HODGEPODGE AUGUST 26

1. Is school back in session where you live? Is everyone in person or does your system still offer a virtual option? Are kids wearing masks? 

School holidays are finished next week and life gets back to normal ! It's about time because the whole little country of 11.500 000 million inhabitants does school holidays too ! TV programs are changed (for the kids on the Belgian channels) most of the administration services are in summer sleep or absent the mail is even slower as usual in short the country is in snail speed ! Now we are almost back to normal. Kids wear masks from 12 years on, but only in the classroom. We can gather again without any limit and festivities take place as ususal.

2. Something you still do 'old school'? 

I don't know what old school is, because I never followed school rules, but yes I still eat with knife and fork and put my shoes on when I go out. But it can happen that I go shopping in slippers and only realie it when I come home and want to put on my slippers.

3. One lesson you've learned in the 'school of life'? 

Yes, never do what you are told, first think it over and check if it is right or wrong. Even the best teacher can make a mistake. And the teachers we had just after war were not at all like teachers today ! They were robots ! No wonder because when I started primary school we were 80 in one class and had to sit at 3 on old wooden school benches made for two ! There were not enough schools all bombed out.

4. When you were in school did you pack a lunch or buy a lunch? Your favorite thing to see on the lunch menu or inside your lunchbox back in the day? 

As I went to school in Germany school was from 8 to 1 pm and then finished. We all returned home where the mothers waited with a hot meal. Very few women worked at that time because there were no daycares and not everybody could afford a nanny. So all mothers I knew from my school friends stayed home. I am talking end 1940 beginning 1950. Today school hours are still the same, but there are daycares, not much but it is a beginning and what is very much in fashion now is who has the biggest salary works and the other stays home, therefore there are more and more housemen ! This solution is cheaper then paying for a daycare. Quite a lot of men appriciate to stay home and take care of the household.

5. August is National Family Fun Month. Tell me something fun you’ve done this month. 

I had a fun week with my friend who visited me for a short week, as we do since 2008  ! The last 3 years it was not possible because she lives in the South of France and I couldn't get an airplane due strikes and bankrupcy and then 2 years of Covid prison. She was happy to be in the cold and I am always happy to warm up my old bones when I stay a week with her. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

When I think that I have met Claudie on a blog ! We were blogfriends and then she invited me in 2008 and came to us the same year. From the very first moment we became friends, she was exactly like in her blog and it was always a pleasure to be together. On top our husbands are very similar so I was not lost at all when I stayed at her home. It's near the Italian border and the people have almost the same way of life only that they speak French.