FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

1. The whole week it rained, which was maybe good for the grass, plants and trees but certainly



not for me ! I rather preferred to stay inside it was also very cold for April, only 5 °C (39 F) !  Fortunately for me the Belgian TV channels also diffuse now another German channel, which makes a total of 3 and this one is so funny because it only treats family dramas, frauds, and other daily problems, showed in little movies with actors. It's amazing for me how the German language has changed especially when kids or teenagers talk, fortunately I see the pictures to get the sense of what happens.

2. My son needed a birth certificate so I went to the Waterloo city hall and asked for it. Of course they couldn't give it to me, because he was born in Brussels in one of the 19 municipalities called Etterbeek and I was told to go there. Fortunately he wasn't born in Beijing (the ancient Peking) !

3. So the next day in pouring rain I drove to Etterbeek ! I hadn't been there at least for 30 years, I recognized the street names and the beautiful old mansions were still standing, but a lot of oneway streets had been created and I had to follow blindly my Madame GPS ! I got the impression that I was turning around always in the same streets.



But finally I arrived. The old building had been changed completely and a new annexe which didn't fit at all had been built.



In the rain it looked like this now, and the entrance was also in the new building



The inside was very modern and I couldn't find out what this sculpture meant ! I found no words for it.

Fortunately there was nobody before me so I got it very quickly. I regretted that I couldn't take some pictures of the old streets but it rained too much.

4.



While watching the family dramas on TV, (a 15 year old was pregnant, got a baby boy and her mother had not noticed anything at all ) I looked out of the window and saw Rosie on the roof of the garden shed. At a second glance I realized that it wasn't Rosie but a magpie ! Maybe I need new glasses.

5.


My friend Ilona needed to buy a new vacuum cleaner and she had asked me to come with her. We met at her Mother's who also lives in Waterloo and is always happy to have some "young" company ! We had coffee and cake together and then off we went to a store. Now Ilona is a special woman, she wanted a vacuum cleaner which was silent and not making a loud noise. I think we were the first clients in the young vendors life who asked to switch on the vacuum cleaner so that Ilona could hear the noise. Others would check the watts and the accessories but certainly not the noise. I asked him if he hadn't one with music, but he had not. He was a real good guy, he pulled out 3 models, connected them and let us hear the vacuum cleaner "singing" one by one. He repeated this operation 3 times and then she found that the red one was more silent then the others. After 45 min of listening to the vacuum cleaner, she finally made her decision. The very patient vendor was happy and Ilona too. When we came out of the shop, I asked her why she didn't put earplugs in her ear or listen to an MP3 player while cleaning her house. She hadn't thought of that !

and I was laughing my head off !