FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - RANDOM 5 FRIDAY

1. After Aqua Gym on Monday where everybody left well equipped with bras and underpants and nobody missed anything, I went to "Tom & Co" which is a food store for animals. I needed cat food for my always hungry cat family.



The star of the shop is Cookie the parrot. He likes to chat and I too, so first thing was to say hello to him. We chatted for a while, he says all kind of funny words, and when I left he whistled behind me like men do when they see an attractive woman. I thought, how times have changed, in the past men whistled behind me and now a parrot. That's life !

2. I always complain about the wet and rainy weather we have in Belgium. In fact my blog should be completely wet. To comfort myself I just took my car and went to my favorite Indian store



and you can see it here when I arrived.



I bought this little case for my new camera and was happy that the elephant and my camera had the same color. Sometimes little things can make your day.

3. I had moved my desk from behind my bed to the window and was quite satisfied with the result. It made my room bigger. But still it didn't look as I would have wanted. The little table I had put on my desk so that the screen was at eye level, disturbed me.


before                                                                      after

and then suddenly I had an idea ! why didn't I put my chair lower ? I only had to pull on the level ! I did ! Now it looks much better and I also can observe what is going on in the street, some kind of neighbor watch ! When I think that it took me only 6 years to find out that I only had to  adjust my desk chair !

4. To free Mr. G. of my constant presence (the life of a retired couple) I escaped to my friend Ilona. There we chatted about forthcoming holidays together, and the world in general. We also talked about the French president's love affair and found ridiculous what a mess the press tried to make about it. After all he is not married and even if he were, what have politics to do with his private life ? Nobody has first ladies here in Europe, and in Belgium it would even be rather funny we would have a first Sir, as our prime minister is homosexual. Nobody cares, he is an excellent politician and that is what counts. Fortunately that was the opinion of the French too.

5. We had a visit from a photographer of the local Newspaper in our painting class, who took picture of us while we were busy painting our master pieces ! I was just busy to finish mine,



and when I took this picture I didn't realize that behind my painting was a shopping bag with an advertising of a "Domestic Art" exhibition, which is not at all the same as it was all about food !

In the afternoon I drove my neighbor to the hospital to Brussels,  where she got her monthly shot in one eye, as usual it was hard to find a parking space and we arrived rather wet !




more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.


More participants here at A rural Journal.

LOOKING FOR INSPIRATIONS

Letter "I"

Usually the best inspirations for writing a post I have before I fall asleep. In fact they make me fall asleep not because they are boring, but instead of counting sheep, I look for inspirations, and suddenly it is morning and time to get up !

So when I got up, still without inspiration, I suddenly realized that inspiration starts with an "I" ! The perfect word for a post. I immediately consulted Madame Wikipedia but she hadn't a lot to say about this word except a few examples such as

Inspiration or inspire may refer to:

Artistic inspiration, sudden creativity in artistic production
Biblical inspiration, the doctrine in Judeo-Christian theology concerned with the divine origin of the Bible
Creative inspiration, sudden creativity when a new invention is created
Inhalation, the movement of air into the lungs, breathing in

but it helped ! I had an inspiration yesterday and this changed my room completely ! The only thing I had to do was taking off the little table on my desk on which I had put the computer screen so that it was on eye level and I didn't have to bent down to see the screen properly. I had this little table for years.

And then the inspiration came how I could get rid of this table on my desk ! I just had to push down the lever on  my desk chair and I would have the correct view right on my screen, without torturing my back on the chair ! As simple as that. Another advantage, I have a perfect view on the street and can watch my neighbors ! Now I ask myself why wasn't I inspired before to have such a practical and easy idea ? It's just as being in a wood and not seeing trees.



Before



and after inspiration

PS. The lamp on my bedside table is not to take a sunbath, but for luminositherapy, it gives you the lack of Vitamin D as we have not enough sunny days. I use it in the short days of winter months.

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

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WATERLOO BATTLE FIELD RENOVATION

For the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, important works are done on the site of the Lion. They  had started in 2012 and should be finished by 2015. It had been a long time since I hadn't been there although it's only a few Km from home. When I arrived I saw a battle field on a battle field ! Read more here.....

MY WEEKEND OF JANUARY 11

It had been quite a long time that we didn't have lunch together, Dominique, Nicole and I so we decided to go to "La Pomme" (The apple).



It looks very much like a Pub and the plates served there have American and not Belgian size ! On the neighbor's table a Hamburger was served which could have fed a whole family !



As the weather was nice for photo shooting, I thought I go photo hunting for the theme "Our World" and went to the Waterloo battle field where important renovations of the site are actually done to be ready for for the 200th anniversary of the battle in 2015. The whole site was a muddy mess. They are busy to built an underground memorial of the battle. I could see the entrance through the grids. Nobody was working, but despite the mud, there were tourists who even climbed up the 253 steps leading to the lion on the top of the hill.



and as I was already there, I thought I could drive a little further on the battle field. It hadn't changed since 1815 and the "streets" were accordingly ! My poor car ! I should have gone there with a tractor.



Not a single soul was around, from far I saw a farm, a horse which wondered what I was doing there, but posed for the picture and I nearly stepped into the left overs of a bird which probably a fox had eaten, leaving wings and legs.

Then I was completely lost in the so peaceful battle field. Fortunately Madame GPS is always with me so I pushed the button "go home" and followed the instructions. Don't ask me where I was, there were many very beautiful old farms transformed into houses, and I regretted that I couldn't stop to take some pictures. After a lot of "turn left" "turn right" I finally recognized where I was, I had landed on the main street of Waterloo ! At home I looked at my photos and was very satisfied with the result. My new camera had done a good job !



On Sunday we had a short visit from our son and Toby. They had been staying with a friend, near Waterloo and stopped at the way back to Amsterdam. We had lunch together and not only we were happy to see Toby so short after Christmas but our cat Arthur too ! He loves to play with him and the little cars ! The sun was shining and Toby could even run around on our terrace with his little tractor outside. I noticed that he slowly becomes too tall now for the little tractor.



After lunch we sat together and Toby played a little game with a talking cat on my Kindle, was he laughing  ! Then they left around 4pm it takes a little more then 2 h to get to Amsterdam.

We tidied up, put the toys away and then we both disappeared behind our computers.