INSIDE THE LEMON

Notes for landscape tones... Long sequences of tempera. Light filtered through the essence of lemons. An air full of brick dust - sweet-smelling brick-dust and the odour of hot pavements slaked with water. Light damp clouds, earth-bound yet seldom bring rain. Upon this squirt dust-red, dust-green, chalk-mauve and watered crimson-lake.

- Justine, Lawrence Durrell


Yeah, it's Alexandria, not Budapest, but Durrell's palette seems to apply to these close, sweaty days. I rather like it. During Budapest's long work day, the quiet streets are suspended in treacle, one-foot-in-front of the other slowed by some immense drag, the heat waves rising off the concrete emit a faint hum. Every evening, a truck comes road to water the roads (against cracked tarmac?) and and by dusk the brick dust from the VIIth's ever-present roadworks hangs pink and low.