Closely Related to Chester

Marking the page

The packers arrive tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. As I look down from our flat to the avenue below I see that the police have already reserved a place for the removal van. This is the 17th flit of our married life.

This evening, as the sun streams through our window, at the end of a beautiful Spring Sunday, we are making our final choices of what to bring to Edinburgh and what to leave in Brussels.

In the beginning we were going to move everything of value. However last week we learned that, as a result of Brexit, we will have to pay VAT, Customs Duties and a customs charge on all the goods we take to the UK. So we have decided to leave our most expensive belongings in Belgium for the time being.

Among the books I found a copy of Kipling’s Jungle Books inscribed ‘Annie from R. October 3rd 1925’. Between pages 261 and 262 I found this picture, cut from a greetings card. On the back it says – ‘black headed shrike on bougainvillea. Drawing by the Rev B.C.R. Henry’

At the bottom corner you can see the year of the drawing is 1957. That is the year my Grandfather died. I have just read the first story entitled ‘Mowgli’s brothers’. We are introduced to Akela, Shere Khan, Baghera, Baloo – compelling stuff. I seem to recall that Gran read us these stories when we were young. Perhaps the marker shows that one of my grandparents was in the middle of reading the book when they died.

My grandsons Finn or Max are about the right age to appreciate these stories. I’ve just shown Finn the book on a phone call. As I thought he knows the film but doesn’t know the book. So this one is being added to the Edinburgh pile. I hope I’m not charged extra VAT because it is a first edition. I can’t wait to see my grandchildren again.

As a result of all our moves around the world we possess mountains of bits and pieces of things of little commercial value, but much sentimental value-added. Yet we have always found that the best moment in a move is when the packers have gone and the place is empty.

Eureka !

Yesterday I was clearing old photos and pictures, trying to decide what to take to Edinburgh and what to leave in Brussels. I found a Hanna family crest, and thought it would look well above the mantelpiece in my new house. However the frame was fairly battered, so I looked for another one to cannibalise. I found a suitably-sized framed photo of three grandsons at my daughter’s wedding. However much I love them all, it is not one of the most flattering images – one boy is crying, another looks bored, and the third is about to throw something at the camera. So I decided this particular moment in time could be conveniently forgotten, and the frame could instead reblazon the Hanna name. As I moved the boys out of the frame I had a sense of deja vu, and to my great joy, lying hidden underneath was a photo of my grandfather Robert Boyd.

Very Reverend R.H.Boyd, D.D. Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, 1947

I always intended to include this image of RHB in my book Voyages with my Grandfather, However when the time came for publication I searched high and low for the photo and could not find it. What finery ! Look at the lace, the degree hood, the tassels and even the buckle on the breeches – all the regalia of a Presbyterian moderator. RHB’s look is steadfast and confident. I’ll be packing this photo to show my grandchildren in Edinburgh. Boyd on one side of the mantelpiece, and Hanna on the other.

Arrivals and departures

On New Year’s day, Paola and I got up early to go for a walk. Neither of us enjoys staying up late to see in the New Year. So we did not mind this year’s restrictions on partying. Feeling suitably self-righteous we set off into Brussels by car at half past eight, travelling into the centre of the city almost by ourselves. With few other vehicles on the wide Avenue Louise, I found it difficult to respect the new speed limit of 30 kph, even though I fully approve of it. Along the Rue Royale it was just us and the 94 tram, each vehicle overtaking or undertaking the other along the cobbled chaussee, until we reached the Parc Royal where we stopped and let the tram glide past .

Of poets and places

My first blog about Oscar ended with a nod to (or a steal from) another school teacher, the poet Michael Longley, who taught us English. One of my favourite poems is “Detour” where he imagines his own funeral possession, winding its way through the Main Street of a small town in Ireland, stopping here and there to chat to neighbours, taking its time, going in and out of shops, with himself directing proceedings, procrastinating about where the funeral may go next. I love Longley’s gallows humour, his sense of place and possibility, and his refusal to be rushed underground.

Alhambra

“This is where you will probably spend most of your time” said Inma, showing us round our Airbnb. We had wound our way up to the top floor of the Arab-style house and Inma pulled open the French window leading to the balcony. In front of us, floodlit and deep orange , the Alhambra stretched on its rocky outcrop against the evening sky. High behind the collection of moorish palaces lay the white snow caps of the Sierra Nevada, and to the West the sunset was made up of the most vivid Spanish colours – yellows and reds and all the shades in between.

Spanish lessons

Belfast 1972. In our first Spanish lesson Mr McCauley, taught us pronunciation. There was a subtle difference between the letters b and v that had something to do with blowing air between your top and bottom lips. A single ‘r’ needed two flicks of the tongue, whereas to roll double ‘rr’s like a real Spaniard required five flicks.