a corner of a foreign field

We spent last night in Lille, having dropped off Laura and Jorge to make a bus journey back to Berlin. We had till late afternoon to get to the tunnel terminal so we decided to go to Ypres. I had no idea that it was such a pretty place, with gorgeous gabled houses, I'd only known about the Menin gate.
The gate was sad, of course, and impressively of its time. It had never occurred to me how the people of Ypres might have felt about having it imposed upon them, but aparantly they were, quite understandably resistant to the idea of having their town turned into a memorial when they were struggling to put right the devastation of the war.
It made me wonder what it must be like to live in the battlefields areas now - I suppose you have to close your mind to it to a certain extent. We drove past a really tiny cemetary, then stopped at this one - I suppose a medium sized one. It was peaceful in the sunshine, and beautifully maintained, with flowers throughout. There were a lot of Canadian graves, and some very touching messages. Although the war is approaching one hundred years ago, it was still unbelievably poignant.
I have back blipped some pictures of the international gathering in Burgundy.