belgianwaffle

Family

Hurrah!


Posted in: Belgium, Family, Work

Yesterday evening at 6.00, I had to take the train to England. At 3.00 with two sick children (welcome to the Leper House) who were responding well to paracetemol and one hyper girl who hadn’t been out in days, we decided that we needed to get out, but where? 

I found this very nifty website which lists all the museums in Brussels by various search criteria including by theme and by area. On Rue Paul Spaak no 7, is the Fondation Raymond Leblanc. It is five minutes from the station and it is a comic museum. Well worth a visit we felt.

As we circled around the exceptionally dodgy area (you know, adjacent train and bus station, drunks, louts, nervous visitors scurrying in the opposite direction) looking for parking we would have been sure that we were in the wrong place had it not been for a large neon Tintin and Snowy on the roof of one of the buildings.

We parked the car and navigated the children round the various hazards and made our way to no. 7. All around were closed, barred shops, internet and cheap telephone shops, money transfer places and suddenly there was a very swish comic shop but it looked closed. Beside it was an open door to what looked like a smart residential building in a very spartan style, maybe 1940s. Closer inspection revealed that this was the Fondation building. We went in, it was deserted. We pushed the button for the lift. It didn’t come. We stood there alone, baffled. I went back and checked the front door. There was a small postcard pinned up. It advised climbing by foot to the second floor. We all clumped up the spiral staircase of the beautiful empty building.

On the second floor, a pug dog emerged to greet us. The Princess fell upon him, the boys nervously asked to be lifted up. A chic young woman emerged and swooped up the dog and smiled graciously upon us. Her equally chic colleague positioned herself behind the blond wood desk, reassured us that we were in the right place, lamented the quality of the quartier and sold us two adult entry tickets (children free) for the princely sum of 6 euros. Did we know the history of the place, we did not. This building is, I think, still a working publishing house, it was there that the Tintin magazine was made for many years and it was also the home of the Belvision studio which made animated films. 

The museum consists of various comic strips, information about the publishing house and various other bits and pieces that I, alas, didn’t get a lot of time to examine because, the piece de resistance, or at least as far as my family was concerned, was a miniature working cinema with plush red seats which we had to ourselves. It was showing Asterix and Cleopatra which I think was originally made there in that very building. The seats had names on the back (Herge,) and I think they must have been original because the plush velvet was faded in places. We were all entranced. Mr. Waffle and I wandered about the exhibits outside a little bit but mostly we stayed and watched.

At about 4.45, I suggested that I would go and get my luggage from the car and come back and give him the key (you will recall that I have lost my car key and refuse to fork out for a new one as I know it is somewhere in the house) before going to the station. I went and got my luggage and came back. I stayed until about 5.15 and decided that I’d better trot along to the train. I left them all entranced with the film and indifferent to my departure (a delightful contrast to the howlfest that ensued last time I went away overnight).

Off to queue for the train, passport, baggage control, then my mobile started ringing. It was Mr. Waffle, had I taken the car key with me? Yes, I had. Back through the various layers out on to the street back to the building, up the spiral staircase, hand over key, renewed goodbyes to puzzled children, back down the staircase etc. etc. And I still had loads of time to get the train because despite two sets of passport checks and x-ray machines, it’s still a lot faster than the airport and also because this place is exactly five minutes walk from the Eurostar terminus. I know because I have recently done it three times.

If you have children, or even, if you don’t, may I enthusiastically recommend this place to you, if you find yourself in Brussels by Eurostar (or, I suppose, even if you don’t though it is supremely handy for the Eurostar). I found the whole experience to be quintessentially Belgian from the deserted beautiful building, to the pug dog and the high seriousness of the comic strip. It’s fabulous and, for my money, better value than the much more famous comic strip museum. True the latter is housed in a spectacular building but the art is more difficult for children to appreciate, since they have to muscle their way through a crowd of spectators to see it and, as far as I know, it certainly doesn’t boast a private family cinema. 6 euros well spent.

Too many cooks or, possibly, this is what it sounds like when doves cry


Posted in: Family, Mr. Waffle, Reading etc.

Late on Sunday afternoon we went out for a short walk and it was not a success. The Princess lost interest in walking; Michael and Daniel demanded to be carried and so did she. We had to carry them and cajole her back home and by the time we got there, the four senior members of the party were annoyed to various degrees. Michael having had his demand met; to be carried home reclining in his mother’s arms not on her hip was pretty sunny.

When we got home, it was about 6.40. “If we are going to have roast chicken, we will not eat until 8”, I announced gloomily. Mr. Waffle was keen that we should have Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding with roast chicken is an abomination but he was adamant as it is one of the few things the boys will eat at the moment. 8 was too late for dinner, we decided. “I’ll make the chicken and mushroom thing” I said. To my horror, Mr. Waffle remained adamant on the Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding with rice, mushroom and chicken in a cream sauce is an unspeakable abomination. I stomped off to the kitchen and chopped up an onion and some garlic. I hunted high and low for the mushrooms which I knew we had bought the day before. I stomped in to where Mr. Waffle was reading to the children and asked where the mushrooms were. “Ah, gosh, yes, I used them all yesterday in the beef stogonoff”. I stomped back to the kitchen and threw the onion and garlic in the bin in a marked manner and started preparing parmesan chicken which does not require mushrooms or onion or garlic (very nifty recipe actually). Mr. Waffle came into the kitchen, he wanted to make the Yorkshire pudding batter. “Fine” I said and flounced off conscious that it would have only taken me two minutes to get the chicken into the oven where it could start its half hour bake (should I explain that the kitchen isn’t really big enough for two and somebody has to stop the children from killing each other). He did his evil work with the batter, I subsequently polished off the chicken and put it into the oven.

It became apparent that the Yorkshire pudding and the chicken would not coincide. “We can have the Yorkshire pudding as a starter”, I said bitterly. I then realised that, really, I would have to make gravy as Yorkshire pudding without gravy is etc. etc. I went into the kitchen and looked longingly at the chopped onion I had fired into the bin in a rage and chopped another and set to on the gravy. As I was adding stock to my butter flour mixture (I believe people who can really cook call it a roux m’lord) and anxiously whisking the very hot mixture seeking to avoid lumps (something I have never actually done in any circumstances, however ideal), Mr. Waffle came into the kitchen to pour the Yorkshire pudding mixture into the oven. I glared, he retreated nervously, I stomped off.

The Yorkshire pudding was ready 15 tense minutes later. The children tucked in delightedly to their lumpy gravy and pudding feast. I grudgingly had one. Mr. Waffle, damn him, is a dab hand at the Yorkshire pudding and it was really very tasty. This from a man who had never even tasted Yorkshire pudding before he met me. As you can imagine, this did not make things any better. Inevitably, my chicken and rice offering was spurned with contumely by my children. Mr. Waffle ate enthusiastically, nervously heaping praise on the cranky chef.

Later as we were giving the boys their bath, my loving husband said to me that I was still cross. Normally, though lots of things make me cross, I haven’t got the energy to stay cross for long and like my father and my brother I am inclined to get over things quickly and forget my rages. But I had a brief insight into what it is like to be my mother or my sister both of whom are very even tempered but once roused are very difficult to calm. I knew I was being unreasonable and I wanted to stop being cross but I just couldn’t let go. I think I may have been talked down later after a soothing cup of tea.

And while we are talking about family disharmony, do you think there was some unhappiness preceeding the insertion of this announcement in the birth announcements in this weekend’s Irish Times:

Stevenson – Kilsheimer (Washington D.C.) – My grandmother in her eagerness to announce my arrival (Irish Times, Saturday January 19, 2008) unfortunately gave me the wrong names. I am called Miles Andrew.

Spring is in the Air (a dull summary of our weekend activities for the benefit of loving relatives who have already heard it on the phone)


Posted in: Belgium, Family

The weather was beautiful this weekend.  On Saturday we went to the park; the Princess was on her bike (which is excellent and has really extended our range of destinations on foot) and the boys in the buggy.  Michael objected loudly to this and for the length of our street sobbed and said “bicycle, bicycle”.  Daniel tired of this and whacked Michael on the head, a move which I outwardly condemned while, inwardly, having every sympathy with him.  One of the training wheels loosened on the royal bike and Mr. Waffle was sent sprinting home to get the spanner while the children and I continued carefully.  No sooner had the offending nut been tightened than the chain came off.  Please bear in mind that as all the repair work was continuing Michael was howling determinedly.  By the time we arrived in the park, fine weather or no, we were all a little tense.  Everyone had a lovely time in the park, though, and they were very good when we went to our friends’ house for cake (the Princess even used cutlery) and on the trek home.

On Sunday, we went to Mass where the children were all miraculously well behaved.  Te Princess went to a Sunday school type class – hooray – and emerged commenting that she had no idea that Jesus wanted her to be a good girl and why hadn’t we told her; I feel that this is a very promising development.   Afterwards, we went for a walk around the Etangs d’Ixelles picking up various things in the market.  It felt like being on holidays (a feature of my childhood holidays in France being Mass on a Sunday and market afterwards) and I wondered why we don’t do this kind of thing more often.  Possibly because it is not always wonderfully fine and sunny on Sunday mornings in Brussels.

That afternoon we went to a showing of “The Little Mole” which the children loved.  It was the boys’ first trip to the cinema and they were enchanted.  A bit like an old silent film, the showing was accompanied by two musicians with a range of instruments (explained and identified to the audience) which the kids were allowed to inspect afterwards.  It was described on the poster as 6 short films by Zdeněk Miler which, as Mr. Waffle pointed out, made it sound a lot more intellectual than it actually was.  I did spend some of my time wondering whether it was communist propoganda. The little Mole stole a watermelon from a pile that a man was selling to children; then the Mole cut it up and gave it away to his friends.  The watermelon seller does not come up smelling of roses.  In another of the films, with the help of all the animals of the jungle (except for the mean lion), the Mole digs a well.  Perhaps all cartoons for small children emphasise the value of co-operation and it is only later that we urge them to compete and assure them that they will stand or fall on their own efforts alone.

All in all, it was the first weekend in some time where that hasn’t left me desperate to get into work on Monday morning. Could we be turning a corner?

The Weekend of the Rat


Posted in: Belgium, Family

Thank you all for your kind comments on my children’s singing. Just as well you did because my mother has still not inspected the winsome mites on Youtube. True, she is a little dubious about the computer and all its works. True, also, she had them sing live to her on the telephone but that is not the same thing at all. Her defence is that she has had a busy weekend, what with the rugby and everything. This is, clearly, no defence at all; she should have struck to berating the computer which, in my parents’ house, is known as the monster in the study. She has, however, started the book I gave her for her birthday. My sister-in-law recommended it to me and lent me her copy; a decision, I suspect, she now regrets as I still have it in my grubby little mitts. Lest there be any confusion, I hasten to clarify that my mother got a span new copy. A copy she has been reading with interest. It is set in the 1930s and is a series of funny tales (I think “gently humourous” is the kind of expression the blurb writers would go for) about the fictional diarist’s life in the English countryside with her husband and two daughters. “It really,” said my mother “gives you a feel for a period, it reminds me of Di Lampedusa“. As I told her, I suspect that this is the first time this comparison has been made.

This morning the joys of communal living were manifest from 6.00. Normally we wake our building when the children start screaming at 7.30. However, the students on the top floor were going away and spent their time from 6.00 huffing and puffing up and down with ski gear. It appeared that the best way to get poles down was to fling them into the stairwell and let them bounce to the ground floor while laughing manically the while. Maybe it just sounded that way.

We took ourselves to a museum to let the boys run around and work up an appetite for a nap. Is there anything more appealing than a large museum with few visitors, endless corridors and enormous rooms filled with odd items? Usually this museum is empty but today, we coincided with a series of activities to celebrate the Year of the Rat and a distressing number of people were milling about in the foyer. Happily, they all appeared to want to sign up for calligraphy demonstrations and we were allowed to inspect the exhibition of miniature Chinese houses in peace. We also admired Cinderella’s carriage in splendid isolation. All in all, it was a very satisfactory morning, the only crisis was caused by one of the bottles we had brought for the boys leaking all over the bag it was in and my husband’s jumper. Daniel pointed to the wet floor and said sagely “Michael spill actimel“. (Actimel is the work of Satan, the kids all love it because of its knacky little bottle and then they can’t get their mouths round it and spill it down their fronts. Every time I give them a bottle, the two lads say “very careful”. I digress.) On leaving, the foyer was still heaving and, in a very Belgian way, the lady in the cloakroom was refusing coats (see proof they’ve never had this many people before). “It’s full, I’ve already said it’s full, go away, do you expect me to hang your coats on the wall?” she said angrily to a crowd of innocent punters who, having purchased their tickets, were not going to be let into the museum until they had divested themselves of their coats, something Madame in the cloakroom was steadfastly refusing to allow them to do. All that was missing to make it a classic Belgian scene was for someone to start complaining about the linguistic regime.

Tomorrow is the start of mid-term. Herself has been signed up for a week long course of sport to which she is looking forward with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner. It’s a bit difficult to get to and the hours are different from school, leading to some logistical difficulties. When the boys were in the bath this evening I explained at tremendous length to my husband that, if I had to leave work early to collect herself I would prefer it to be Thursday because I have a lot on tomorrow and then I’ll have to leave a bit early on Tuesday, because it’s pancake Tuesday and we’ll be making pancakes and then I’ll be a bit frantic but, if on the other hand, I collect her on Thursday, I can get a good run on things on Monday, leave calmly on Tuesday and, by Thursday, all should be well for me to knock off a little early and collect herself, but, on the other hand, if I did have to collect her tomorrow, then he should let me know because I would take the car to work. He said, “what, sorry, I wasn’t listening, do you want to get her tomorrow or Thursday?” “Thursday”, I said, a shade coldly.

In our continuing efforts to illustrate to our sons that they both have a mother and a father and that they have not each been assigned to a particular parent, I took Daniel rather than Michael out of the bath again. My impudence was greeted with an outburst of angry weeping from Michael. I explained firmly that I am Daniel’s Mama too. “NO! Daddy, Daniel’s Mama!” he said. I think we have a mountain to climb here.

And finally, did you see that Carla and Sarko got married over the weekend? Maybe they should have waited until the Year of the Rat started. Don’t be like that, it’s supposed to be auspicious for marriages.

Happy Birthday


Posted in: Family, Princess, Twins

Today is my mother’s birthday. Yesterday, I gathered my children together to get them to sing happy birthday winsomely.

They gathered. I attempted to record them but the camera was out of battery and it kept shutting down despite their winsomeness. Mr. Waffle hunted for more batteries. While he did so, the Princess went to get some plastic cake which would add lustre to the singing display. Daniel wanted the cake. The Princess would not give it to him because he was only a baby. We encouraged her to share nevertheless. She lost her temper and said she would not sing unless she alone held the cake as was only right because only she could hold it properly. She began to cry joining her brother in disharmonious weeping. Michael was beside me for the duration hoping to get his gums around the new batteries that were being slotted into the camera “Can I? Can I?”. We removed the cake from the arrangement, the batteries were safely stowed in the camera and the Princess led her brothers in song. And yes, I know, it’s a bit dark.

Happy birthday, Mummy.

Intercultural Dialogue at home or random ramblings


Posted in: Belgium, Family

We had some friends round this afternoon. A Scottish-Italian couple and their two children and an Italian woman and her daughter. The children started off speaking in English but quickly moved to French as the common lingua franca. The grown-ups spoke English to each other. I felt mildly embarrassed to be the main reason why two Italian women were speaking English to each other.

One of the mothers explained in graphic detail that this year, her nine year old had asked her a lot of questions about Santa Claus. So she said to her “OK, you really want to know, OK, I will tell you”. In the face of some alarm from me and the other parent with a four year old, her husband gracefully interrupted the anecdote with “So, she said to her ‘Yes, of course there is a Santa'”. That’s a relief, then. We discovered that the Befana does not bring Christmas presents to Italian children who live in Belgium which makes her presence in our lives even more baffling. We had some questions for our guests about the Befana and her ways.

Us: So Santa Claus lives in the North Pole and Saint Nicolas comes from Spain, where does the Befana live?

Guests: Elaborate shoulder shrugging, shocking ignorance.

Me (to Princess): Well, sweetheart, if the Italians don’t know…

Princess (in tones of wonderment): Are our visitors Italians?

There was some talk about multi-lingual schools because that’s what we’re like in foreign exotic Brussels and, in particular, the European School which has sections in all of the EU languages (except maybe Maltese, who knows?). One of the Italians has an Italian friend who is married to a Pole and they are sending their twins to the European School and they have put them in different classes (as the parents of twins are often advised to do) but in a weird twist, one twin is in the Polish section and one is in the Italian section. Is it just me or is this utterly bizarre?

We tossed them all out at 7.00 (none of them put their children to bed before 9.00 – shock, horror) to the regret and ire of our children. Much though we enjoyed seeing them, we were glad to see them go as we had decided to compress all our socialising for January into one day and our dinner guests would be arriving at 8.30.

And now, dinner is over, everyone is in bed and I should be too.

That is all.