Documenting our move

Since we will be moving to Leuven in the spring, I started documenting our move. Meaning that I've been trying to find out more about the history of our house and the lot it was build on. I've been looking at postcards from Leuven in 1914-1918. There are plenty of postcards of the damage caused by the invasion of the German army in 1914, but I haven't found any of our street yet.

This is a picture from the Diestsestraat in ruins. 1915:


A lot of houses in our street were severely damaged too, but it was not one of the central disaster eras. According to our architect our house probably dates from the late 1930s or early 1940s. I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of the many houses being rebuild after the First World War, since most of these have a special remembrance stone built in their facade. The previous house on the lot may have been destroyed (as was the villa a couple of houses down the block) and not rebuild for a decennium or more. I'm planning to go to the city archive to find out more about this. But this'll have to wait till after the holidays.

Jacqueline Harpman

I am reading 'Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes' by the Brussels writer Jacqueline Harpman (1940). She's a psychoanalyst and her books are surrealist, bizarre and absolutely fascinating. If I remember correctly, most of her books are written in the style of a kind of 'monologue intérieur'. This one's about a young girl whose name, age and appearances are unknown to both herself and the reader. Together with forty other women she's locked up in a cave without windows. They have no idea how they got there and what the purpose of their imprisonment might be.

I've also read 'Orlanda' and 'La plage d'Ostende' by the same author. So far, the latter is definitely my favourite.

Sweden in pictures

Chicken pox follow-up

The chicken pox episode turned out not to be so easy as I thought it would be. After travelling to Sweden, our son became quite sick and more and more (and more and more and more...) red dots appeared. On most of the holiday pictures he looks quite sad, pale and in a bad mood. Albeit we had a good time.

Chicken Pox

My son suffers from chicken pox. Luckily he doesn't seem to feel really sick.

Rzewski

In between the dishwasher and the half-packed suitcases I heard a very beautiful piece of Music on Radio Klara: Frederic Rzewski: 'The People United will never be defeated' (1975) (played by Ralph van Raat, piano). I'd never heard of this composer but apparently he's an American (°1938) based in Belgium. His piece 'The People United will never be defeated' consists of 36 virtuoso piano variations on the Sergio Ortega song 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido'. It is conceived as a companion piece to Beethoven's 'Diabelli Variations'.
I certainly put this one on my wish list.
As well as the Swedish jazz musician Jan Johansson.

Sweden

On Saturday we'll be leaving for a short break in Sweden. We're heading to the South Swedish province of Skane. Seemingly a very beautiful and rural area near the East Sea. This is what the holiday house looks like:



It's an old schoolhouse built in 1855. It was used as a school until 1902, when it became too small. It reminds me of both Strindberg and Bergman.

The picture comes from the web site I used to book the house: http://www.bureauscandinavia.be/