FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. I don' know what happens this year, but we still have wonderful warm  weather always around 17° or more and it's difficult to dress ! In the mornings it's freezing and in the afternoon a T-shirt is sufficient ! So the weather was ideal for many to make a long weekend, as All Saint's day is a holiday in Belgium. That's the day where everybody who has a relative buried somewhere (in a graveyard of course) hurries from one graveyard to the other all over the country to bring mostly mums. The whole year nobody cares. That's the use.
 



Everywhere I looked the flower shops or stalls on the street were selling mostly mums in all colours !
Btw, I had Google translated an English text into French and "mums" was translated into "mothers", which gave a very funny text, as mothers were carried around or sat on the graves !



In the evening the door bell rang and a skeleton and a pumpkin were standing there, asking for treats ! Fortunately I had bought some sweets, because I knew that my young neighbor would come with her two children. But that was all this year nobody else showed up ! Halloween starts to move into Belgium only slowly.

2. I took the opportunity and went to the oldest cemetary of Waterloo (I wrote about it here) to take pictures. It is not in use anymore.



Important old Waterloo families are buried here and I recognized quite a lot because streets are named after them. There are also soldier graves from the first and second worldwar and also graves from soldiers of the Commonwealth. City employees were cleaning, for this special day, normally the graveyards are all very neglected, because the city has no money for that. Not only our city but in whole Belgium. Except the graves from American and English soldiers, they are always well taken care of and gardeners are fully employed the whole year long but it is paid by the American and British government !

3.



As All Saint's Day was on a Tuesday, lots of people had taken one day off to have little holidays. It had been a very long time I hadn't been to Brussels' Grand Place, usually I only go there when I have visitors. Because of the spring weather the place was full of tourists, despite the fact that Brussels is still a "very dangerous" city with terrorist alert level 3 (on 4) !



I took this picture of Manneken Pis, just to see if it will be censured again by Google. At the very beginning of my blogging in 2006 or 2007, it had been taken out because it was X-rated ! Poor Manneken Pis is only the symbol of Brussels ! There must be a lack of general knowledge amongst the Google people I hope it has improved meanwhile. Here he is used as publicity and stands in front of a waffel shop

4. We covered up the garden furniture too early, we couldn't know that such a warm weather would come, because according to the weatherman it should rain and the temperatures cold.



We could still sit on the bench which stood in front of the house.



And these 5 bags contain weeds and branches from our garden. Mr. G. had forgotten that Tuesday was a holiday and had put them out to be picked up by the "Green" bin men ! Fortunately it hadn't rained so far, otherwise they would have holes by now ! They will be picked up next week !

5. The weatherman must be happy because finally the rain he had announced since 4 days has arrived !
A reason for me to stay inside and think over what to do. First I had to got dressed and while I was looking for an adequate pullover, I felt that I should tidy up the wardrobe a bit and suddenly 4 pullovers and 2 cardigans were out and ready to be given away. My wardrobe looked empty ! Dangerous sign !

Then I was looking for a book and realized that there were far too many, I took a plastic bag, threw them all in and carried them to the basement, also to be given away. And amongst the books I found two photo albums.



One from 1930 showing my father during his military service with his parents and siblings on Christmas, all the others showed friends of him which I had never seen.

I have no photos at all from my grandma or grandpa from my fathers side and nothing of his sister and brother neither. He had quarreled about heritage stuff with them and they hadn't talked together since years and then they all died.



I even found a picture from my great great grandma ! I have no idea what her name was.  I took these pictures out and put the albums in the basement. Now I have more room again. Time flew by and suddenly it was already evening.

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