FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - RANDOM 5 FRIDAY

1. In my aqua gym group the shortest one measures 1.50 m (4.9) and the tallest 1.80 m (5.9ft) and of course the water level is the same. Therefore one has to stretch and stand on her tiptoes while the other has to bent her legs so that only the necks and heads appear. We were doing an exercise and as both were close to the spot where the water gets deeper, suddenly the little one disappeared and was pulled out by the tall one, which of course made the whole class burst out in laughter.

After aqua gym I went with Dominique for a sandwich in "La Brioche", it should have been a short lunch, but as usual we met some other women there who updated us on the last happenings in Waterloo. They have a lot of choice in sandwiches and I had one with goat cheese, which lay between a slice of white and a slice of dark bread and was served with a good portion of mixed salad.

2. My new desk panel has to be painted and Ilona proposed to do it for me, as I am better in painting cats then painting walls or panels. When I arrived she was busy with washing her ceiling and the walls in a sudden attack of energy and activity, and we had our tea in the middle of buckets, sponges, and covered furniture. We chatted for a while then I returned home and she to her work, and when I arrived I looked at our walls and ceilings and thought maybe one day I will have such an attack too, but I doubt it very much. Fortunately it is not necessary either (yet) !

3.


Our Philips Senseo coffee machine is slowly giving up its soul, after not even two years. Of course I can't find the guarantee anymore which would still have covered a repair. Instead of two black water lines coming out of the machine, it now tinkles slowly like a source in the desert through the coffee pad and fills only half of the cup. I googled for help. We followed all advices to repair the machine. At the end I came to the conclusion that the best advice a guy had given was, to buy a new one, while the old one is in repair and when the new one is out of work to take the old repaired one and so forth. I won't buy a new one, I wait until there is no tinkle coming out anymore ! Meanwhile we push the button twice, to fill in a whole cup. If only I had known before that these machines don't last very long !

4. I went to Nicole to bring her dog Charlie's towel she had forgotten in my car. When I arrived at her house all windows were open and the door too, and the whole apartment stank of cold smoke. She had roasted two pieces of chicken in a pot, was interrupted by her neighbor who invited her for a glass of champagne, stayed there for an hour and had completely forgotten her chicken on the stove. When she came back she couldn't even see poor Charlie through the smoke !


Smoked Charlie

The pot was red and there was nothing left from the chicken, not even a little piece, it had been completely "incinerated" ! Dog Charlie took it easy, he hadn't even coughed but had run outside to get some fresh air. Nevertheless we had our coffee and got used to the still smelly room.

5. My cleaning lady probably thought I didn't have enough cats in my of about 450 cats collection and offered me a bunch of 6 ceramic cats !



after having looked through the whole house to find a space for them, I don't want to offend her by putting them in a drawer, I finally found a little space in the staircase leading to the guest room.

As usual when my friend Dominique goes on holidays we inherit her two budgies. They sit now in the guest room, the door well closed, otherwise they would be a nice meal for our cats !



When she brought them over, Rosie was just sitting on the stairs and made eyes like saucers ! The budgies are very cheerful and therefore very loud and the house is filled with their chirping. Cat Arthur sits in front of the door and rakes his brain how to get in ! Fortunately he does it only for a couple of days then he had understood, that there was no way to get into the room.

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A VINTAGE LADY's NIGHT

Letter : N

I raked my brain to give this post a title ! Google has become such a fussy censor. Titles such as "My nights", "My agitated nights", "My Night adventures" would be immediately X-rated and banned from my oh, so innocent blog.

It once happened to me because I had published a picture of Brussels Symbol



The Manneken Pis which you can find in Wikipedia and all travel brochures when you look up what to see in Brussels. This picture was taken off by Google, as it offended the public and could be classified under pedophile pictures. Google's employes certainly have a lack of  general knowledge and apparently must be quite bigot !

Back to my agitated night. First the wind whistled around the house and made such a noise that it was hard to sleep. When I finally fell asleep I was woken up in the middle of the night by something very heavy, fury and soaked wet, which was my cat Arthur who wanted to tell me that he was back from his nightly excursions. I dried my hands and Arthur and went back to bed again.

Then I was woken up by a big bang. I jumped out of my bed to see what had happened and found Mr. G. sitting in his bed fists up, he had banged against the wall and the picture which was hanging over his bed had fallen down and the frame was broken. Apparently he had dreamed that he was locked in a bus and banged against the door to get out. I put the picture aside, said good night and returned to my bed.

After a while I managed to fall asleep again, but was woken up by rambling noises coming from the bathroom.



I got up once again and found cat Arthur playing with a duck in the bath tube at 4.30 am ! I hid the ducks and went back to bed again.

Useless to say that in the  morning I was fresh like a daisy, had dark rings under my eyes and fell asleep after lunch watching TV.

These are the adventurous and agitated nights of a vintage lady, and have nothing to do with the nights I spent when I was young. Although that doesn't mean anything because I know a 72 years old lady who had two broken rips after having spent a night with her 15 years younger lover !

PS. I wonder if Manneken Pis will be censured again ???

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WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

ABC WEDNESDAY IS HERE

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MY WORLD RATHER WET

My world in our world is rather wet. No way to go for photo hunting to any place. It rains and it is also quite windy. I am waiting for flippers to grow instead of my feet, with all this water.

Not to get wet, I took these pictures out of my car.




In front of our house








and the center of Waterloo, when I drove through after shopping.

MY WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 15

Although since weeks I was reminded of Valentine's day each time I opened Internet,  I forgot. But fortunately I found immediately a solution in the morning, I wished happy Valentine to Mr. G. and  proposed a nice Sushi dinner at home. He was very happy about this idea or at least his stomach was, he loves Sushi.

I had to buy some cheese and bread and also take some cash, the cash point is inside the supermarket. In Belgium these machines are called "Mr. Cash" but I prefer the English version "A hole in the wall". I put my card in the "hole", got my cash, but not my card. After having pushed on all buttons and inspected the slit where the card should come out from all sides without any success, I was sure that the card had been swallowed by the hungry machine. 



I called a responsible for help, it was a nice lady, she also pushed on all buttons but no card came out. Then she looked at me and asked if I was sure that I hadn't put the card back in my purse. Convinced that this was not the case, I looked in my wallet and what was there ? The card ! Thinking of I don't no what I had put the card back where it belonged ! With a sigh of relief I thanked the lady and then we both laughed about my distraction. The rest of the afternoon I spent with Nicole who also had similar adventures, the worst was when she went to the vet and arriving there she realized that she had forgotten her dog at home !

On Sunday morning I went as usual to the midi market in Brussels and got nearly involved in a fight !



Apparently a man had bothered a young girl by touching her between the legs. The girl instead of informing the driver had left the bus. That was before I arrived.

A hooligan looking like guy who sat behind me had gotten up and wanted to attack the culprit by insulting him with words I could never translate. Then he approached the guy but a young man held him back. The guy left the bus in a hurry at the next stop, and the story should have been over.

But the other one continued to shout and now insulted the whole bus, that we were all responsible if a rape would have happened. As a respectable vintage lady, I tried to calm down the overdoing lawkeeper.  I told him that nobody had been raped so far, that the guy in question had left the bus and that now he could sit down, he had done his duty. But there was nothing to do he continued to treat us as assholes (excuse my French) and worse.

He smelled like a beer barrel at 10.30 am, and had obviously mixed up coffee with beer, I finally had enough and stood up. He was more then a head shorter then me and had to look up. I must have had a terrible expression on my face because when I shouted "Now you sit down and shut up" he sat down like a schoolboy, he probably thought I would smash my caddie over his head. Meanwhile the driver had stopped the bus and arrived. Another man told him what had happened and said that this lady (me) had calmed him down. Still during the whole way he was mumbling about failure to render assistance and complained to his wife or girlfriend who looked scared and terrified. I thought this is the kind of man who beats up his wife if ever she dares to have another opinion.

I remembered my youth when things like that happened to me, but I wasn't a helpless victim which got out of the bus, I once slapped a man in the face and called the driver, who called the police and the man was arrested. Girls shouldn't be afraid of such individuals, especially not in a bus !

After this rather exciting trip I arrived at the market, did my shopping and then sat down on the terrace of my usual café enjoying a cup of tea in the sunshine. A few minutes later a lady asked if the other seat was free and sat down with me. It took not even an hour and I knew her whole life. She was 72, talked about her numerous lovers, her divorced husbands, her life in general and how she spends her days, and I thought how nice it is when you listen life to human stories on a terrace in the sunshine, instead of sitting in front of the TV and see the same but on a screen.

When I was home again, I thought that life can be quiet exciting !