3 Nov 2016

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.




more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.


more participants here at FIVE ON FRIDAY

22 comments:

  1. You must be in a different time zone from me, because over here it's only Thursday!

    But how lovely to find photos of your paternal grandparents. I am always very happy with new photos or letters or anything and I know how all of them looked! Well, most of them anyway!

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  2. The weather here has been a little strange too, a really mild October and now feeling quite chilly. How lovely to find some old photos, a wonderful link to your past.

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  3. Many Australians are buried in Belgium I think in three different cemeteries, the best known being Ypres (Ieper). I didn't know countries pay for the maintenance of graves. I guess Australia pays its share.


    Pleased you are getting some late warm weather.

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  4. Lovely old photo of your great great grandma. You must find her name, it shouldn't be too difficult. I had chocolates ready for Halloween but no one came so now I have to eat them myself.

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  5. Wonderful photo of your great grandma, lovely x

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  6. Please tell me how you managed to part with clothes. I set out with such good intentions but always end up putting everything back!

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  7. what a dun week you had. here in my neighborhood we had many trick or treaters but all went well.

    our snow didnt last even a day from our surprise dusting last week. temps have been in low 60s (farenheit) so giving us the chance to rake up all the maple leaves! a big chore. we are no where near done.

    have a happy weekend....li LOVE the old photosmof family!!

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  8. When you mentioned "mum's in an earlier post, I immediately realized you were talking about chrysanthemums ! Imagine Google x-rating your post - even we in outer Africa know about Mannekin Pis! I love your old photos. I had the exact-looking great-grandparents and great-great grandparents!

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  9. How lovely to find those old family photos. It looks like you had a great trip round Brussels.

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  10. When I visited Brussels, our tour guide told us that Manneken Pis sometimes is dressed for the occasion. I wonder if he got to wear a Halloween costume.

    And be careful what you ask for - I usually have 160+ Trick-or-Treaters. It gets a bit tiresome answering the door, but I do love seeing the costumes.

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  11. I've visited Brussels and Manneken Pis has to be one of the things I remember. I don't think I was very old the first time I went and, of course, it made us children giggle.

    How exciting to have such pictures. There are not too many old ones around of my family. My mum has a few of her dad and mum but no older than that. I would love more to go with the bits of family history I've found.

    Thanks for sharing your Five on Friday

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  12. Glad you had some nice weather and the rain held off for a while! Those are good activities to do when it does rain. I've got a box of my m-i-l's photos I need to put in an album. Maybe that will be a nice winter activity. Nice trick-or-treaters you have there! We didn't get any at our house and haven't since we lived here. Our own small street has nice sidewalks but the road leading to it doesn't, so I think people don't like to walk it in the evenings.

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  13. I hope the rain did not get to your green sacks before they could be collected! Old family photos are fascinating and your great, great grandma looks very wise.

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  14. I think the warm weather has now finished so time for the winter wardrobe to come out.

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  15. That was funny about Mums. Enjoyed your photos, this is such a pretty time of year. How wonderful to find those old photos.

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  16. I have that kind of day all the time -- starting out to do one thing, getting sidetracked, starting something else...and suddenly it is time for a glass of wine before our evening meal. (It's a tough life, being retired!) Looks like being blue allowed the advertising version of your statue to make it without censorship... you have showed the real thing since when you started, haven't you? It seems like I saw it here before. (I am not afraid to write the actual name of the statue, but I can't spell it and spell checker keeps giving me weird stuff so I left it out).

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  17. What treasure you found in those photograph albums! You are so lucky to have those photos of your ancestors. You made me laugh with "mums" - it took me a minute to work it out. Chrysanthemums! Hope you are having a good weekend. x

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  18. old albums are great to have :)

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  19. What a lovely five. The weather has been warm hasn't it and as such it has given us a glorious autumn. As I type this comment, the rain is tapping at my windows - it's been a long time since we last saw any rain like this. It's very welcome. Take care and have a lovely Sunday x

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  20. Another busy week for you. Halloween is becoming more popular here in the UK. I was out on Halloween but we left treats here with my son and his wife but only 2 groups of children called.
    Interesting to know our government pays to keep those grave well cared for. Our cemeteries are very mixed. Some are very neat and tidy others have areas that are a complete mess - especially where there are areas of very old graves and the descendents have probably either died or moved away so no one comes to tend the grave. A good case for making cremation compulsory.
    Here if we have a holiday on the day the rubbish is due to be collected they either come the day before or the day after. We don't have to wait another week. It is definitely colder here now and wet! And darker evenings because our clocks changed last week. This is my least favourite time of year.

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  21. How fun to find those photos of your father and his siblings. Is there any opportunity for you to contact your cousins?
    In the US we have two days where we check the graves of family, especially military--Memorial Day in May and November 11th (this week!) which is Veteran's Day.
    I'm glad you had those extra days of warmth and sunshine before the rains returned.

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  22. Neat pictures you found. It was a very quiet halloween here. We only got about 10 kids, and lots of people I talked to had none. It might have been because there were parties on the weekend and now between certain hours people can take their kids to the mall all dressed up and the stores all give out candy. I don't think anyone does the All Saints Day thing here with the laying of Mums.

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