Antwerp has 165 different cultures living within its city limits, and mostly we all do okay.
I love the vibrancy of the cultural mix ... riding the tram is like wandering the world. To me, this foreign creature who found herself living here ... being Belgian stands for so many things but on the good days it’s all about a this tribe of people who have a huge degree of tolerance and acceptance of the other.
The temperature rose unexpectedly today ... unexpectedly because I had imagined summer was done and autumn was here. It’s at least 23 celsius as I sit here in the garden, as per instructions from Gert. He told me to take the laptop outside and work in the sun, using the small table he bought me for precisely that purpose. He said ‘rest’ and so here I am, sure that my neighbours, the ancient man and his lovely wife, are wondering what on earth I am doing out here, with all of my gadgets. I brought my camera gear too ... just in case. The garden has poppies and sunflowers and all kinds of other things tempting me.
It was painful moving everything out here and I processed the sunflower image without really being able to see the screen. The roofers are a bit noisy just a few doors ... or rooftops away, although their music is good. Blaringly loud workman-style music, the same the world over I suspect, as the sound of it surely takes me back to the sound of my dad working as a fibrous plasterer or wallpaperer,out on a job. God only knows what toxins I’m breathing in as they weld their way across that rooftop but even that is the nature of Antwerp. You can be 110% sure you don’t want to know what you are breathing in in this city situated on the crossroads of Europe ...
Gert finally found one of our black garden toads the other day, so I guess its wondering what I’m doing out here too. We hadn’t seen them since the autumn but there he is, making his home in the compost heap Gert is developing up the back of his garden. The birdfeeder has been left empty since spring, as if we could have saved the elderberries from the wickedgreedy pigeons who have spent the summer gorging on them anyway.
And clearly I’ve made the delighttful discovery that I have wifi out here in the garden. I’m less happy about spiders, wasps and toads when it comes to gardens and more about wine, the laptop and flowers. Although today it will become more about painkillers or red wine sometime soon. I read that red wine really does ease arthritic joints and my joints have been honouring the high-impact motorbike crash back when I was 18 ... they creak on the stairs and ache in the cold. What’s that about then ...
Anyway, a little snapshot in words and image from this summertime day here in Belgium.
Sometimes, lovely friends pull you into the most magical experiences…
Dank u wel, Jurjana, for a day full of ancient wonders and beautiful photographs.
This photograph arrived, via Jurjana, just now and it made me smile. It’s rare that I am ‘in’ a photograph but I had to post it. There I am, in the midst of the archery guild members while they make their ancient toast, in the very old City Hall here in Antwerpen.
Photo credit goes to Tom Meeus.
Het Internationaal Schutterstornooi op de historische Grote Markt.
These guys were beautiful. They weren’t acting, they were just out there, in their archery and shooting guilds, competing.
On a good day, with a telephoto lens, this is the view from Antwerp’s town hall ... a beautiful ancient building here in the city of Antwerpen.
They say that it is clear that it was built by a city at the height of its power and wealth. It was finished in 1564 by architect Cornelis Floris de Vriendt and the interior decoration dates mostly from the 19th century, or so I am told. It was a good day.
And then I just had to photograph this man ...
I hope I have given it the right title. I can’t find anything in English, and these are new words in Nederlands, for me anyway.
