The first I guess is that I have been keeping busy and have had lots of activity out of the house. I have spent some time helping Christopher next door with cabinet installations (while masked, and with social distancing of course). I have also spent some time helping Lawrence solve a fencing problem in Jodoigne (by that I mean actual fences and not foils at five paces), and consulted on treehouse designs. As well we have spent a few nice visits with the Hammers in Bousval, as they are part of our official social "bubble".
But the main reason for no blog posts is that I have found it difficult sometimes to maintain a positive attitude. As my mother often said, if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all, and I have struggled to BE positive, let alone articulate it in writing.
I am sure that there many people like me who are feeling their positivity "gas tank" start to run dry. Not only have there been more deeply concerning and depressing news articles emerging from the United States each day, but if I may be self-centred, there are also many articles about the future of the performing arts that bum me out. The idea that public performances with choir, orchestra, and soloists might not really resume until September 2021 is very depressing, and I've been struggling to maintain hope as I see my beloved artistic career come to a screeching halt.
It kind of hit home for me while we were preparing all of our financials for our income tax filing last week, and I had to do a performance inventory 2019. I was a little shocked at how much work I had to deliver: so many concerts, so closely packed together, with so much travel: over a less than two-month period last spring I had six performances in five countries on three different continents.
This year? Flights cancelled, and no public performances since March 9th. It could be much worse, and I know that so many other people are suffering far more than I am. I have had only seven concerts cancelled so far, but what is also hard to deal with is the anticipatory dread that the autumn productions won't happen either.
Another drag on my momentum is this dratted calf muscle problem, which has prevented me from lifting my spirits by running; I haven't been able to run for more than a month, and that makes me irritable. I don't know for sure how long I will have to wait before I can resume my usual runs but I'm hoping that it will be soon!
Fortunately I have my family, the dog, the cats, the garden, and other things to keep me going. Even more important artistically are my three students who have continued to take lessons via teleconference; they give me lots of inspiration to continue to pursue beauty in sung art, and to help them discover these same things for themselves. And of course I have the support of Bruce, and my other friends and colleagues to encourage me, which helps a lot.
As well there are a few small signs that might warrant a little bit of hope: the Japan tour preparations continue, and they have not yet cancelled or rescheduled that project, which is encouraging. As well I have not yet heard if other projects in the 2020-2021 season are cancelled, so no news is good news, I suppose? As well I read with interest an article from the Church Times, which suggested that perhaps singing was not quite so dangerous an activity as we might have initially suspected. So there are reasons to be optimistic.
Meanwhile I am encouraged by some significant growth in the garden: we had new spring onions in our fresh scrambled eggs this morning, with sourdough toast that I baked, so that was nice. The snow peas will be ready to start picking very soon; the beetroots are at least the size of a tennis ball already, and the carrots are looking good. The cucumbers and zucchinis are doing well, and have started to put out climbing feelers, and I saw the first yellow cucumber flower this morning. The corn is now well above my knee, so I look forward to some real corn roasts this summer. There are a few very simple things, such as a really nice sour dill pickle (my mother-in-law Sheila Rose makes the best ones) , a barbecued ear of corn, and as you have already read on my previous posts, a Reuben sandwich (the now-closed Ben's in Montreal was my personal fave, but the Golden Rooster on Princess Street in Kingston has good mustard, and their Reubens are nothing to sneeze at)... these foods are ubiquitous in Canada, but for me over here they are hard to come by. I've never quite understood the meaning of the term "comfort food" but maybe now I have an inkling of what the term means? In any case I am on a mission to make sour dill pickles (all the Belgian ones are sweet - yuck) and am hoping that my vines will produce!
I'm also quite excited about brewing, and Duncan and I have bottled several cases of saison and Belgian brown ale, and I have a double batch of Christmas beer and Elderflower wine still in the fermenter on the go, so that's giving me something fun to do. I am making up invoices for the lessons that I taught so far this year, so there will be some money coming in. And there are other things to keep me occupied: a client of Christopher's whom I met earlier in the year has asked me to do some odd jobs around her home, and our neighbours Maurice and Jacqueline want me to paint the exterior of their house, on the garden side. Lastly, I'm not completely without singing work: I have been approached by the Canadian embassy to perform the Belgian and Canadian National anthems again, and this time record them here at home, to be used for the virtual online celebration here on Canada Day... When I know more about the link to that I'll share it with you.
The boys are well. Duncan has been going around dropping off resumes for summer jobs, but he hasn't heard anything yet. Meanwhile he has been pretty good about helping with little projects, spending time taking Yoshi for walks, shopping with me, and helping with the cooking and clearing up. His schoolwork is minimal, and he should not have a problem passing the year.
Malcolm has been back to Wavre only one weekend since the last time I blogged, but he is working away on his different projects. He has a commission to build a new guitar for a client for whom he previously did repair work, and we had to go pick up the wood together using the car. He also just received another commission from a friend of that client, and there is a possibility of a third commission from his former bandmate, so his reputation is spreading by word of mouth. It's encouraging that he's getting this kind of work, and he's planning on also sending in his credentials to a Brussels musical instrument store, to see if he can't get some work from them doing repairs and restorations. It will be a great success for him if he manages to find student work within his chosen field...
This coming week should be a busy one. Maggie heads back to the school in person tomorrow and will be supervising students on Tuesday. She'll be teaching a modified, academically relaxed programme, to reintroduce face-to-face learning and give the kids lots of social interaction time. She's got mixed feelings about it, given that she's gotten used to not having to commute back and forth to work, and is not sure how difficult it will be to police the social distancing rules for the students. She'll have to wear a mask all day, which will be annoying. But we are hoping that everything will go well. The car will see much more use than it has had since March: I filled it with gas sometime in early March, and we have only used a little more than half a tank in three months! But I fuelled it up yesterday and verified the tire pressure, so she should be good to go for tomorrow.
Christopher next door is at my disposal for the week, and will be helping me remove our existing kitchen and install the new one. I'll take some before-and-after photos... when the kitchen is done we hope to resume work on the attic...
In the meantime stay well, everyone!
Olive and rosemary sourdough
cleaning the elderflowers from the garden to make "champagne"
Malcolm and I going to pick up some wood for one of his guitar commissions
CGI: Chief Garden Inspector
hills of corn and beans looking good after the rain
that he build a "stackwall" fence to keep the dog in the garden;
it also doubles as a bar!
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