SATURDAY FUN

Wasn't it International Women's Day on Tuesday the 8 ?

2011 (a little better ?)

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

1. When this week started I was like an overcharged battery still full of anger and I didn't know what to do with my energy ! Instead of buying a punching ball, I attacked the bathroom tiles as the ceiling had been repainted and the tiles looked dirty from top to bottom. Mr. G thought that after that cleaning I would fall into pieces but not at all ! I still felt ready for the punching ball.

2. The next day I thought over my energy problem, now it couldn't be my anger anymore and finally I found out what it was ! Rememeber my light therapy lamp which I had bought a month ago ? That must be the reason ! From being half dead and feeling empty, this lamp brought me up to 100000 volt ! For a month I had used it each day sitting besides it for an hour and now I am blown up with Vitamine D and energy. Therefore I installed the lamp in Mr. G's office so that he will be able to wash up a whole house after one month of treatment ! Honnestly I never thought it would be so efficient.

3. My painting class decided to go to Binche where each year a meanwhile very famous and special carnival takes place (I'll write about that next week).



Finally we were only four (my teacher sits besides me) the others had to keep their grandchildren and couldn't come, because there are school holidays and the parents work. (I didn't have this chance with my parents) The day started with a lot of laughter because while we were exchanging our mobile telephone numbers, we missed the train and had to wait for an hour for the next one ! Meanwhile we had a coffee together.


The 3 girls, one takes forces for the afternoon and in the background I discovered little cats ...

4.

There was a special train for the Carnival to Binche, which of course was fully packed everybody wanted to go to see the Carnival parade, people were even sitting on the floor, it was like an exodus ! We were very lucky our wagon was full of British students and when they saw us arriving laughing for I don't know what reason, they got up and we had 4 sitting places ! For once we grandmas were honnored. Speaking English I could translate and when we got off the train we already had our bellies aching because we had laughed so much with them and the other people in the wagon.



Walking from the station into the city center we saw a stall selling carnival stuff and amongst other things wigs,



my friend Micheline and I bought a wig, while Maggie our teacher prefered to be a cow girl. The third one had flowers in her hairs.



We met a the little cat group again and also had to pose for people on the street they wanted to take pictures of us. My orange wig had a lot of success and when I was sitting on a step, eating a typical sandwich with a huge black sausage with onions, people wanted to take a picture of me. I felt like Lady Gaga (Gaga means "doddering - geriatric" in English).



Meanwhile the "Gilles" had dressed up and joined the carnival procession



Mr. G. burst out in laughter when he saw me coming home, he tried the wig too but of course his head is much bigger probably because he has more brain.
It had been a real wonderful day !

5. To celebrate our after Carnival, I had invited them for the next day



one was missing, she had expected an electrician in the morning but as usual at 4 pm in the afternoon he still wasn't there ! Maggie had brought a special cake called "double face" I don't know for what reason in fact it was a delicious cheese cake. And of course we had to squeeze together on one sofa because Sir Arthur the cat occupied the second one with his full length and nobody wanted to disturb him !

VIRTUAL GIRL FRIENDS

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

Letter "V"

I am a very modern woman and you know why ? Because I have virtual friends.

Nobody around me has virtual friends. When I say I have virtual friends, most of them don't know of course what I mean and they think I am ready for a madhouse. But I consider myself a lucky girl. My virtual friends are like friends in real life. I can empty my heart and I always get recomforted and they understand me. It's just the same with the real friends. I mean those I know in flesh and blood, while the others I only know from pictures ! On posts you can't always write the truth, it would be boring for others.

My virtual friends live in different countries and on different continents, but that doesn't matter. We may have other climates or landscapes, live on the other side of the world (it depends were you are standing), but all in all we lead the same life. We have the same feelings, the same interests and it would be so nice to meet each other once in the future. And why not. The world will get smaller and smaller, it got it already.

Imagine in 1830 it took 6 months to go to New York by ship, today it takes you 6 h by plane. And even Australia is not that far anymore ! And the UK are just around the corner, it takes 1 1/2 h to get from Brussels to London. It takes me more time to get to my friend who lives on the other end of Brussels ! There are not a lot of Blog friends I would dare to meet in real life, I am always afraid to be disappointed, but for a few I am to 99,9 % sure that it would work.

It starts already with the voice. You imagine one and then the sound of the voice is completely different from what you thought ! I have heard the voice of one virtual friend talking to me on the phone for the first time and had imagined a high girlish voice when heard a rather deep one, I was so surprised that I nearly forgot to answer, which made us laugh when I told her so. I have met twice Blog friends, since I started Blogging in 2006, but it was rather disappointing. It turned out that they were not at all the same once I had thought and imagined so, it was nice to meet, but not more.

My in "flesh and blood" friends know my "virtual" friends by name now. I don't have to explain anymore "you know the one in Australia who has sometimes a kangaroo in her garden which she has called "fat butt", or "the one with the dackels" and finally I get the impression that real or virtual, they are all my friends. The only difference is, that with my virtual friends I can only share a virtual tea or coffee time, and we eat our virtual cake, but we can watch the same movies or series together only at different times.

I think it is wonderful to be able to know women from all over the world and even become friends and this is not virtual but real.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

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Toby : "Don't you dare to take my money !"

MY WORLD - Braine l'Alleud market

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I only discovered recently that there is a market in Braine l'Alleud, which is the next door village or now rather a little town. The battle of Waterloo took also place in the village of Braine-l'Alleud,where the Prussians were expected to reinforce the battle against Napoleon and his army. The Waterloo Lion is also more located towards Braine l'Alleud.

But today I only went there because the sun was shining and I needed some fresh air and not a battle, unfortunately it was very cold. Nevertheless there were many people






Here the market starts with a rather strange "modern art" sculpture, I really don't know what it should represent because I only see piled up cobble stones. Please feel free to analyse this artwork in your own interpretation, one thing is for sure, it wasn't a truck which lost the stones.



There is nearly everything to buy, from flowers and vegetables to handbags



around the city hall it continues



This was my favorite market visitor, he was enormous but very friendly



Choose a handbag, jeans or sweaters and when you are hungry you can have hamburgers or hot sausages.



For those who like it rather sweet there are the famous Belgian wafels freshly made in front of you





A lot of choice for cheese, also presented in a very cute way



A couple from Peru sold beautiful handknitted pullovers, bonnets or cardigans, for all ages.

I didn't buy anything besides the Tartiflette I mentioned in my yesterday's post.



When I came home I was joyfully greeted by a happy Arthur, he probably thought I'll bring him some special treats. Love always goes through the stomac !

WHAT DID YOU DO THIS WEEKEND ?

Helps you to remember what you have done on the weekend of March 5. You never know if you need an alibi ! If you participate please put the little logo on the top of your post and leave your link.

I had a nice and quiet weekend, it was cold and windy outside so I prefered to stay home and catch up with my photos and also do some computer work I had neglected, like back ups etc. I still had to do some cleaning in the house because of the painters, as I had been busy to prepare the guest room for last weekend and didn't have any time for the rest. This kept me busy the whole Saturday.

No rude guest this weekend, but Dominique came over for a "Movie Evening". We both love the English Series "Midsommer Murders" and love Inspector Barnaby so we watched one film with "only" 3 murders. At least this series is full of intrigues and very suspensful, without blood flowing in streams.



Mr. G. loves this series too so he watched with us. We had some cake and tea and it was a real nice evening. Sometimes doing a "home cinema" is better than going out when the weather is so awful.

On Sunday it really was a sun day ! Looking out of the window I thought I could go in a T-shirt ! But I had to dig out my thick winter coat, it was only 2 °C (35F) and the wind blow quiet strongly.



Flowers, cheese, vegetables and self knitted cardigans from Peru, not to forget the delicious Belgian wafels

Therefore I did my little walk on the market in Braine more like a jogger, bought a freshly prepared "Tartiflette" for supper which was absolutely delicious and then a friend arrived and together with Dominique we went to the cinema (seems to be my movie weekend) watching a French comedy called "Les Femmes du 6e étage" (The women of the 6th floor) which treated the hard life of Spanish cleaning women working in France in the 60th. The subject was rather sad because there were treated without any respect and had to work for a miserable salary. The story was that a rich Banker fed up of his posh life, moved into the 6th floor into a little box room which could contain just a bed and a bedside table together with the Spanish cleaning women who also lived in these box rooms without running water of course. It was hilarious ! We laughed the whole film long ! That was exactly what I needed to distract me from my worries.

I also bought a beautiful fake sunflower bouquet and put in my room to cheer me up. I haven't gotten flowers for quiet some time and the once I had secretely expected from my last weekends guests I never got.

As a French proverb says, "you are never better served than by yourself"



Tartiflette, Arthur rolling in the sunshine and my beautiful Sunflowers.

HORROR IN THE TOILET

My friend Ilona had her toilet door replaced by a big strong guy, who can lift up and push around the heaviest things as if they just were lego pieces.

When the doorhandles were placed, he tried them from outside and inside to check if they would work. Then he had the good idea to get inside the toilet room and lock the door to try out if it also worked once the door closed. Indeed it did, it worked so well that he couldn't get out anymore and of course he had left all his tools outside. Now Ilona's toilet is a just like a box room and a big man has not much room in it, the only thing he could do to gain some space was sitting down on the throne. My friend tried from outside to slip a screwdriver under the door, but unfortunately the man had done such a good work and the door fitted so perfectly that there was not even room for a piece of paper.

The poor guy started to panic inside the toilet and wanted to get out. Outside my friend got more and more nervous listening to the moaning and complaints of the guy inside. Finally she was so unnerved that her hands trembled so much that she couldn't handle the screwdriver. She tried and tried and it didn't work.

Suddenly inside the toilet there was no sound anymore so that she thought he had fainted or even worse. The only solution was, to make a big hole into the brandnew door, to eventually get a corpse out. She took a hammer and banged as strong as she could on the screwdriver which she had stuck in the keyhole.

Suddenly there was a "click", the door went open and into her arms fell a completely exhausted 100 kg (220 lbs) man, white like a bedsheet and dizzy so that she had to carry him to her sofa. I don't know how she handled that, because my friend is a rather petite person with a weight of 50 kgs ( 110 lbs) and it was a miracle that the big guy didn't make a pancake out of her, when he fell into her arms after his liberation. They both of course had a shock, and it took several beers before big guy recovered from his shock and could go home, this time a little dizzy from the good Belgian beer and in an excellent mood. Fortunately he could walk home ... alive.

My friend took the key out and put it away, she had no desire to live this again.