Scharnaval 2015!

OK, so it’s now been a little while since Scharnaval 2015 actually happened – maybe as much as a month. It’s been a busy few weeks! But Schaerbeek again put on its annual carnival parade, despite the occasional outbreaks of rain and the freezing cold, and – much like last year – it was absolutely lovely!

Below are some pictures, to give you an idea of the creativity and colour of the carnival!

A beer butterfly

Band in kilts

Bears throwing gifts

Bees in dresses dancing

Brazilian dancers 1

Brazilian dancers 2

Brightly coloured dressers

Child with a sewing machine on its head

Dancing pantaloons

Dancing with a chest of gold

Demon dancers

Demon pet

Demon

Does this dress make my boobs look big?

Donkeys and a mini-smurf

Extremely noisy cannon

Flourescent band

Giant bear

Giant conquistador

Giant head in a toilet

Giant heads

Giant Norman in the rain

Giant puppet family looking sad in the rain

Green car

I heart you

I think her head is on backwards…

Ladies in pantaloons in the rain. With chandeliers

Lady in pantaloons singing

Little girl joins parade leaders

Mad car

Mario and Luigi

Member of the order of Brussels moustaches

Mickey, Minnie, a monkey, a boy and a band

Military band leader

More giant multicoloured heads

Non a la haine

Order of the Brussels moustache – flag car

Pheasant feathers and green velvet

Pink flamingo dress

Pogge in the rain

Red and white dancer

Red and white dancers and children in a cart

Red car

Second wave of giant heads

Sewing machine dancers

Spectators

Sweets and beer

The stress of carrying a chandelier on your head

Unicorns and flamingos

Yellow car

Snow!

It snowed this weekend – we woke up on Saturday morning to see that the park had turned white and crisp and pretty!

By the time we actually got around to going outside, having eaten breakfast (scrambled eggs on toast, in case you were wondering) and got dressed and sorted ourselves out, the sun was thinking about coming out and the snow was beginning to melt. Which made taking these photos all the more likely to kill me with slippery pathways and slushy snow. I hope you appreciate the efforts I go to for you all… ;-)

Today is just grey and bleh, so I’m glad we went round the park yesterday. The birds looked very confused, but the kids in the neighbourhood were having an awesome time! This year’s toy-to-have was clearly a wooden sled, and there were loads of (tired-looking…) mums pulling small children up hills and around the park on them. It even kind of made me want a sled, for a brief second, until reality kicked in and reminded me that I’d end up breaking bones if I actually tried sliding down hills. (No, I don’t ski. How could you tell?)

Anyway, yesterday’s winter wonderland:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all – I hope those of you celebrating have had an excellent day with friends/family, or however you choose to celebrate. We’ve eaten turkey and pulled crackers and generally had a brilliant day. For the first time in years, I’ve even eaten Christmas pudding!

I hope you all have a fabulous break over the Christmas period and an amazing 2015!

Remembrance Sunday, the Berlin Wall, Malta and NaNoWriMo 2014

Hello internet, did you miss me?

Malta was lovely – hot, sunny, pretty, and full of Kinnie. (If you’ve never had Kinnie, you have missed out on an experience. My sister-in-law would say it’s a bad experience, and you should miss it, but she’s clearly wrong. Kinnie grows on you, the more you drink it. It tastes sort of like a non-alcoholic Aperol spritz, if that helps.)

And since the 1st November, I’ve been busy writing, as part of NaNoWriMo – it’s something I try out most years, and rarely complete, but a lot of the fun is in taking part. And, even if I don’t get anywhere near 50,000 words (I did once, the first year I tried NaNo, but never since), I still have several thousand more words than I would have done if I hadn’t taken part in NaNo, and I’ve had fun making up people and events and reactions. It’s creation for the sake of it, and I think the world would be better if there was more of that.

(In case you’re wondering, I’m up to 13,500 words so far. And I’m planning to go and write more when I finish this post. My story this year is about smallpox being released as a biological attack on the UK, France, Germany and the US. I’ve learnt rather more than I want to about smallpox already.)

On a more real note, today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK (ahead of Armistice Day on 11 November), when the war dead are remembered in cities and villages across the country, and there’s a wreath-laying ceremony in London, where the Royal Family and other dignitaries lay wreathes and pay their respects to the war dead. It’s a little too militaristic for me, but we shouldn’t forget those who died doing their jobs, especially those who weren’t given a choice about taking part – it would be especially helpful if we could keep our war dead at the forefront of our minds when deciding whether to start another war, but that rarely seems to be a consideration, sadly. To mark the centenary of the start of World War I, there’s an art exhibit of poppies at the Tower of London – I called in there on the way back from Malta to Brussels. It’s an amazing sea of ceramic poppies, one for each British soldier that died in World War I – 888,246 of them.

Today also marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s amazing to think that it was just 25 years ago – so much has changed today across Europe since then. And yet, there are still echoes of that unhappy time in international relations today – poor Ukraine is suffering as a result, and US-Russia relations didn’t look so positive either, last I heard about them. We can only hope that cooler heads see sense and that we don’t fall back into those dark days of a fractured, conflict-ridden continent – only this time, we would have the added joy of cyber-warfare on top of everything else. The new scope for propaganda alone is mind boggling; Kitchener would have had a field day, if he’d been able to access the internet!

It still scares me, sometimes, thinking about the amount of power we give our leaders, and all we can do is trust that they make a good job of it. I wonder if they realise it too, and if the thought of all that responsibility keeps them awake at night. I hope so – the consequences of their actions have real effects on all of us, after all, whether we agreed with them or not.

Anyway, setting doom and gloom aside for a moment, I’m going to share some photos of sunshine and prettiness in Malta.

At last, I am a resident – the process of registering in Belgium as a foreigner

In January, I dutifully registered at my local town hall, as required by law.

This was, I found a relatively straightforward process – though I suspect this is because a) I can read and speak French and b) I’m used to French bureaucracy. Our commune has a list of the required paperwork on its website, which was a welcome surprise – and they even had an English-language version for all the people who can’t speak French or Dutch.

Unfortunately, the list of paperwork on the French version of the site and that on the English version of the site don’t match.

However, I didn’t let this stop me. I took my list from the French version of the site, and went to the town hall armed with multiple photocopies of everything. Plus passport photos. And my passport. And photocopies of my passport. etc… And we joined the Queue of Many People waiting to hand all of these over. If you’re a patient person, the whole process is easy enough – and our town hall is a stunning building. Even its waiting room for people who need to do business is marble-clad, with ornate pillars and a stained glass ceiling.

Our number came up, eventually, and we went over to the nice lady behind the counter. (Everyone I have had to deal with during this process has been lovely, quite a change from dealing with French bureaucracy!) She expressed some surprise at the amount of photocopies of everything we’d bought, was amazed that we’d managed to get everything we needed on our very first visit, and after we’d both signed and stamped all the papers in the world, she sent us away with a promise that a policeman would be round shortly to check we hadn’t lied about where we live.

The policeman duly came, a week or so later. By the end of January, all the necessary paperwork had been filed, and the checks had been done. We should have received, three weeks or so later, a letter from the commune inviting us to go and collect our residence cards.

Six months later, in June, we sent an email asking whether there was a problem. (Having lived in France and having had the extremely dubious pleasure of dealing with URSSAF and the RSI meant that it took me six months of total silence before I started to think something might be wrong.) They emailed back very quickly to assure us that nothing was wrong, they were just dealing with a bit of a backlog, and we’d receive a letter very soon.

Three months later, we emailed them again, to see if there had been any progress. As we apparently hadn’t received the letter they were sure we should have, we were summoned by email for the next stage of the process. We queued again in the town hall. Again we handed over passport photos, and some money. (€21 each, in case you’re wondering how much residence cards cost here.) And we were told we would receive a letter in about three weeks, telling us we could come and pick up our cards.

My confidence in this estimate was not high, by this point. So, you can imagine my surprise when just two weeks later, a letter arrived with Secret Codes, telling me I could go and get my card. On Thursday, I went and sat in the town hall for what I hope will be the last time for a long while, and received my new and shiny residence card.

It looks like an ID card, and appears to have more information on it than my passport does! I am not, however, sure whether I can use it to travel on within the Schengen area. Does anyone happen to know the answer? I know it’s not actual ID, so it won’t work outside Schengen, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t count as government-issued photo ID for within Schengen…

Also, we have a weekend of freak summer. It is gloriously sunny and warm, and yesterday we wandered through the park near us and went into parc cinquentenaire taking photos. So here, have some pictures of autumn sunshine in Brussels, so I can remember that it’s not always grey here, even if it sometimes feels that way!

Autumn has well and truly arrived.

We’ve had some surprisingly nice autumn weather recently, but it’s definitely not summer anymore. The air is crisp and cold, the sun is pretty, but not very effective – providing psychological warmth, rather than actual heat. And there are more and more rainy days. Last night, I could see my breath in the air, walking back from dinner.

But on sunny days, the park is beautiful – there’s still some green to be seen, but the leaves are turning brown and falling, carpeting the banks of the lake with glorious autumn colours.

And a reminder that winter is coming: holly is already showing its bright red berries.

On holiday in the South of France

In mid-September, we went to the South of France for a week to see sunshine – which was lovely. I even went swimming. For the past few weeks I’ve been dealing with plague – blood tests haven’t shown anything, and it seems to be going away slowly, so at least it’s not Ebola, even if it’s been a bit of a drag on daily life. I was ill on holiday, too, and it only started to clear up as I came back to Belgium. Typical.

At least we have had excellent weather over the last couple of weeks in Brussels – my lavender plant has even grown a flower! (I thought it was dead, so this is kind of Lazarus-like.) Today, though, autumn has kicked in with a vengeance, so I thought I’d look through some holiday photos and share some with you lucky, lucky people. Mostly they are of Nice and the surrounding area, with a couple of photos from a day trip to Cassis and Marseille. (For one day during European Mobility Week, usually Wednesday, you get an all-day train ticket to go anywhere in the PACA region for €5. We got as far as Marseille.)

So, here are some photos of summer. I’m open to suggestions for good things to do in Brussels in the autumn, if anyone has any ideas!

blue sky – Nice

Bus driver’s monkey

carnation – Nice

Cassis castle seen from the port

Cassis port – black and white

Cassis port and boats – black and white

Cassis port cafe

Cassis port

Cassis waterfront – B&W

CItadel sea wall – Villefranche

Close up yellow flower

dates on a palm tree

daube and gnocchi

Entrance to St Agnes village

field and sky

Fort above Villefranche

fountains – Nice

fountains in a line – Nice

French flag blowing in the wind

giant wooden turtle – Nice

green tree against blue sky – Cassis

hills and sky 2

hills and sky

Kiki the mini dog

Orange spiky flower

panoramic view from St Agnes

Pink flowers – Ange Gardien

Plants growing on the sea wall – Villefranche

playing in fountains

Purple spiky flowers in sunlight

Restaurant terrace – St Agnes

red and yellow mini flowers

red flowers

reflections – Nice park

Restaurant terrace and bar – St Agnes

Rock covered in lichen

Spiral staircase – St Agnes

St Agnes fort

St Agnes old town – seen from above

Steps down – Ange Gardien

Steps up the mountain – St Agnes

street going up in St Agnes village

street in St Agnes village

Street lamp – St Agnes

Tortoise candle – restaurant in St Agnes

Town hall and school in St Agnes

tree trunk

Two-tone flower – Beaulieu

View down to the sea on the way to St Agnes

view from the bus to Marseille

view to the sea – restaurant in St Agnes

Villefranche bay

Villefranche sea front

Villefranche under a stormy sky

Wine press – St Agnes

The Brussels Flower Carpet – 2014

Every other year, Brussels decorates the Grand Place with a vast carpet of cut flowers. This year’s pattern was designed to celebrate 50 years of Turkish immigration to Brussels, and was made of begonias laid out in the pattern of a traditional Turkish carpet.

(Click on the picture to make it larger.)

The carpet was 75m by 25m, apparently 1800 square metres of begonias. The flowers are there all through the weekend of the 15 August, which is a bank holiday here in Belgium. This year, they were laid out overnight on the 14th, and were there until the Sunday night. The weather wasn’t fabulous, but that probably helped the flowers keep their colour for a little longer – and the amount of work that must have gone into them is astonishing.

The town hall opens its balconies to visitors for the occasion and for the small sum of €5, you can wander through the ornate building (well worth seeing in its own right) and see the flower carpet from on high. Well worth the money, I reckon. Plus you get a giant guidebook, that I haven’t yet read.

Here are some photos I took of the 2014 flower carpet and the town hall on the Grand Place:

International Bathtub Regatta, Dinant

So, last weekend was a bank holiday weekend, which means it was time for the annual International Bathtub Regatta, held every year on 15 August in Dinant. I don’t remember where I first heard about this tiny slice of madness, but I loved the idea immediately.

Dinant is a small town to the south-east of Belgium, in the French-speaking part of the country. It’s about an hour and a half’s train journey from Brussels. It’s also the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, who invented the saxophone – as this year apparently marks his 200th birthday, he was the theme for this year’s boat race.

The premise of the bathtub boat regatta is simple, if slightly reminiscent of team-building exercise on corporate training events: you must make a boat, capable of floating in the river, which can be powered by wind or people-power (including rowing or pedalling, or whatever else), but nothing mechanical. The boat must include a bathtub, which has to touch the water. You need to attach a long rope to your bathtub, so that if/when it sinks, it can be easily removed. And that’s about it. Other than that, the river is your mollusc and your imagination is your only limit.

I have to admit, before going, I had a suspicion this would turn out to be better in theory than in practice. But Dinant itself looked pretty, and we’ve wanted to go to that part of Belgium anyway, so we decided to go and risk it. At worst, we would have wasted an afternoon of a long weekend when I’d otherwise have been working.

And Dinant itself was pretty – a small town at the base of steep mountains, with a walled citadel at the top of the cliff, and a huge Gothic church at the bottom. And the all-important river Meuse is large and winding, making its way through the town centre.

Inside the church:

Outside the church, there was a band by the riverside:

And some flowers:

And a puppy:

I was wrong to worry: the boat race was excellent. The bathtub boats were imaginative, well-decorated, surprisingly well-constructed, and everyone looked like they were having so much fun! No one even sank, at least while we were watching! There was beer. There were battles between boats. There was a surprising amount of audience involvement (i.e. the boat-racers decided to throw buckets of river water and water bombs at innocent bystanders lining the riverbanks…)

And I’m already looking forward to next year; who knows, I might even enter a boat of my own one year!

Ghent festival – photos

This post has a lot of photos, so if you’re reading this on your mobile, I’d leave it until you’re in front of a computer.

This weekend is a bank holiday weekend here in Belgium, and we’ve made good use of it! We’ve been to the International Bathtub Regatta in Dinant, seen the games fair and the biennial carpet of flowers in the Grand Place in Brussels, and been to Leuven. Since it’s going to take me a while to go through the photos, however, I thought I’d tell you about Ghent today…

The other week, it was the Ghent festival. This is an annual multi-day (and night) music festival in Ghent, which is somewhere I still hadn’t managed to go. So, we decided to go and visit for the day. The music stages were being set up, and we didn’t stay long enough to hear the big acts that were playing, but there were small groups of musicians around the city playing on the street, including the only man who has ever managed to make me think the accordion is a viable musical instrument. (There was a boy who was also good, and who photographed well – but the man was absolutely excellent.)

There is also an apparently regular market that runs at the weekends in Ghent, selling everything from CDs and clothes to, well, this:

Now that I’ve managed to share the hideousness – and doesn’t that monkey look like it would rip your face off while you’re sleeping? – Ghent was as lovely as everyone told me, and we’ll certainly be going back to see the city without the stages and marquees; they did somewhat get in the way of Ghent’s beautiful city centre. And here are some of the many photos I took while I was there.