The Delightful Smells of Antwerp & Summer Prospect

Dear Sisters,
Taking L's helpful comment cue, if you press here you will see a webcam on the national maritime school showing a view of Antwerp from across the river. I like the wriggling bushes, it doesn't seem real. Maybe it's a trick! But if you go back regularly you will see the river falls and rises, just like a mood. On windy days you can smell the sewage Brussels has dumped in.

On other days it smells more sweetly. On all days it is a place of solace and of rest, I think because the eye does well to have a horizon to gaze upon and this is the next best thing to being by the sea. In the distance you see windmills and churches and you wonder what time you are in. Antwerp really maintains some of its 16th/17th century charm. If you know where to find it. I hear it in the bells that sound a little ditty tune every fifteen minutes or so, outside my window; of which more, later.

Especially beautiful on the river is when you see the seagulls floating backwards on the current as the sunlight flickers off its ripply surface; lots of interlocking, simultaneous and different movements.

For some reason these days Antwerp smells like tar. I don't know where it is coming from. I went to the park yesterday - testing my ace new second hand bicycle - which is near the ring and smelt the fine dust of diesel wafting over which disturbed me in my reclining mode whilst I was studying the bugs crawling over me in the sweet smelling moist and bushy ultragreen grass. I then moved on, amongst the trees, and there the air and breeze enveloped me most peacefully as I was riding high amongst the leaves.

Today I am sitting peacefully upon my window's ledge on two cushions piled high and careful not to fall down, working on a text, it is so nice to get paid to read interesting things, and at times observing the microcosm of other people's lives in the gardens below. I have a view of two couples who very clearly really love each other. This is nice! Looking forward to sharing some Normandy views with you.
Love from S2




This is a picture from another city that has bitten me, and won't seem to let go. It is taken on the Galata bridge, over the Golden Horn in Istanbul. When you look to your left you see Europe. On your right you see Asia, with its golden domes of mosques all over the hills ablaze in the setting sunlight. Many a person has lost their heart to this city and I am also not immune. Tot ziens zussen!