Back in the days, our parents used to take us kids out picknicking. I remember a couple of locations that we frequently visited and settled down: one was a spot we called ‘The Bunkers’ (and you guessed it, there were real bunkers at that location). The other one was an area called ‘Sion’, around a genuine old fashioned abbey. While ‘The Bunkers’ used to be our favourite spot (you know, kids, bunkers and war seem to mix well), my memory only serves lively images of our visits to ‘Sion’. That’s probably because of the near-drowning accident that befell my brother Alfons.
The funny thing is, to start with that accident, I can’t recall how he got out of the water, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because anyone jumped after him. After all, nobody in our family could swim (if I’m not wrong nobody still can, and it has nothing to do with this accident either). I think someone was smart enough to throw something in the water so he had something to hold on to, after we saw he disappeared under water a couple of times. I also remember my older brothers and sisters yelling at Alfons ‘to swim back to the shore’. Which was a kind of a paradox, because he couldn’t swim. Another thing that took us by surprise, was that the current was strong and that it was actually deep in there. And probably cold too.
Besides that accident, I also remember the yellow flowers (‘Gele Lis’, Iris pseudacorus) that mark many canals overthere. At that time I think they were protected wild-life flowers. They made it into our parents’ garden, which proved to me that typical water plants can adopt and change to domestic garden flowers. No magical intelligent designer needed for that. Pure evolution.