Dutch Landscapes in the East End

Saturday did not start terribly well. I woke with a headache. Not a migraine this time. Saturday’s pain was brought to me by the power of my delicate sinuses. I don’t often get a blocked nose when my sinuses flare up. Instead I get a head that feels like all the constituent parts of it have been taken apart and put back together inefficiently and with a series of heavy weights attached to them. Each tooth weighs about a stone and the bones under my eye sockets feel as if someone has packed them with dense, wire wool. On days like this I spend quite a lot of time pointlessly rubbing my face, as if I can somehow reach through the bones of my skull and use my fingers to untie all the tangled knots of pressure in there. I dream of taking a small hammer and just cracking this bit and this bit and this.

It’s not only incredibly painful, it is also incredibly distracting because it’s almost impossible to ignore. Eating hurts, talking hurts, moving my eyeballs hurts. I have found that it must be endured until such time as it decides to bugger off of its own accord. I was alone and had nowhere to be, so I curled up on the sofa with a hot water bottle and copious amounts of green tea. When it hurt too much I read my book. When that didn’t work, I tried to doze off. I got a scalding hot water bottle wrapped in a tea towel and pressed it into my facial bones as hot and fierce as I could bear. Eventually after several hours of noodling about, it started to ease and my teeth began to feel like they belonged to me again. I scarfed down some lunch and headed out for a walk before I could change my mind.

Feeling fragile, I crept out towards the Isle of Dogs and took solace in the water. The tide was out and the smell of warm mud and weed was strong in my nose. Sea birds picked through the detritus washed up on the shore, cackling and mewing to each other as they jostled for the good bits. The gentle lapping of the water and the small purrs as it rippled up the sand were already working their magic and I began to feel better in body and mind.

I decided to go back to the strange beach I’d found a few weeks earlier, where I’d seen children swimming in the churn and hurl of a much rougher river. It’s in a small area where all the roads are named after the Netherlands. Amsterdam Road leads to Leerdam and Rotterdam Drives. There’s a few artists in there for good measure, Van Gogh and Vermeer get a shout out. None of it looks very Dutch, although further along the river there is a group of townhouses built in the Dutch style with the steepled fronts that make them look like they’re wearing mantillas.

Most of the buildings are blocks of flats that by the bricks and design look like they were built in the Eighties. There is a slipway for boats and a bunch of brutalist concrete steps that lead down to the beach, such as it is. Weirdly, the beach is called Poppy Beach. I have tried to find out why, but have no idea. I suspect that the Dutch names come from its past history as a ship yard and the goods that travelled in and out.

I’m reading a book called Thunderclap by Laura Cumming at the moment. It is about her obsession with a relatively unknown Dutch artist, Carel Fabritius, most famous for his painting The Goldfinch. It is the sort of book I like best in that it is also a partial biography of her father and her childhood as well as an overview of Dutch painting in general.

I really, really dislike Dutch painting. I have a particular dislike of Rembrandt and am strongly against paintings with windmills and brown landscapes in, i.e. nearly all of Dutch art. I am however, being persuaded by Cumming’s brilliant writing to rethink my prejudices and look again. It struck me as I was thinking about the Netherlands and wandering the foreshore that this part of the world is very reminiscent of Dutch landscapes. Huge skies, a land borrowed from the water, hemmed about by tributaries and basins and here, flat as a pancake for miles and miles. The palette is also very Dutch, lots of browns and blues and muddy greys that shift and change depending on the quality of the light. Those are some of the things I love best about living here, so maybe I can be persuaded to love Dutch paintings after all.

There’s an Indian restaurant on the water front and that afternoon it was packed out by a gigantic celebration of some kind. Lots and lots of Muslim families all having the best time. The food smells were divine and everyone was in a party mood. Photos were being snapped by the dozen. Kids were diving round grown up legs like swallows chasing insects. A cluster of young women in pistachio coloured burqas were taking selfies on the grass and men in immaculate cream outfits with gold braid were leaning against the railings, soaking up the afternoon sun and chatting with their friends. Everyone was smiling.

The beach was less busy. A few families were sitting on the concrete steps, one bedraggled child who had clearly fallen in, was being warmed up by his mum, bundled against her chest, looking mournfully at the weed hanging off his tiny, red Croc. A grandad and his two grandchildren were down at the waterline, where he was trying to dissuade them from heaving up huge links of rusted, weed dripping chain and failing miserably. I think he realised that even if they picked it up, they’d never drag it home so he gave up persuading and let them tire themselves out.

I walked along, turning over pebbles with my foot, hoping to find treasure. I did find a length of clay pipe, which was quite pleasing. There are thousands of bits of pipe in the Thames. When people had finished smoking, they often just threw them away. It’s not a discovery that would get me on Time Team, but it made me quite happy. I felt archaeologist adjacent.

As I was fossicking I felt a few raindrops flick against my cheeks which caused me to look up. Coming up from the North of the city was a huge head of thunder clouds. The air was navy blue and you could see shafts of rain falling in the distance in grey, shimmering columns. When the wind blew, it brought the rain and the distant rumble of thunder. It was amazing. It also explained why I had woken up with sinus pain. My face is an excellent predictor of an incoming low front.

I stayed on the beach, watching the storm coming ever closer. Roiling clouds over Canary Wharf were reflected in the thousands of panes of glass, breaking into dazzle when the sun tried to push through. The thunder got ever nearer and after a few minutes you could see forked lightning splitting the sky over the O2. The yellow prongs of the structure looked like they were reaching up to coax the lightning down. The light, in the meantime got thicker and wetter and you could taste the ozone in the air after each lightning strike.

People were beginning to leave the beach by this time but I stayed on, playing chicken with the weather. Squalls of wind pushed the rain nearer and nearer. It was only when it started to fall in earnest and the thunder was right overhead that I took refuge in a brick colonnade of abandoned shops, sitting on the sun warmed, stone floor and watching the deluge as water ran in rivers down the road and gurgled down the drains. The smell of dust, rapidly becoming mud and the warm wetness of cooling cars and damp bushes was heady and delightful and I stayed until the last drops had been wrung out of the sky before I headed homeward.

Crossing the swing bridge at West India quay, a vivid rainbow stretched across the span of the bridge, urging me homewards. Sadly not towards a pot of gold, but clear air, a pain free face and an evening spent catching up with Heartstopper 2 on Netflix was a good alternative.