Bruce Thomson's Sketches
I saw this lovely little bike in Utrecht, Holland. We’d just been to the impressive Reitveld Schröder House and found that our entry tickets gave us admission to a Museum downtown, whence we headed. The Museum was decent, but probably would have been better if we’d seen it before the house. At any rate, on leaving the Museum, and heading out to find lunch I saw this – quite unassuming – a tiny bike, but in just perfect condition.
had it been in the Museum, I would have stayed longer…
Imagine my surprise, strolling along the charming canals of downtown Amsterdam (I believe that this was on the Prinsengracht) and there it was – an ancient green Bentley parked between a Toyota and a Volvo. Wow. My day was made… It was in lovely nick, too. There were lots of neat cars in Amsterdam – some late model 2CVs you don’t see in Canada, old Citroens, mid-80s “dart like” Volvos that never made it across the pond… but this was an eyeful, and completely unexpected.
A Tiny Pub in the lovely city of Ghent. Sadly, I had no time to stop for a beer here (and the pub was packed, besides).
Now – the pub was three stories tall – but I’m guessing I could have jumped and touched the middle pane of the second story window – and I have a student who graduated 2 years ago who could have jumped and touched the base of the third story (no kidding – seen him do it – he’d coil up , jump, get higher than I could imagine and then – mid-air – uncoil and stretch another metre…. inevitably, my pathetic response [as a 47 year old at the time] was “do it again!!!!!).
The drawing doesn’t truly show how small this place was – but the width of the building would have been about 2.5 metres, and the door height on the ground floor was likely 1.75metres… I wanted a beer to see if it was smaller (like the pub) or larger in compensation… 🙂
Sketch of the Leidesplein, Amsterdam… plein aire….
I didn’t want to draw this. I’ve been wanting to go here for the last couple of decades, and here I was. Vimy. It is an outstanding memorial. “Awesome” in the sense that the word used to be used.
I was there with a couple of Malaysians, a Belgian and a Brit and they were surprised at the “ra ra” aspect of the place (not the cenotaph, {pictured} ) but the “welcome centre” and the trenches and the tunnels…) So was I, to a degree – “Ra ra”, is not a Canadian virtue. (In fairness, the Belgian kept saying “ja – this is war…”
They pointed out to me that the Canadians attacked the Germans in overwhelming force and that as many Germans died as Canadians.
I don’t disagree. I’ve read “Westen Nichts Neues”, and watched “a midnight clear”. I don’t differentiate between combatants. But the Canadians had to jump over the trench into machine gun fire (As the Australians had had to do at Gallipoli). But the Canadians gained ground. In 2015, this is something to feel guilty about, apparently. I only felt pride. I mourn the deaths of the poor Germans mired in the mud, unsupported by the proper response. But I also applaud the incredible courage and valour of a group who didn’t know how things would work out.
This is a sketch blog. But a sketch would not do this justice.
A Pub in Leuven. Drawn from another pub. 3 Stellas were consumed for this sketch. The weather was good, the beer excellent and the wife shopping… 🙂
Caught in my headlights