FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. Since 1976 Belgium never had such a hot weather, and that was in July and not in June ! 35 °C (95 F) and no rain since a long time. Everything is dry the grass yellow and people walk around in slow motion. We are not used to such a hot weather ! Accordingly was my week ! It started by getting up opening all windows to let the cool (?) air in and than close the shutters to keep the warmth out. Moving as less as possible.



2. Same as n° 1 only I went to aqua gym, and we found that even the water was too hot, in winter we complain that it is not warm enough ! The only place which is bearable is my car and I could drive around the whole day, because it has air conditioning ! The stores and shops too, I could also spend my day sitting in a chair in the bank observing who is rich and who is not, private houses have no airconditioning or only very few. What we usually need here is heating and an umbrella against the rain but not the sun !

3. I had my new smart phone connected to wifi everywhere. To try it out I googled for something in a big store. Notifications are announced with a chirp of a bird and when I was connected my phone started to chirp and everybody around looked at me wondering where the bird was ! The only action I did this day was returning to aqua gym I had to catch up a day. Top theme .... the hot weather ! 
Late evening I heard that a terrorist had been killed in the central station in Brussels, and that the station was closed. Nobody was hurt, fortunately he had been killed in time. People now take it easy, we are getting used to it that's better otherwise you would always live in fear. Anyway what an idea to commit an attack in this heat !

4. We were asked to put water out for birds and other animals, which I did, not necessarily for the birds because of my killer cats, but for hedgehogs or foxes. I am lucky to live outside Brussels in an open area where at least there is some air. The poor people in the city can't sleep in this heat.

I also went to Ilona and we sat under her lilac tree and drank some "Champagne" without alcohol. It tasted very good and we emptied the whole bottle.

5. Reluctantly I went to my painting class, because it's always very warm there, our class is in the festivity room of the city's retirement home. And as old people are always freezing the heat is accordingly. But to my big surprise they had air conditioning installed and it was nice an cool while we painted. Outside it was even more hot the temperatures climbed up to 36°C, ! The rest of the day I spent outside under our pergola at least there it was a bit windy.

Probably on Monday I will complain about cold and rainy weather, this heat can't last forever !!




Mr. G. and I

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

Fast Blog

linking to Willy Nilly Friday five

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. As it was whit Monday, Waterloo's city center was dead, all shops closed and nobody on the streets. There was nothing going on either. Ilona needed to go out and we went to the old Mont St. Jean Farm, which had once been a Hospital for Wellingtons wounded soldiers 200 years ago.



Behind the farm is L'Orangerie du Prince our favourite place for a drink. There of course it was full, we hardly could find a seat outside with this wonderful view on the open fields.

2. We discovered a "new" (for us) restaurant in Waterloo with a nice terrace outside, the owner is Italian and there were of course a lot of Italian specialities on the menu card. Unfortunately for me, because I eat Italian each day ! But for a drink it was OK !

3. The friendly gardner I had found through the Waterloo Facebook page, came and trimmed everything which had grown so much, and put new bark on the ground. Now the garden looks clean again. The only thing which is missing are the flowers in the pots. The pots are still empty. I decided to put fake flowers in them, it's in front of the house and nobody will noticed the difference when they walk by and I don't have gymnastic to do and climb up the little hill to water the plants. Mr. G. had it done once, with two plants because he hadn't noticed the difference amongst the real once.



Rosie had found a new place

4. We had a terrible storm 90 km/h and all parks and graveyards were closed. There were quite some damages but fortunately not in our area. I don't like this strong wind whistling around the house.
Therefore I couldn't "plant" my flowers and the pots are still empty. Now it rains !

5. After painting class Ilona and I went to our Greek restaurant where we could sit outside then we had a good cup of Espresso here. Ilona went home and I had to go to the groomer with Kim !



Despite the fact that she allows now Mr. G to groom her, there was a huge amount of hairs coming out of her fur ! I am more and more convinced that she had been a sheep in her former life !

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

Fast Blog

linking to Willy Nilly Friday five

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. Good things come quickly to an end and Monday was my last day of my Egyptian holidays ! It was as if the hotel celebrated my departure because they started the morning with a special event.



First a frog showed up and greeted the guests,





A closer view

Followed by the staff making local music and the cooks carrying the tray around the beach. 



Arriving at the swimming pool it turned out that it was a "Fruit Festival" ! Fruits and also the food is delicious in this hotel, our so said "organic" was tasteless against it ! All guests agreed to that !

3. I spent the morning at the beach and said good bye and then dressed for "winter" and  had my last lunch there. At 2 am I was picked up by a bus and driven to the airport.

This time it went a little quicker and I only had to take off my shoes twice, I didn't ring when I went through the scan so everything went smooth. As I went to Brussels the plane was full of Belgians. I don't know but I was less controlled with my German passport and apparently was less suspicious than the Belgians, probably because of the terrorists who lived in Brussels ! Mr. G. picked me up and we were at home at 11 pm.

4. The next day the sun was shining fortunately, so it was less harder to get used to the colder weather !



Once I had unpacked my suitcase, Pookie took the opportunity and choose it as her new bed !

The afternoon I spent with Nicole on her terrace it was nice and warm and I told her about my holidays ! In November she will come with me because then I return !!

5. During our painting class, I didn't paint very much I mostly told about my holidays !



Nicole had retouched the sky of her horse painting and suddenly her horse had only 3 legs, the sky had covered the 4th ! We had a lot of fun with her horse because first it had 4 legs which were wrong then she added two legs which made 6 and then she took two away and had four and because of her sky she ended up with 3 ! That's why she is laughing so much and we too when we saw her master piece !

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

Fast Blog

linking to Willy Nilly Friday five