Travel Tips

I first knew Brussels as a soulless place when I passed through in the late 80s as part of a bus trip to follow Dylan from show to show. I second knew Brussels through work... and through friends I had met through work in 1990. Little did I realise then what an important place it would be come for me, for my family and for my friends.

Having visited the city off and on for 5 years, I was finally offered a job here in 1995. Then began a search for a home, helped immesurably by a week-here week-there arrangement for a couple of months. During one of my weeks here I went to view a flat in an area that was alien to me at the time. The flat I viewed was large but depressing. I left it and wandered up the hill to to large crossroads. From there I spotted a fantastic art nouveau building and thought how wonderful it would be to live there.

The next time I came, I revisited this corner of Brussels... St Gilles. To my amazement, there was a flat for rent in the very building I had so adored on the previous visit. I could not arrange a viewing that weekend, but a friend who live across the city agreed to visit it for me.

She called me in London.

"The staircase stinks Gillian"
"Sigi, I know you'd love me to live near you, but are you saying I would like this flat?"
"It's very bohemian Gillian"
"Sigi, tell me"
"You'll love it. I've made an appointment for you to see it next time you visit"

And so it came to pass that I moved into this flat.

There is so much daylight. My plants love it.
The fact it is a corner building renders each room a challenge of non-right angles.

In the years since studentdom, I have grown to appreciate original art rather than reproduced. This is the main reason that my walls are not full. I can afford only very little.

This little pencil drawing is the only manifestation of a long-promised portait by a friend I met in Barcelona a long time ago. There exist several halting starts to this portrait, but as yet, the pencil drawing is the only one I have, and the only one that is near completion.

My encounter with the artist is the origin of an unfinished short story. It begins like this:

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” the voice is Irish, the language is English, he is male… tall male.

“Is that the question?” A bit dishevelled, and overdressed for the heat of this particular Barcelona spring day. Him, not me.

“Oh! Are you Scottish?” Yes, definitely Irish

“Is that the question?” The smile slipped out. I didn’t really mean it to and, at the time, was unprepared for the effect it would have in the longer term.

These things happen when you are on holiday, and when you decide to leave the relative predictability of the company of Paul… after so many years it was predictable that he would drink too much, that we would argue, that I would cry and that he would be forced into some feelings of remorse by whoever was with us; in this instance Kev. Gentle Kev. Kev who wanted to leave the UK for a few days to help him get over his mother’s death. Kev who was as disgruntled as I when we piled into the hired car and Paul set off at the wheel in completely the wrong direction. Kev who thought, like I, that the mountains were great, but not what we’d come all this way to see.

“Yes, I mean no. I mean, yes it was a question. I thought you were Spanish when I saw you. But no, it wasn’t the question.” Taught… thought… that made me smile once more. Mistake Gillian. Silence again.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Is that the question?” There are only 4 options for stress in my part of this dialogue and I notice, not without amusement, that two and a bit of them have already been used up. My curiosity is piqued.

He is clearly trying to phrase the question in such a way as to elicit the desired response. I use the time fruitlessly thinking that it’s been a long morning since I left the hotel room; a long morning since Paul and I registered our latest argument. This time about the sun streaming through the shutters and the sound of me brushing my teeth. Those useless arguments that serve as the only means of communication that Paul and I seem to be able to muster these days.

“Would you mind if someone drew you?”

This photo picks out some of my favourites.

On the mantelpiece you can see five tiles. They are very very old. They came from a friend who was an art historian who worked for a while in a shop that sold a collection of early Delft tiles. I love them. They are innocent in what they portray. I love the way the blue bleeds into the white.

Above them you see a very fine piece of drawing penned by a certain Nuno Corte Real - A Portuguese artist and costume designer and threatre set designer par excellence.

Nuno was a great friend of my best friend, Guy.
Nuno died before I met Guy.
Nuno died the day that my nephew was born.
My nephew and Guy have been firm friends since first encounter, when Nephew was 2 years old.

To the left you see one of a set of two pieces of ceramic art that were made by my great friend Nicole Prues. Nicole makes wonderful, delicate, sophisticated, sensual pieces. Nicole is one of those people you feel honoured to know.

Further left again is my much-treasured Thangka from Nepal. It is a real beauty... and much appreciated by the staff of the framing company I took it to. They were even more impressed when I arrived a few months later with an even more exquisite one. It was the one that I had bought for myself, but I let my parents make a choice between the two. They chose "mine". They couldn't find a frame they thought worthy. So they brought it to Brussels and my framers did the deed.

I say "my" framers. They are framers to the Royal family of Belgium and to the national museums. They are flawless in their work.

This is my latest acquisition. I had the choice between a "new" second-hand car and a bronze... car or bronze? car or bronze? car or bronze?

Bronze

There is a story though.

More than twenty years ago, while wandering round Edinburgh, I was distracted by some drawings and some statues in a gallery. I was scared to step foot in the place. I knew nothing about art and was sure they would spot me for the penniless time-waster I would most certainly prove to be.

But the works hovered somewhere in my memory.

Just before Christmas last year, while I was working at a small university in the north of England, I received in the weekly newsletter sent to staff, the notification of a new website for the artist Hannah Frank. The name rang an elusive bell. I looked at the site and - blow me - there were those wonderful pieces staring back at me.

The neice of the artist worked a matter of minutes from my office. She and I became friends. I learned that there would be a limited run of a limited number of Hannah Frank's bronzes.

All notions of a replacement car for my rusting Vauxhall Cavalier left me as I ordered the piece that was the same age as me - first cast in the year I was born.

I love her, my Woman Resting. I visited the foundry to pick her up

But that is the subject of another travelogue.

Here is part of the collection of "things" I have picked up on my travels. I have a taste for the unlikely and the obscure.

The tall pot on the left is a milk carrier used in the mountains of Nepal. It smells a bit of goat's milk. It's life is etched on its surface.

Just in front are two other Nepali treasures: my singing bowl and my dahl pot. Both bought at a price reached by weight.

Moving right again we find an amazing make-up pot from China. Hewn from a coconut and carved with tantalising characters that I would like to have translated. Also from China are the small, round leather purse used by travellers in the rural reaches of Yunnan and the small round ink pot.

And finally, my favourite. A moqueca pot from Brazil. Used for the most wonderful fish stew I have ever tasted.