MY WEEKEND OF MARCH 7

Once again the city had invited the seniors for a theater play.



It took place in the city hall, which has a beautiful theater inside. Ever since we had the scandal with our mayor, I had seen this hall everyday on TV !

Before the play a lady held a speech in honor of the mayor who had done so much for the community for 30 years. There was a big applause and people stood up.



At the entrance I saw the first advertisings for the "Waterloo Battle bicentenary" which had also been organized by the mayor.



The play was a comedy and very funny, a family fight which could happen in all families of the world. We laughed a lot.

After the play we were invited to see the new building project in the center of Waterloo.



It looked very modern and the maquette should give us an idea how it would look like when it's finished. We were asked what we are thinking about this project. I only had one question : "Who is going to pay for it ?" which made the others laugh, because our city taxes are one of the highest in Belgium. Anyway before this thing is built with I don't know how many flats and shops etc, it probably will be finished when I can admire it from heaven or hell.



Then Nicole and I went to a Pub like restaurant where also drinks are served and our neighbor was this little doggy sitting in his bag. There was a birthday party and everybody was in a good mood and we chatted all together; Had been a nice evening.

On Sunday for the very first time this year, we had real spring weather ! 16 °C (61 F) sunshine and a blue sky ! I took the opportunity to drive to the next little town where they celebrated Carnival ! Normally Carnival is finished by Ash Wednesday, but there are still towns which celebrates !



In all Belgian Carnival  the Gilles have to be present. They are originally from Binche and wear huge hats with ostrich feathers. They have bells on their costumes and wear clogs. They dance to a monotonous music with trumpets and drums move so that the bells are ringing and stamp with their clogs on the ground. It's very noisy !



They were followed by this group of girls, unfortunately I don't know the origin of their costumes.



The crowd followed, so did I for a while, then I had enough and returned to my car.



On my way back I saw an unhappy princess, a bride, a little tiger (?) and Spiderman who probably called Spiderwomen on his smart phone.

MY WEEKEND OF JANUARY 25

Photo hunting becomes a real hunting, the only difference is that you don't wait for animals to kill, but for the sun showing up to have some decent light, at least for half a day. Which happened this weekend.



When I saw the sunny weather in the morning, I jumped in my clothes, then in my car, and drove to Brussels, got stuck in the tunnel leading to the city center for 45 min, blessed my car which drove in electric mode, and didn't consume any petrol, found a parking space which was a real miracle and went off to the see the Skyliner !

It is a steel tower, 85 meters (279 ft) high, which gives you a full panorama of Brussels. The glass cabin with a capacity of up to 60 persons, turns very slowly around its axis. It was beautiful and I really enjoyed it. For the first time I saw the Royal Palace from above !



On Saturday evening we had our monthly theater play and as usual our supper before in the the Theater's restaurant. We had a lot of fun, especially with the play ! There was only one actress playing a housewife who had sacrificed her whole life to husband and children and then decided to follow the invitation of a freshly divorced friend to spend 2 weeks in Greece. It was hilarious and so true ! She always spoke to the wall in her kitchen, which she called "the wall" as if it was a person and while she cooked, she emptied a whole bottle of wine !



On Sunday morning we got a Skype call from Toby, of course with the help of his Dad. He was in a very good mood and showed us some of his toys and spoke like a waterfall. I probably repeat myself, but it is a great invention, even if you live far away you can follow the development of your grandchild.

Three weeks were over and I took the bus to the Midi Market in Brussels. At least it wasn't raining. I bought fruits and then waited for my cigarette supplier in the usual café. Suddenly 4 policemen came in and sat at the table besides me. Not really the ideal place to buy tax free cigarettes ! I went outside and looked for him and after a while he showed up. I told him that there are a lot of police around despite the not so nice weather, but he told me that it doesn't matter, he has no problems with them, he knows them well and they don't bother him at all. You should have seen my face, because he laughed ! I got my cigarettes and I gave him the money and we shook hands saying good bye.

I bought a nice warm shirt for Mr. G. and some Spiderman socks for Toby and then returned home.
At least I had taken some fresh air, because it rained again the whole afternoon. I checked the paws of my cats, they still have no flippers growing.

MY WEEKEND OF JANUARY 18

This weekend was really nice ! First we went to see a play in our City Hall's theater. The play was called "Tics"



It was hilarious, we came out our bellies hurting. The play described 6 people who had a special tic. The eldest one suffered from the Tourette syndrome, the worst, which means that in the middle of a sentence he suddenly comes up with the exclamation of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks. We really learned a lot of very vulgar words !

The second one was a lady who ran all 2 minutes to the bathroom to wash her hands, the third calculated everything, hours in seconds, years in weeks, hours and seconds, the fourth couldn't walk on the floor because there were lines, the fifth, the young girl always repeated her sentences twice (even when they were very long) and the 6th, the old lady was obsessed that she had forgotten to turn off something in her house and made everybody mad as she always wanted to go home to switch off the light, turn off the gas etc.

All these 6 tics made the play so funny, but it wasn't a stupid humor it was actually rather sad. Nobody would like to have such a disease. Imagine you speak to a mayor for example and put "fu... you" in the middle of a sentence or even worse.

On Saturday morning I met with Cezar and Léia ( Bonjour et Bon Voyage) who were in Brussels because they had driven their son to the airport. His flight was at 6 am and the poor parents had to get up very very early. But still they wanted to meet me and at 8 am they called. They already were in Waterloo, and wanted to have a light breakfast, but Waterloo still sleeps at that time and everything is closed ! A real ghost town ! We met at the Carrefour parking and of course recognized each other immediately, our cars were the only once on the parking ! After a hearty greeting I drove them to the only place which is open in Waterloo for breakfast ... A bakery who had the good idea to also serve breakfast.



We had a nice coffee with freshly baked croissants and Cezar enjoyed a yummy chocolate cake. It was as if we had known each other in real, ever since we met on our blogs. We chatted and chatted and time went by, I wanted to show them Waterloo and also take them home, but they were so tired that we preferred to do this another time. They originally come from Brazil, and are in Europe since 6 years. First in Luxemburg and then in a real "hole" in the middle of Flanders where people are very narrow minded and not stranger friendly at all. The most famous madhouse of Belgium is located there too and it is a miracle that they didn't become mad ! We just visited the Waterloo church across the street, which is famous because it was the hospital where the wounded soldiers from the Waterloo battle were taken to.

I so much enjoyed their visit and once again thought how wonderful it is that through blogging you meet people from all over the world which probably I would never have met without my "Window to the world" !




In the afternoon I went to Nicole, was welcomed by Charlie who opened the door for me and then wanted to play with his ball. I had brought a DVD imitating an open fire for her Television, and she was delighted when the logs started to burn and she faked to heat up her hands ! It looks so real and also makes the noises of burning wood. Instead of looking at a dark TV screen, we looked at the burning fire.

On Sunday it was grey cold and windy and not really an inspiring weather to go out. So I spent the day with blogging, sorting out pictures, choose posts from my old blogs to review and correct them as I want to have them printed as a book.  A so said "Best of". That's quite a lot of work since I have to go back to 2006 ! And when I watched TV a stalker watched me too ... Arthur staring at me through the window into the living room !