Many things. The last post that I wrote - and have not yet published - was about being attacked in the town centre last Friday, and I decided that it was too angry a post to actually publish. I am toning it down, but I want it out there so that other ex-pats are aware that the Belgian police are not necessarily on your side.
I'm in Sevenoaks at the moment and I don't use the computer as much here, mostly because there are Real People to talk to, dogs to walk, etc.
Things (in no particular order)
Easter - Easter at home is all about daffodils and roast dinners and going to church a lot. I don't attend church in Brussels: there's something about francophone Catholicism that I find hugely uninspiring. Probably the fact that people go in, listen and stare with glazed eyes for an hour, take Communion and then flee the scene. There is no participation, no sense of connection or enthusiasm and worst of all No Music, apart from the usual nasal chanter leading responses that no-one joins in.
On the other hand, I am loath to go to one of those suspiciously friendly ex-pat churches, where well-meaning but overbearing parishioners zoom in on unsuspecting newcomers like hawks and before you know it you are on the coffee rota and attending evening songs of praise and signed up to goodness knows what else.
I am just starting my third decade on the planet, I have grey hairs (only two) and lines on my forehead and am increasingly wondering what it will be like to die. If I am going to be religious, I need it to engage me on an intellectual level, because at the moment I'm afraid Dawkins and the like have a pretty strong rational argument.
In the church that my parents attend, there are intelligent, professional people, whom I admire, and who have very strong beliefs, and I want to know where it all comes from. What do they know that I don't?
Katyń: I rented the DVD and finally saw this film, monopolising my parents' television and lounge for a good couple of hours (by the time I'd got 36 minutes into the Andrzej Wajda interview at the end I think they had had more or less enough).
I'm not a film critic and I tend to get emotionally involved in films, rather than making a detached analysis. I do however watch films set during this period with a great deal of caution, knowing how easy it is to be carried along and to become incensed about an issue which is not my battle.
One thing I will say is that the English subtitles on my rented DVD were appalling. Obviously my Polish isn't good enough for me to be able to catch everything on a film soundtrack (nor for that matter are my French and Italian, sometimes, if the accent is difficult, the dialogue fast and the background music loud). So I wasn't checking the translation. In any case, there's a fair amount of Russian and German dialogue in the film. And I'm not a trained subtitler, although I'm aware that there are certain time and space restrictions.
But: every time I looked down, the quality of the English was poor. It had clearly never even been checked by a native speaker. Subtitles are a way for foreigners, in this case English speakers, to access a film and a story that they would never otherwise have heard. What a betrayal of Wajda and of his subject matter to use such bad quality subtitling! Why, for the umpteenth time, is no-one prepared to pay for decent Polish to English translation?!
The Other Dog is very old and grumpy now and almost completely blind. He was diagnosed with diabetes some time last year and in the time it took to get it under control he lost his sight. He also has liver failure and is still not putting on weight, for no apparent reason. My parents have had him insured from the outset, which is lucky because the tests and consultations and overnight stays at the specialist vet's have already run to thousands of pounds. He seems perfectly happy, although he walks into cupboards a lot and occasionally trips over bumps if we forget to say 'step!'. He still eats and enjoys going for short walks and snarls at us if we tread on his tail. His ears prick up when you call him and he trots along with his tail in the air like a flag. My theory is that if he's still bright enough to try and raid the kitchen bin then he's far from ready to go yet. But I'm sad for all the people who have to put down pets which are still relatively healthy because they simply can't afford the vet's bills.
Things: my parents' house is full of things. Things they have collected over more than thirty years of marriage, things their grown-up children have left behind, things they have inherited from elderly relatives who have moved on in any sense. Some of the things are interesting: the tub chair my paternal grandmother used to sit in to have her hair set, a mysterious pastel portrait known only as 'Mrs Harford', boxes and boxes of old slides and photos. But all the interesting things are smothered in piles of linen and papers and old clothes and crumbling plastic bags full of ancient children's toys.
When somebody visits, they have to rearrange the things to make room for the extra person.
When I stay here, I feel as though I am suffocating under the weight of all the old things.
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