But it's a long, long while... from July to September...

... and I thought I'd write / 'fore it was November...

My apologies to Kurt Weill for my paraphrasing, but it has been a while since I posted. I just haven't quite felt in the mood, and have been very busy getting everything back the way it should be after a long seven weeks in Canada. Speaking of Canada, I could write pages about what we did on our vacation, but in brief, we had a great time visiting with friends and family... I only regret that we didn't have more time to see other friends that we missed. We made it back to Brussels safely, with an eight hour stopover in Warsaw; the picture above is from the opera house there. I hope to go back for a more extended visit soon.

First a family update. Maggie started school on August 24th, and had her first students the following Monday the 30th. She has had lots of work to do getting her room organized; not only was her classroom moved to another location in the building, but she wasn't the one who packed the boxes, so there are things missing or mis-placed. She likes her students very much and is glad to be back in her professional millieu.

The boys are well placed in school. Duncan is on track to getting a perfect comportment assessment this week; he was very close last week, and we are hoping he will be fine this week, otherwise it's no tv. He's looking forward to going to Nettinne again this year in October, and has joined up with the best rugby team in Belgium, the Boitsfort Rugby Club. It seems to agree very well with his personality, and constitution. They practice once a week and have one match per week. He's doing very well in his academic subjects too, and is able to read equally well in French and English, something that Malcolm has also somehow mastered, despite an almost total lack of English instruction. He's got Malcolm's old two-wheeled bike, and a couple of weekends ago we got him out in the nearby forest park, which is closed to cars on Sundays, and now he's able to start, stop, and turn on his own. Duncan's also enrolled in rhythmique class at the local academie de musique, so he is getting instruction in singing, dancing and some percussion.


Speaking of Malcolm, he's enjoying his last year of primary school, and becoming more and more independent. He is a big reader but also is having fun riding my bike, which was always a little small for me, but with some adjustment fits him well. We were hoping to get him into judo class at the same time as Duncan's rugby practice but it looks like the timing won't work, so it might be golf for him instead, or swimming. He's started solfege at the academy as well, and despite my reservations he is absolutely loving the two hour theory classes. They are learning sight singing, rhythmic patterns, lyrics, notation and so on. He's also taking the transverse flute once a week, and is excited about that too.

Just a word here about the academie: it is funded by the francophone community, and we pay only ten euros per family. For that, students can take theory, dance, singing, acting and instrumental music; it's all taken care of. We were even able to rent an instrument for the year for only 50 euros. I'm really very impressed at this commitment to funding the arts for everyone, and making music, dance and theatre appreciation a priority. Last Wednesday while Duncan was in his class, I asked at the office if they had a spare practice room, and without any reservation, they handed me the key to a classroom with a piano, so I was able to spend 50 minutes working on my upcoming Bach pieces! I expect that that might become a regular thing...

Speaking of upcoming pieces, I need to find as much time as I can to practice, as I have lots to learn and perform over the next three months:

• Bach Cantatas BWV 207, 208 (Hunting Cantata) for Sint Carolus Borromeuskerke Antwerp
  
• BWV 140 (Wachet auf) and parts I and VI of the Christmas Oratorio for Pax Christi and Howard Dyck in Toronto
  
• a programme for Belgian tour of César Franck music including several offertories, an ave Maria, the Messe a trois voix and other pieces for Vocaal Collectief
  
• an entirely new programme commemorating the 1944 liberation of Merksem (part of Antwerp) that will include music of Ives, Rorem, Vaughan Williams, Elgar and others for the Calcant concert series
  
• Purcell's Ode on St. Celilia's Day for Melos and David Cameron in Kingston
  

... so I've got my hands full with things to learn. I also have learned that I have a third performance added to the Messiah tour that's happening in Belgium in April, and there are more leads on the Schubert tour in Canada in May. Fortunately these last two things are works I've already done many times before, but there is still lots of work to be done on them to make them better.

Okay then, off to practice. Tomorrow is a busy day, as we are taking part in a brocante, or street sale, and then visiting with our friends Bryan and Kiana who have moved out of town. I helped them move a couple of weeks ago and we are looking forward to a nice barbeque together. Bon weekend!

The Recovery Position...

... for Duncan is this: easy chair, track pants, glass in hand, watching movies... I got the strangest flash today that I was seeing him as he might appear in 60 years' time, blanket on his knees, beer in hand, completely absorbed in the boob tube. Yikes!

He's his old self now, after having slept soundly for almost 11 hours last night, and is behaving normally now, asking for spicy roasted pepper and sausage pasta or that sort of thing. Instead he's had to subsist on grenadine syrup in water, homemade popsicles, pudding, ice cream, and yoghurt and so on. He's not a fellow with a sweet tooth, so where Malcolm would be in seventh heaven, Duncan doesn't seem that interested. He tried some chicken soup today and that was a success, and has asked several times when he'll be allowed to eat real food again.

He's not complaining of any pain, so long as I make sure to give him a dose every four hours of pain medication, and keep up the fluids, and his activity level is normal. In fact, I have to keep reminding him to slow down, and stop acting out all the moves from Kung-Fu Panda or Superman, at least until his stitches are healed up. In the meantime it's pretty much continuous movies, drawing and colouring, and bandes dessinées.

Maggie just got home so it's time for dinner...