Today we went to Ghent. Although Ghent was, as always, very pleasant, the whole experience was so exhausting, I have no energy to describe it. Have a couple of links instead.
Men breastfeeding: all they have to do is try.
Jojo’s fantasy life: you will really like this.Â
My sister’s attempt to ensure that her carbon footprint is suitably significant: 186,865 kms and 5 continents so far this year.
As parents of twins, we shameless hoover up any goods offered to us.  A spare cot? Yup, that would be great.  Baby clothes?  Yes, thank you. A while back, I returned to the Dutch Mama some of the clothes which she had given to us which the boys had grown out of. She looked at them and said “these are lovely things, but half of them aren’t mineâ€. Also, it appears, we are not very good at returning things to their rightful owners. When we were in Ireland, we drove through a North Cork where the Dutch Mama’s sister is the postmistress.  “Should we stop and say hi?†asked Mr. Waffle. “Probably not†I said, “but, if we did, we could point out to her that Michael is wearing a very nice t-shirt that once belonged to her sonâ€.  In summary, I am not sure who lent us what, so I cannot say who lent us the t-shirt with “Little Lord Foster Baby†written on it but I suspect that it may be someone whose first language is not English.
Me: Stop eating the eggshell.
Her: But I like the eggshell.
Me: No you don’t, you’re only doing it to annoy me.
Her: No, I’m not.
Me: Yes, you are.
Her: Are we at the pantomime?
Me (trying another tack):Â Do you know where eggs come from?
Her: Where?
Me: A hen’s bottom.
Her: But wee and poo come out of bottoms.
Me: Also eggs. From hen’s bottoms.
Her (looking dubiously at eggshell): I’m not convinced.
We have been feeding the neighbours’ cats.  The Princess noted that the neighbours had a number of DVDs – “look, Mummy, televisionâ€. “It’s television for grown-ups sweetheartâ€. “But what about Tallis and Byrd, what do they watch?â€
I have registered to vote in the Belgian communal elections on October 8. How proud I am of this fact. How I have lorded it over other expats who have not registered to vote on the feeble grounds that voting is compulsory, once you have registered, and the fine for not doing so is hefty. How I have spoken eloquently of doing my democratic duty. How I should have known I was riding for a fall.
You may have noticed that it has been a bit quiet here lately. Partly this has been because of our ongoing dispute with Mr. Gates, partly, it is because I have been travelling for most of the past week but largely it has been because my father has been having open heart surgery and I was too scared to blog about it in case I, somehow, jinxed matters. But, almost miraculously, he seems to be recovering well from a second bout between his ribs and a hacksaw wherein his ribs came off worst. Obviously, the bout with the hacksaw was followed by a number of people poking around his beating heart to ensure that it would stay doing just that. And since the last bypass has lasted 20 years, I am cautiously optimistic that all will be well. Today the patient was sitting up in bed asking for the newspaper. But we all got something of a shock. My sister flew home from India last weekend. After much agonising, I decided that I might be more useful when he came out of hospital and, upon my husband’s nobly volunteering to mind the children, rushed to book a trip to Cork for the weekend of October 8.
Ah, October 8, just how hefty do you think that those fines are?
Our babysitter’s husband has been awarded Belgian citizenship and there was a celebration in the local town hall to celebrate this (knowing Belgian celebrations I suspect that it was accompanied by a vast range of edibles, I digress). Like me, the local mayor was rather pleased with himself for knowing that they speak Tagalog and asked the newly minted Belgian citizen how to say “welcome” in Tagalog. In fact, it appears that there are over 170 languages in the Philippines. Our babysitter and her husband speak Illonggo along with 7 million other Filipinos and their grasp of Tagalog is rudimentary, much like mine of Irish. Our babysitter tells me that her husband was very flustered and started asking his friends and relatives in the room how to say “welcome” in Tegalog. You can imagine the mayor must have been a bit surprised that this guy was having difficulty telling him the word for “welcome” in what the mayor believed to be his native tongue. Our babysitter, however, came to the rescue she advised him to “for heaven’s sake, tell him how to say it in Illonggo, it’s not as though he can tell the difference”.
People, there’s a whole world out there.