FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

1. On Monday after aquagym, I went with Dominique to our little Greek restaurant. We could sit outside in the garden and that was very nice.

2. Then the heat wave started. We got temperatures we never had since 1901 !! We went from 30°C (86 F) to nearly 40° (104 F) ! We are not equipped at all for such a heat and I don't know anybody who has an air conditioning in his house ! Only shopping malls and supermarkets and some other stores have it and most of the cars are equipped with it too.

3. After having done some shopping in a fortunately cool supermarket, I bought a pair of white sandals, before I returned home ! For a moment I thought I should drive around in my car the whole day and keep cool ! 

4.



This collage resumes the following days. I had moved my computer on the terrace, digged out our ventilator which we hadn't used for ages, and made myself as comfortable as possible. The best thing was not to move ! The cats lay around exhausted wherever I went or inside on the cool tiles or outside in a shady place.

We ate noodle or rice salad the whole week and after a movie on TV I stayed on a deck chair in my nighty and read until I nearly fell asleep and I dragged myself into my bed.

On TV we got informations all the time what to do and how to behave in this so unusual heat.

5. The highlight of the week was the invitation to a cocktail of the mayoress of Waterloo. She and the people who had organized the bicentenary of the Waterloo  had invited all volunteers to thank us.



She is a very attractive and very friendly person and her "Thank you" speech was full of humor.



Around drinks and snacks we chatted and each of us told the most funniest experiences they had made with all these tourists. All in all it turned out that the tourists from all countries (UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Russia) had been very friendly and patient despite the not so good organized transport to the Lion, except the French and Chinese !

We all had a very nice time and are ready for the next work as volunteers !



and this is the official photo which was published in the Newspaper.

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

GEOGRAPHY

Letter G

According to Mrs. Wikipedia (to me it's a Mrs and not a Mr.) Geography stems from Greek γεωγραφία, geographia.  The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). At school I didn't like Geography and it remained γεωγραφία to me and on top I didn't know this Mr. Eratosthenes, at that time I only knew Mr. Aristoteles Onassis and his affairs.

With the time I learned and now I know at least the continents and countries. But when I started to travel in Blogland and wanted to know where and in which country my blog pals lived, I sometimes had to do a real Mrs. Marpel job. Not always with success.

Some people think that everybody knows where his city or village is located ! So when somebody writes about cities like Takem, Roelands, Middlefart, Penistone, Intercourse, or Birds in Hand etc and nowhere on the blog you find the country, it becomes very difficult to know where these places are. It gets even worse when I have to find out the name of the city, when under a photo the title is :  "Summer in the city", "Crochet around town", "This old house" etc.

I have to admit that ever since I started my travels through Blogland, my geographic knowledges have very much improved !  I caught up everything I missed during Geography class, during which I preferred to dream about traveling to other countries and continents or chatted (whispered) with my neighbor.

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

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THE CHATEAU DU FOSTEAU CASTLE

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WEEKEND REVIEW JUNE 27

After last weekend's agitated bicentenary Waterloo battle celebrations I wanted to see how the Hougoumont Farm looks without the thousands of visitors.



The new statues which had been unveiled by Prince Charles the week before, stand now at the entrance of the court yard. Inside there are also benches to rest.



Somebody had put a poppy wreath in front of the door, and my friend just had time to call back Charlie who had already lifted his leg !



Inside is a new visitor center and of course you have to pay now to see the farm.



A new (??) or now cleaned plaque was cemented in the wall



I saw the two still standing trees around which the battle took place and you can still see the impact of the bullets from 200 years ago.



At the Lion's mound the tribunes for 60.000 spectators were partly dismantled.



and a new memorial had been placed.

On Sunday Ilona and I went to the Lion mound, she hadn't seen the new site yet.



Some French soldiers were apparently nostalgic, because they had come back for the weekend.



The new visitor center in the underground Memorial museum was now open for all tourists.



 The old one is closed, but the old sign of what you should visit is still there although it is now completely outdated.



We met with Nicole and her daughter on the terrace of the new restaurant and watched the one week too late French soldiers parading by.



There were a lot of tourists climbing up the 223 steps to the Lion and some youngsters were rolling down the hill, which of course is not allowed, but forbidden things are just fun.

We sat there in the sunshine and chatted with tourists from Vienna and the UK, there was a group of Chinese and many French and Belgian tourists too.

We had a lot of fun and finally returned home at 6 pm.

CHARLIE's ADVENTURE

Charlie is my friend Nicole's Golden Retriever and a love of a dog. He often brings us into hilarious situations.

We walked around the Hougoumont farm battle field, looked at the renovated farm and 



arrived at two still standing trees which had seen the bloody battle 200 years ago and were full of bullet holes from this time.



Charlie, as all dogs, loves trees. And discovered a 200 year old hole in it. Of course he had to look inside. You don't find such an old hole every day. Now the entrance was quite narrow and Charlie is not the slimmest dog.



He tried to squeeze himself inside, and Nicole was very worried that he couldn't get out anymore and tried to pull him out by his tail. But Charlie is very stubborn, she could pull as hard as possible, he didn't move, instead he tried even more to get inside. The smells in there must have been delicious.



and he made it ! He was in the hole and we stood outside ! We waited and waited, called and called, but there were so many interesting things to smell at, apparently Charlie was very interested in history !



After at least 15 min, he finally had enough and pushing himself out backwards, he managed to get out after a while ! Nicole was so relieved and I called him Houdini !