
That all feels a bit beyond me at the moment for some reason. For now much smaller steps are required. I have mended the shower and, most importantly, have found out how to stream reassuring, comfortable, solid Radio 4.
I think they call it nesting Thomas.
All is calm at last. The fact that I'm writing to you, on Day 2, is testament to that.
Xxxx
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Mobile Memories...
Dear Thomas
That a mobile phone could be so precious...
So precious I was jittery taking it out of its cardboard box and plugging it in. Relieved, too, to see that it actually worked - the home screen lighting up, the 'battery charging' logo flashing.
After all this time.
Well, not so much time, really. Coming up to four years. Long enough.
I'd faffed about for a bit, not really sure whether I should leave it where it was, safely wrapped in a handkerchief, packed in a plastic bag, wedged in a square box that once held a watch.
But, decision made, I went delving among your videos, your books, the letters and cards - so many cards - your woolly black hat (the one you were wearing the day before...), your CDs, to find it and bring it back to life.
I left it while it got on with charging, made a cup of tea, ironed, kept returning to see if it was 'ready' yet.
Such a significant little phone.
Full of you - photographs and videos quickly, urgently, downloaded from it in the weeks after you left. I had become completely irrational, convinced they would 'wear out' if I looked at them on the screen too often. They weren't safe there.
I remember frantic calls to the phone supplier asking for replacement USB cables and the like, and a genuine feeling that I was racing against time, somehow, to save these last little pieces of you.
Now, of course there isn't a computer, laptop or memory stick in the house that isn't packed with those same images, those precious, precious photos and the videos that, in the darkest times, when I wonder whether you existed at all, show you so full of life and happiness and fun.
I kept the phone as a link to your life, I suppose. After all, I'd held that camera up and it had looked at you with its eye and captured you - a sort of physical connection then, between then and now, if that makes sense.
Anyway, button pressed, phone unlocked, it eagerly pinged into being after its almost-four-years hibernation and you, in turn, pinged on to the homescreen. You on a pebbly beach in Mull.
Tap tap, Scroll, Menu-File Manager-Images: and there they are, 141 of them. Photos. All you. Then videos - 18 in total. On the Isle of Mull Little Railway, with all of us being silly in that big daft holiday home, plinking on the piano, walking in the park.
Don't need to look. Just good to know they're still there. In their original box.
And suddenly, stupidly, I recalled another reason I'd kept it. Not just for the pictures or the videos.
Scroll, Menu-Messages-Inbox.
The first one had arrived at 2.24pm, February 12, 2008. Just a few hours after the ambulanceman had walked from your bedroom, taken my hands in his and told me there was no hope.
A message from someone close who had heard.
I remember being shocked at the speed that the news had travelled and moved that the sender had taken the trouble, had been brave enough, to get in touch.
Then came another and another.
And as police and coroners' officers and funeral directors came and went they kept coming.
It was only later that I read them properly. And then I devoured them. Voices from across a deep, wide canyon. Me on one side, sliding into darkness, they on the other, pulling me back.
Friends, colleagues, many close, but some from people I barely knew.
And most poignantly, as I read them now, a message from a colleague, a wonderful chap, a business editor on my old paper, who is now no longer with us.
Then, inevitably, I looked at the 'sent' messages - my replies, sent days later but preserved here too.
They are harder to read now.
They are broken.
They remind me of those early days and weeks.
The blackness, the loss, aching empty, empty arms. You just weren't there anymore, I couldn't find you and nothing made sense....
I put the phone down after reading them all and had to sit for a time.
How did we survive? I have no idea.
On hands and knees until we had the strength to sit, bent double until we had the strength to stand.....
We are, after all, programmed to survive. I realise that now.
Yet my own words on a mobile phone from nearly four years ago are proof, I suppose, that it does get better.
I never imagined it would.
I'll keep the messages. Even the ones that almost catapulted me backwards. I suppose because they've made me realise how far I've come since then.
You learn to live again, Thomas.
You don't know it's happening,
But you do...
xxx
That a mobile phone could be so precious...
So precious I was jittery taking it out of its cardboard box and plugging it in. Relieved, too, to see that it actually worked - the home screen lighting up, the 'battery charging' logo flashing.
After all this time.
Well, not so much time, really. Coming up to four years. Long enough.
I'd faffed about for a bit, not really sure whether I should leave it where it was, safely wrapped in a handkerchief, packed in a plastic bag, wedged in a square box that once held a watch.
But, decision made, I went delving among your videos, your books, the letters and cards - so many cards - your woolly black hat (the one you were wearing the day before...), your CDs, to find it and bring it back to life.
I left it while it got on with charging, made a cup of tea, ironed, kept returning to see if it was 'ready' yet.
Such a significant little phone.
Full of you - photographs and videos quickly, urgently, downloaded from it in the weeks after you left. I had become completely irrational, convinced they would 'wear out' if I looked at them on the screen too often. They weren't safe there.
I remember frantic calls to the phone supplier asking for replacement USB cables and the like, and a genuine feeling that I was racing against time, somehow, to save these last little pieces of you.
Now, of course there isn't a computer, laptop or memory stick in the house that isn't packed with those same images, those precious, precious photos and the videos that, in the darkest times, when I wonder whether you existed at all, show you so full of life and happiness and fun.
I kept the phone as a link to your life, I suppose. After all, I'd held that camera up and it had looked at you with its eye and captured you - a sort of physical connection then, between then and now, if that makes sense.
Anyway, button pressed, phone unlocked, it eagerly pinged into being after its almost-four-years hibernation and you, in turn, pinged on to the homescreen. You on a pebbly beach in Mull.
Tap tap, Scroll, Menu-File Manager-Images: and there they are, 141 of them. Photos. All you. Then videos - 18 in total. On the Isle of Mull Little Railway, with all of us being silly in that big daft holiday home, plinking on the piano, walking in the park.
Don't need to look. Just good to know they're still there. In their original box.
And suddenly, stupidly, I recalled another reason I'd kept it. Not just for the pictures or the videos.
Scroll, Menu-Messages-Inbox.
The first one had arrived at 2.24pm, February 12, 2008. Just a few hours after the ambulanceman had walked from your bedroom, taken my hands in his and told me there was no hope.
A message from someone close who had heard.
I remember being shocked at the speed that the news had travelled and moved that the sender had taken the trouble, had been brave enough, to get in touch.
Then came another and another.
And as police and coroners' officers and funeral directors came and went they kept coming.
It was only later that I read them properly. And then I devoured them. Voices from across a deep, wide canyon. Me on one side, sliding into darkness, they on the other, pulling me back.
Friends, colleagues, many close, but some from people I barely knew.
And most poignantly, as I read them now, a message from a colleague, a wonderful chap, a business editor on my old paper, who is now no longer with us.
Then, inevitably, I looked at the 'sent' messages - my replies, sent days later but preserved here too.
They are harder to read now.
They are broken.
They remind me of those early days and weeks.
The blackness, the loss, aching empty, empty arms. You just weren't there anymore, I couldn't find you and nothing made sense....
I put the phone down after reading them all and had to sit for a time.
How did we survive? I have no idea.
On hands and knees until we had the strength to sit, bent double until we had the strength to stand.....
We are, after all, programmed to survive. I realise that now.
Yet my own words on a mobile phone from nearly four years ago are proof, I suppose, that it does get better.
I never imagined it would.
I'll keep the messages. Even the ones that almost catapulted me backwards. I suppose because they've made me realise how far I've come since then.
You learn to live again, Thomas.
You don't know it's happening,
But you do...
xxx
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