belgianwaffle

Archives for May 2004

Damp and sleepless


Posted in: Princess

Baby woke up in the middle of the night.  Stumbled in to her bleary eyed clutching bottle. Picked up screaming bundle in the dark.  Removed cap from bottle.  Inserted in baby. Er no, discovered that in my befuddled state in the pitch dark had removed entire top of bottle and had just doused myself and my, by now very annoyed, baby in formula. Alas.

Comments
jackdalton

on 04 May 2004 at 22:01

That’ll teach HER to wake YOU up in the middle of the night…

belgianwaffle

on 05 May 2004 at 09:11

Bluepoppy, you are cruel to mock the afflicted. Jack, you are correct, last night she only woke up once and cried in a half-hearted nervous kind of way.

Who would have thought Code 46 would be so dreadful?


Posted in: Reading etc.

Just polished off “Running with Scissors” by Augusten Burroughs.  Entertaining description of, frankly horrific, childhood.  Does not, however, entirely live up to the hype.

Last night saw the flic “In this World” absolutely brilliant, but very, very harrowing story of two refugees trying to make their way from Peshawar in Pakistan to London.  Really excellent though director’s social conscience can be a bit trying when he does voice overs.  This is, however, a minor quibble.  You have to get it out on video/DVD.  Suspect this will not be a problem as it is not exactly top of anyone’s list for an evening in (only got it myself because the rom com I wanted was unavailable).  Do see it, it’s fab.

Comments
belgianwaffle

on 13 May 2004 at 13:42

Yes, a bit depressing alright, but still very, very good. You see, I am NOT difficult to please!

Leaving


Posted in: Belgium

Had lunch today with my friend the best dressed diplomat.  To my great distress, she is leaving Belgium in August and abandoning me  (on the plus side she needs to shed some of her wardrobe, so this may not be all bad for me).

She has asked me to recommend 12 things for her to do before she leaves.  These are they:

1. Shop on Rue Antoine Dansaert, buy shoes in Suede on Rue de Tongres. Saunter down the Avenue Louise (suspect you will do this more than once).  Shop in the Galeries de la Reine.  Actually buy something in that nice bookshop.

2. Eat in all your favourite restaurants.  Also go to the Belga Queen (because it’s hip and has those strange toilets) and the Ogenblik because it should be one of your favourite restaurants. Save your shillings and go to Comme Chez Soi.  Just the once, because otherwise you will be beggared.

3. Go to Ghent for the day.  Inspect the altarpiece of the Lamb.
4. Go to the Ardennes for the weekend and do the descent of the Lesse in canoe.

5. Attend the 21 July parade and related celebrations.

6. Go to the musee des beaux arts and gaze at the Magrittes and the Flemish primitives and anything else that takes your fancy.

7. Go for a walk around the Etangs d’Ixelles. Go rollerblading in the Bois de la Cambre (I will lend you my rollerblades, if necessary).  Take the tram from Montgomery to Tervuren.  While you’re there have another look round the African Museum.

8. Take the art nouveau tour.

9. Go to mass in Notre Dame au Sablon. Have breakfast in the Pain Quotidien (has to be done). Wander round the expensive antique market and buy an overpriced antique map of Belgium and then head for the Jeu de Balle via rue Haute/rue Blaes.

10. Have a very bizarre beer in that pub across the road from the Saint Gilles maison communale.  Have a standard beer in the Metropole.  Have a drink in the Grand Place.

11. See something in the theatre de la toison d’or.

12. Come round to us for dinner.

Comments
belgianwaffle

on 05 May 2004 at 09:20

Good woman. We know that you are up for this because you have a tattoo (sp?) on your ankle…very cool indeed. Alas, I’m not sure how to spell tattoo.
For your information, this is the description of the pub in Saint Gilles which I mentioned at no. 10.
“MOEDER LAMBIC, rue de Savoie 68, just next to the maison communale of Saint-Gilles. A place, a temple, a spot not like the others. To put in the tierce of the estaminets of the city. Minuscule and hot as a cocotte-minute, full of vibrations and usual customers. More than 1000 ( THOUSAND!) different beers in stock, no comment. It’s quite simple, they serve you “all the Belgian existing beers”, dixit the waiter. Around gross wooden tables, young sympathetic loudmouths you can easily make acquaintance with. An authentic spot, I tell you! Long life to Moeder Lambic!”
English may be a little dodgy but facts are accurate. Come to Belgium and visit..

Reasons to suspect I am losing my mind


Posted in: Mr. Waffle, Princess

1. The other day, I parked in an underground car park. I extracted her highness, I locked the car and opened the boot. I took out her pushchair, strapped her in, attached the string bag, grabbed the rucksack and double checked that I had my keys in my pocket before closing the boot. You see, I am cunning, I have often worried that it is easy to lock my keys in the boot and that, frankly, would be disastrous. My keys were not in my pocket. I checked the string bag. No. I checked under the car. No. I double checked my handbag. No. Not in any of my four pockets. I took the Princess out of her pushchair and checked whether she was sitting on the keys. No. I put her sitting in the boot and checked around her. I took out everything in the boot. No. I double checked my pockets. No. I emptied out the nappy bag. No. This was ridiculous. I had used the keys minutes ago (about 15 minutes ago at this stage) to lock the car door. Could I have left them in the door? Could somebody have come and taken them while I was getting the pushchair out of the boot? That was the only explanation. You know, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” or words to that effect. I decided that I had better ring my loving spouse to get him to come and rescue us, bringing his car keys. I went to the car park entrance to get a signal, carefully keeping the car in view lest the scam artist should come up and try to drive it away. There was, of course, no one in the reception area which boasted a number of cameras. A pity, if there had been, I would have asked them to replay so that I could see the person who had stolen our car keys. I rang my husband and started to explain what had happened. “Um” he said “the keys wouldn’t be in the lock of the boot, you know, it would be up in the air and you wouldn’t see them.” Yes, that’s where they were.

2. On Monday morning, a friend of Mr. Waffle’s was in Brussels and, since I’m not working, I invited her round for coffee. While she was here, a friend of mine telephoned. Conversation was as follows:

Me: Hi, I can’t actually talk, there’s a person here, sorry not a person, a friend, well, not a friend of mine, a friend of Mr. Waffle’s, well, sorry a friend of mine too, but not as good a friend of mine as of his.

(Friend person – Um, I’ll just go to the bathroom).

Me: Oh well, she’s going to the bathroom so we can chat for hours, well, not hours, obviously, but minutes, well, a while, anyway.

Friend person sidles out of the room nervously.

3. Yesterday afternoon, I dried all my liquits with a teatowel. Liquits are these little plastic sacs of washing liquid that dissolve in water. You shove them in with your washing and hey presto the plasticky stuff dissolves away in the wash and your wash comes out clean. I suspect, they are almost certainly as damaging to the environment as SUVs. I don’t care. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a design flaw, like superheros, their greatest strength contains the seeds of their destruction, they dissolve in water. I keep them under the sink. So some water dropped in on them. And they started to dissolve. So I took them all out and dried them lovingly with a teatowel to preserve them. Even as I was doing this, I wondered “should I be safely in an institution?”

Completely unrelated point, if you are Irish and haven’t heard it, have a listen to this http://www.rte.ie/radio1/morning/morningireland/. Click on audio for today Wednesday (don’t know if they archive, so hurry) and listen at about 8.30. Cathal Mac Coille (who I normally loath) does an outstanding job interviewing Beverly Flynn.

Comments
Locotes

on 06 May 2004 at 03:29

I fear you are indeed losing your mind. At the same time, I am no psychologist or other brain-expert-type-person, so don’t take my word for it. I prefer to stay honest instead of worrying you unnecessarily about brain-shrinkage.(I actually typed that as brian-shrinkage first – which is a whole other matter. Brian is embarrassed about the whole thing, but is consulting his doctor at the moment. God willing, the problem will soon be solved through a strict regimen of tablets and massage therepy.)

jackdalton

on 06 May 2004 at 11:04

Locotes couldn’t even spell honest without a spell checker, so ignore his jibe…
Kambuchi is also said to be good. Or fortified wine. Or failing that, vodka straight from the bottle…
[Only kidding about the vodka: do not try this at home, whether in the company of Mr W’s old flames or not.]

Locotes

on 06 May 2004 at 14:28

Now that’s harsh. Everyone know’s I’m one of the most honesht…hunest….honnets….ahem…. people around.This coming from the guy trying to turn a married woman with child into an alocholic. You’re doing that on enough other blogs surely…

belgianwaffle

on 06 May 2004 at 15:49

Hello there lads, had another lost keys incident yesterday so feel that there is no hope for me. Jack, very perceptive, friend person is indeed an old flame of Mr. W’s though safely hooked up with someone else now…

jackdalton

on 07 May 2004 at 14:26
(
Comment Modified) There is no such thing as safely and hooked…

But I gotta hand it to you Waff, that was a six megaton job you did on the poor girl. Just think about it…
She went away with the jitters AND saying to herself: ‘He preferred her to me… oh. my. god. What must I be like..?’
Aces high… 😉

belgianwaffle

on 07 May 2004 at 15:55

Funny, funny, Jack. This girl is from Cork (he likes Cork girls) – and as you will be aware, self doubt is unknown to us…

Further car parking difficulties


Posted in: Belgium

I ran into trouble in the car park again.  I don’t think I should be allowed to park downtown on my own any more.  I lost my ticket. I rang for someone to come and help me. I pushed the button at the entrance to the car park. I pushed the button at the car park exit. I pushed the button on the pay machine. The car park rang with ringing noises but no one appeared. I kicked the pay machine. An attendant came hurrying up. Oh dear.  I explained that I had lost my ticket.

“It’s going to cost you lady”.

“Yes I know”

“Are you sure that it’s not in your bag?”

(Was that question idiot proofed?).

“Eh, yes.  Can I pay by visa, debit card…”

“Ah no, cash only”

Of course, back up to the shopping centre. Queue for cash.  Back down to the basement car park. Does your man have change? No, of course, not.  Back up to shopping centre, get change. Fill in long form giving my name, id card no., car reg, make and model and swearing that this is not a scam. Am free to go.  Blah.

Round at Glam Potter’s yesterday. She had had a difficult day. She had gone to IKEA to pick up a shoe baby L had lost there earlier in the week. As IKEA is planned so that once you’re in you have to see everything, she did a tour of the shop and bought some 99 cent chopsticks. She said that she felt a little odd in the queue as other people bought large items of furniture. Anyhow, on the way home, she ventured into the Brico to get wood to make bedheads (honestly, does that woman not have enough to do, she is disastrously creative).  She asked the man at the check out to help her put the wood in her car. He said no, maybe his colleague would help when he returned from his break. Baby L felt that this was bad news and began to wail and continued to do so until the colleague came back from his break. Then she redoubled her efforts.  The GP drove her car to the door and with the help of the Brico man started to load up her car. A random punter turned up with a trolley (please insert soundtrack of wailing child as background to the following dialogue)

“Please move your car” he said.

“I will, just as soon as I’ve loaded this up”

“Please move your car”

“I’m just going to finish loading this, or, you know, you could walk round the car”

(At this stage, sensing confrontation, the Brico man sidles off).

Conversation which has been in French up to now, starts being conducted in English.

“Your car is in my way”

“Yes, I know, I’m just finishing…”

“I will shoot your car, if you don’t move it”

“You’ll shoot my car, will you? With what?”

At this the man begins to ram our heroine’s car with his trolley. She hastily stuffs in the remainder of the wood and drives off with baby L still roaring. Very traumatic.

And finally, may I recommend that you check out Fluid Pudding for an excellent haiku on breastfeeding and mother’s day.

Comments
BykerSink

(Homepage)

on 08 May 2004 at 00:52

New visitor to your site.
My dealings with Belgians are limited but I find that saying the words “Phillipe Albert” usually swings things in my favour.
Try it next time.
You never know.

belgianwaffle

on 11 May 2004 at 15:18

Ok, BykerSink, am willing to give it a go. Will let you know results. Do you think it works in Flanders too or only in Wallonia?
Jack, someday you will have to load a car with a small child wailing inside and these flippant words will return to haunt you…

jackdalton

on 11 May 2004 at 15:28

🙂
Somethings are only ever understood from the inside…
[Pity there’s not a smiley to indicate playfully ironic comment from one who knows…]

“The Amateur Marriage” by Anne Tyler


Posted in: Reading etc.

Just finished this. Very good. Took a while to get into but worth the effort. It had been sitting on my bedside table for some time saying “I’m a hardback and a birthday present, are you ever going to read me?”Am now looking at the remainder of my bedside pile with some alarm; it is somewhat worthy. Which of the following should I tackle:

“The Bridge over the Drina” by Ivo Andric

“Le Bébé” by Marie Darrieussecq (in French please note, a pressie from the French mama)

“The Blindfold” by Siri Hustvedt (I know that I thought that “What I loved” was brilliant but this is from her back catalogue, suppose it’s disappointing)

“No Vague Utopia” by Emily Cullen (a book of poetry, ok maybe not for reading cover to cover at a sitting).

“Guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond (this is very good, but you need to stick with it and every time I get about 100 pages in I abandon for a couple of months and have to start all over again and, to be honest, I’m getting a little tired of the first 100 pages.)

Maybe I’ll just leave them all fester a little longer and reread “Pride and Prejudice”.

Comments
Wow, Jack, two minds with but a single thought between them (conveys, I feel a subtle difference to two minds with but a single thought), see my comment in your Cher thingy. Might buy Shade but as discussed am a little dubious. Thing it might end up stockpiled.
on 11 May 2004 at 15:29

Eh? 15 what? 0
Sweetie(s) given ���

jackdalton

on 11 May 2004 at 15:31

Andy Warholics….
God, some people don’t even read their own postings…
😛 0 Sweetie(s) given

belgianwaffle

on 11 May 2004 at 15:39

Well, I’m a busy person. I see, Andy Warhol, 15 mins etc. Yes, please do be one of my 15 people. I don’t think that I’ve actually made it to 15 yet so you’re getting in on the ground floor. Furthermore, I think that you are the ONLY person who reads this part of my weblog and, as such, you certainly deserve to be one of my 15.. 0
Sweetie(s) given

on 11 May 2004 at 15:45

Ahh, you’re nice.
You confused me, by the way. That was my Guts & Tripe posting, not my Cher one… 0
Sweetie(s) given

belgianwaffle

on 11 May 2004 at 15:52

Oh dear, well, there you go, as discussed previously, motherhood melts the mind, speaking of which, I should log off and bond with my baby.