On my Tod

Sarah left for Boston on Friday. She'll be there for the next 2 weeks to study at MIT. Top blag! To help me to *cope* with her not being here for the next couple of weeks, my girrel very kindly and lovingly prepared no less than 10 home cooked meals, of which 7 are in the freezer. Included with each dish is an ingredient list and full cooking instructions lol. Unlike me, she doesn't appreciate toast as a good meal.

And, I just received 2 books from Amazon that she'd ordered so that my brain didn't dry out whilst she was away. I am vay lucky *big grin*

Talking of drying out though, the *only* thing she's asked me to do it to water the plants. I just hope they're still alive when she returns ;)

Belgian Belters

On the way home tonight in the car, I got to boogy to this...

The 80's are alive and well in Belgium. Oh the irony.

I'm off now to hunt out my leggings and huge can of hair spray ;)

To do or not...

I have been on my own this weekend. So I had a long list of things I *wanted* to get done. I managed to get some thing scored off, but they took a lot of energy getting them finished. The main thing that I'd been delaying was house hold chores. Normally we have someone come once a week to clean and iron, unfortunately for me they didn't come last week. It was my turn to step up to the mantle.

I spent 5 hours ironing on Friday night. Not fun. I don't mind ironing, just so long as it doesn't take a large chunk of my life away. Admittedly all of the shirts were mine apart from 2 of Sarah's. The saving grace, and ironically the reason it took me so long was because I found the starch spray. I was obsessed with having clean sharp lines on my sleeves. It's very satisfying seeing them hang in my wardrobe like carboard cut outs (so long as I don't think about the time it took).

I found an unopened box of Kellogs 'Just Right' in the cupboard, so of course that delayed my trip to the supermarket. After 2 days of eating cereal and toast I managed to find the motivation to go to Delhaize. Oh how I miss Tesco's home delivery service!

Sarah will be home in 4-6 hours. I think that should be enough time to put the *finishing* (and the starting) touches on the flat. I don't mean this in a 'oh shit the folks are coming home better get the place sorted.' At the risk of sounding just a wee bit cheesey, it's more her coming home gives me the inspiration that I need to get off my arse and take action. It makes sense to do it for her.

Ok, so now I must ...I think Nike know the pains of procrastinators...that's for another blog...

In de buurt

We have 2 video stores where we live. That's 2 locations where I can buy Ben n Jerry's ice cream. Sweet!

What I don't understand is, that both stores always have people smoking and drinking in them. That's what pubs are for surely? Is this a Belgie thing or is it just my special town???

I don't like people smoking in my local video store!

Friday flight

Things have been a tad busy over the last few months to say the least and now it's time for some perspective. We're off to Berlin for a long weekend and I'm going to lose myself in the mellifluous tones of Anthony and the Johnsons There will be lots of shopping, glow-stick waving, banksy tours, copious cups of coffee and lots of other little surprises.

The power of uninention

I always start out with the best intentions when I head home. After a very relaxing late lunch, I left work and headed straight to the DIY store. You see, the other week I bought a power drill. Upon arriving home I opened the box in eager anticipation to find that there will no drill bits included in the box - gutted!

Today I bought the drill bits. I started preparing things to put up the last curtain only to discover we don't have any more screws and that we returned Sarah's mum's ladders.

It's warm, my enthusiasm is waning, so I think I'll spend the rest of the evening chilling on the terras.

You know you live in a small town when...

You're fervently excited that Espirit has moved into larger premises down town.

I'm about to fall asleep

Our bartenders tonight were called Corky and Papi...
It's been snowing...
I've almost lost my voice...
We're off to the 'Mall of America' on Monday lol...
I'm off to bed ;)

Today's temperature

Sarah sent me out with a list of meds, on this list was a thermometer. Not just any thermometer, but an electronic thermometer. She's a physicist you know.

Since 2pm this anoon, I've been getting hourly readings since she got her new toy. Luckily she hasn't gone above 37 degrees yet.

Vertically challenged

You know you're in another country when shops don't stock jeans with a leg length less than 32"

She's a wee bit peely-wally

Sarah is sick. :(

It's contagious.

*meep*

Whilst I'm nursing her to the best of my capabilities. I'm really, really praying that I don't get it. I have 2 presentations to do next week in the States so I will be devastated if I catch it.

To avoid contamination, I've separated out the towels, toilet paper, poor Sarah's sleeping on the sofa - her suggestion so that I can sleep btw, and she's trying not to touch communal surfaces lol. Again, the last one was her suggestion just before she muttered something '...leper...'

I feel like I'm on the 'school run' (in a nice way ;))this weekend, taking care of Sarah and the house. It's like she's secretly preparing me for little Sarahs...Normally she does the cooking you see. She's adamant that she enjoys it and it helps her wind down. Even if I'm home first she calls me with the instructions to not even so much as look at a kitchen utensil. I'm happy with that set up because I'm not one to spend time in the kitchen unless it involves toast, chocolate, coffee or beer. So what's on the menu tonight? A taste of Scotland, packed full of iron and vitamins, and a great comfort food for this time of year - porridge.

I just googled porridge and found this excerpt - '...used traditionally in many cultures to nurse the sick back to health.' Guess what Sarah's having for the next 5 days?!

Faff

The joy of being a procrastinator is that I sometimes find my inspiration for things a bit late. Like feeling motivated to work when I should sleep. On the opposite side, it's a total struggle sometimes to pull myself out of bed in the morning. I delay getting up to the last nano second before I can get ready for work. Why is that? Am I such a control freak? There's also an edge of risk taking to it as well. Like driving a car until it's in the red and not wanting to fill up the diesel till the very last moment.

On the other hand, procastination does have its upsides. I enjoyed folding the dry clothes the other evening because I knew it was delaying the more daunting and arduous task of cleaning the kitchen. If it wasn't for my procrastination, I would've done all of my Christmas shopping in Belgium and lost out on the good exchange rate!

I'm going to get back to what I should be doing ;)

I made it through the wilderness...

This weekend was pretty monumental in our household. I finally got rid of this -

...and in it's place something a wee bit more Belgie. It's my first haircut since I moved, which is almost 12 months. Considering I used to get my hair cut every 6 weeks I'm amazed I lasted this long. Needless to say that the kapper did a good job despite the pressure.

AND, we acquired 2 tix for the Madonna gig in Belgium...somewhere. I have told Sarah that my life is pretty much complete now. Almost *hint* ;)

Sarah was a star, she doesn't even like Madonna as much as I do, but she got up early on Saturday morning and had her finger stuck to redial like her life depended on it. Unfortunately for me it was on speaker phone so I didn't get much of lie in ;)

The came, and they collected ;)

Refuse collection?

Sarah and I have every right to stand proud today. We have, for the second week in a row, actually managed to put out our rubbish bin. Not only that, we've put out the right colour too. Tomorrow is groenten day, otherwise known as kitchen waste - read as small green box that's too heavy to carry cos it doesn't come with wheels. Said green box is also a delightful, dredgy, sluicey hot bed for *gag* fruit flies and maggots *dry balk*

You see, when we first moved to Geel, we made an elementary mistake with the green bin. It was early one morning when Sarah was taking the bin out before work. I was in the bedroom when I heard Sarah cough very loudly with a dry, back of the throat sound to it. I cheekily shouted back 'hen, you better cut back on the hamlets!' No response came back, so I ventured out to see if she was ok only to discover my poor schat avoiding the dry heave with the offending green box nearby. The bin was on the terras, in the heat, and we'd put in some meat from a couple of days before. When schatje lifted up the bin lid she was horrified when she was greeted by leery big chunky maggots! Yuck! I'll spare you the pictures. Part of me is thinking I've written this story before...bear with me if I'm repeating myself lol.

After this we stored the bin in the garage instead of in the exposed heat of the terras, du-uh. The maggots persisted until one evening I gassed them with some cancer-inducing fly spray. This didn't kill them. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion would get rid of these things. So I spent the rest of that evening trawling the web for the best solution. Turns out that stomping on them is the best thing. Super-dyke Jo to the rescue with wellie boots an all. Fun. I have to say that squashing them gave me the same fulfilling feeling as popping bubble wrap.

Anyways, back to the point. Tomorrow we've done something a wee bit different. We've used a biodegradeable bag to put inside the green box, how exciting. We're now placing bets to see if the bin men will take it...

Height of ignorance

I like to think that Sarah knows me better than anyone. She can easily pick up on my moods, or thoughts that perhaps I'd rather keep to myself. She knows when I'm battling not to take that last piece of chocolate or one more slither of Speculoos from the jar. I like to think that my girrel knows me well!

Well, you'd think.

Today we had my health insurance form returned. Why I hear you ask? Because Sarah had put yours truly down with a height of 1 metre! 1 METRE!!! I'm 5 ft 2 and a 1/4 in my socks. I know she has this thing that she's taller than me -only just, by the way- but 1 metre! Really. And to think that she has a Phd that involves taking measurements ;p

Our daily bread

We're just back from a weekend in London toasting congratulations to some friends who have just gotten married...more on that later.

On our way back from the train station to home, we decided that we needed some bread. Now, in Belgium, unlike the UK, no shops are open on a Sunday and we don't do 24 hr super-uber-town-consuming markets either (thank god!). The only shop that's open on a Sunday is the bakerij which can be seen full of Belgian's popping out to get the Sunday bread, chocolade broodjes and other lekker goodies. I love it! I love the fact that Belgian's are crazy about their Sunday bread!

All the pastires aside, we got home at 8pm which meant that the bakerij was closed. But fear ye not! Any self-respecting Belgian street corner has...no, not that...

The Belgian brood automaat.

With the thought of toast with butter and a cup of Errrol Grrrey, this humble vendor made me feel happy about living in Belgium .

Return of the Mac

My writings have been rather sparse of late. It's not through lack of wanting to blog, it's through lack of time to sit down and clear my head to make space for a few words. I've sat down many times over the last couple of months only to produce 'drafts.' There's something about an un-final product that appeals to procrastinators ;)

Anyway, I digress, the last couple of months have been busy with a new role at work, going back home for Christmas, Sarah officially moving in -yay!- and me adjusting to living in this foreign land.

Here are some pics from the last couple of months...

Being entertained whilst Christmas shopping Glasgow style.

Whilst on a business trip to China, we visited a local restaurant. Imagine the demi-vegetarian's response when she realised where the strange smell was coming from...let's just say that I learned to manage my gag reflex and swallow without chewing!

Sarah having the bright idea to take all 10 boxes of lego back from her mum's (where they were perfectly happy I might add) and wash in our appartment. Thank goodness we don't have carpets!...gotta love her ;)

Some more pics from China. When I saw the writing below, at first all I could see was 'work!' Which made me feel uncomfortable with these workers, all industrious and working most hours of the day with this command barking down at them. I was very much relieved when I creaked my neck further to discover the 'Team!'

Ik hou van de sneeuw

I woke up unusually early this morning to a soft, thick muffled blanket of snow. *GRIN* There's something so utterly enjoyable about the smell and the sound of a snow filled street. Especially when it's still dark in the morning, and you're all wrapped up and have yer wellies on. It's dark, but yet the snow manages to reflect some light, giving a contradictory warm glow.

If it's still here tomorrow, I'm going to get creative on the terras...watch this space ;)

P for procrastination

Why is it I always feel compelled to blog when ever I have tonnes of stuff to do?! This has left me with an array of unpublished ramblings...which may explain my blank postings of late. So, herein is my effort for today ;)

I'm a fan of Drifters

This morning I received a parcel from a client with 3 Drifter bars inside - bliss! I've hunted high and low for these when I go back to the UK but to no avail. Well chuffed!

It's been a wee while since my last blog. Things have been very busy and my mood has been up and down over the past couple of weeks. I've sat down countless times at my laptop to write a blog but been unwilling to battle through all the different thoughts in my head, unable to clear a path for my thoughts to make their way unhindered onto the screen before me. So like any good procrastinator, I've simply not written.

Be nice, I'm a foreigner!

I think the Belgian authorities have it in for me just now.  I got randomly breathalised on Sunday for the first time and I've just received my first every speeding fine!!!

Do you think they'll accept my excuse that I'm still confused with the whole kilometre thing?!

Curtaintastic

Well, it's only taken us, erm, 6 months, but we finally have curtains up. Well, in one of our rooms at least.

This is just wrong!

Well there are a few things that are wrong here, the first being that Sarah and I had to visit Ikea again, and the second being the image below:

Christmas decorations on sale before Halloween???  What is that all about???  I only survived the whole experience because Sarah promised me a warm waffle when we got through the check outs!

Sol, sol, sol

Oh-my-god!
The teacher made us sing out in class tonight!
Individually!
Did not see that one coming!

Saxa-ma-phooooone, saxa-ma-phoooone!

To fulfil a long time goal of mine, I've just recently started music and saxaphone lessons. I figured that Belgium, being the home of the sax is the best place to learn. The sax lessons just started last week and I've been taking the notes lessons for a couple of weeks now. It would appear there's quite a thriving community at the local music academy.

Sarah helped me sign up to all the courses and luckily for me, as I've never really studied music before, both my teachers speak English and Sarah promised me that she'd put me in the class with other oldies. So I head into my first sax lesson the other day only to be greeted by 2 rather proficient sax playing sub-10 year-olds. No adults lol, just me and the kids. The nice thing, it kinda takes away the competitive edge! Aaaand, it will help with my Flemish too!

Sun-day

It's such a beautiful morning here today. The sun is shining and I'm sitting out on the terras. I'm glad to say that this time I'm not the only one out enjoying the sun (but I am the only one under a parasol lol).

Some of the older neighbours are playing boules in the garden, a mother is sitting out feeding her young child and another has just returned from the bakery on her bike.

And to top it all off my girrel is coming back from Egypt - Yay!

L'étranger

I have to say that I'm no longer the stealth foreigner that I thought I was! Tonight I decided that I'd had enough of porridge and weetabix dinners -Sarah's absconded you see, she's off on her jollies to Egypt and has left me to fend for myself! So, meal cheques in hand along with recycled bag, I headed off to Delhaize.

Thankfully DH isn't as over bearing as the colossal Tescos back home which means that I secretly don't mind going half as much. Our local DH actually has a really nice community feel to it which makes up for the lack of range, kind of.

Anyways, Sarah normally takes great delight in me visiting DH because I normally forget to weigh the fruit and veg. Which, as you can imagine, is now wearing a bit thin with the till ladies. I always forget coins for the trollies - my goodness we get these free back home to do what we want with them, can even dump them in rivers if we want! In fact, I think it's compulsory to dump them in the nearest river or underpass - Cumbernauld is a case in point.

So, tonight I head to the bakery. In Belgium you can choose for a number of uncut loaves and then you pop them in the slicer. Sounds easy doesn't it? Apparently not! Tonight dear reader, I made the basic mistake of sticking the bread in the slicer the wrong way around. Not only that, I also blocked the machine, and, erm there was a queue forming around me lol. Oops! Cue beamer! Luckily there was a DH person near by who - against all normal British health n safety protocol - stuck her hand in the machine and released the offending pieces of bread. And she also gave me another loaf free of charge, now you wouldn't get that kind of service in Tescos lol!

It's starting to get a wee bit chilly here too. But tonight was a nice night so I figured, I'm a Scot living on the exotic continent, I'll have my dinner on the terras. You see, coming from Scotland, we don't normally have the joy of a terras so I want to exploit it as much as possible. When my neighbours were drawing their curtains, I was sipping some wine wrapped up with my scarf and coat...bliss! I have to say that I'm utterly content living in Belgium :)

Chocs away

I'm in over drive just now and have been all day. I've also just sampled some coffee from the new rocket juice machine that we've just received...*perhaps* not a good idea cos it took me ages to fall asleep last night. Well, I've got lots of stuff to catch up on so it's not a major problem.

Anyways, took this in Brussels airport last week - this is my kind of duty free shopping, if only lol!

Random pics

Bike park Pukkelpop Aug 08

Pink bike - Gent

Always have time - Rotterdam Mar 08

Museum of Modern Art - Glasgow June 08

Museum of Modern Art - Glasgow June 08

Rather childish, I know.

Mmmm!

London - Jan 08

Take the high road

Some pics from the top of the category 3 climb in Benicasim - the descent was well worth the pain!

Content not available

Hmm, thanks hon for that exposure on that last post, what little credibility I had has now gone lol ;p

Just arrived on Sunday in Spain for work and got excited when I saw the mini bar, only to be greeted by this:

G-U-T-T-E-D!!

Tasty Take-Over

I'd like to appologize to my girlfriend, for I'm not generally one for making this kind of privacy infringement. But Jo's abroad for work and well, when the cat's away... the mouse comes out to play.

(It's Sarah speaking, in case you hadn't cottoned on by now).

Jo and I went to pukkelpop a few weeks ago, where I took control of Jo's camera, with some rather entertaining results. I just couldn't keep this one from you guys and well, I no longer have a blog to publish it on.

To place it in context, Jo's a regular britpopbopper, so when Alphabeat got headlined, Jo went ecstatic to put it mildly. While Alphabeat is a Danish band, they are totally tailored to the british market, and judging by this video, they seem to have hit their mark:

I also have footage of Jo being hit in the head by a cardboard cupholder, but I'm saving that one for Funniest Homevideos. I'll put the 100 euros to good use (i.e. buying Jo flowers to appologize for this tasty take-over).

Mag ik een afspraak maken aub?

I made my very first doc's appointment all in Dutch, no English, and all on my own. This is what the receptionist heard:

Jo: "Hi, I'd like to make an appointment please"

Rec: "Sure, when would you like to come over?"

Jo: "Em, around 6 on Tuesday afternoon. Can it be 6;30 please?"

Rec: "Yes, that's fine. What's your name?"

Jo: *cough* "Sorry ." *cough, splutter* "Excuse me, I have a penis stuck in my mouth*."

*Disclaimer - I actually said this line in English and I did say peanut but according to my work colleagues it sounded like penis lol! I didn't realise at the time and thought that I'd done really well lol.

3 things about me

Okey dokey, don't normally do these things but I was procrastinating yesterday so what the heck. Questions courtesy of Annika ;)

Three names you go by:
1. Schaat

2. J-ho (inspiration J-lo of course)

3. J-Mac

Three things you are wearing right now
1. Blue argyle socks

2. Sarah's joggy bottoms - oh the benefits of being a lesbot

3. Festival tee that I bought at Pukkelpop yesterday

Three longest car rides:
1. Cumbernauld to some where too far south in France - school trip

2. From the apartment rental pick up key point to said rented apartment in Florida - tense father just coming off a 7 hour flight not used to an automatic and driving on the wrong side of the road...add to that that the pick up key point was in next to some not so tourist friendly crack joint...Needless to say we got pulled over by the cops 30mins later, no joke...

3. Eindhoven to Geel last week. I was bursting, dehydrated and lost! It would normally only take 40mins but took considerably longer!

Three of your favorite things to do:
1. ride my bikes

2. hang with my homo, family n friends

3. over eat

Three things you want very badly at the moment:
1. to procrastinate until Sarah gets back

2. to finish my work that i planned for today

3. a saxophone

Three animals you have had:
1. Only one - dear, dear Dolly Daydream

2. see above

3. see above

Three people to tag:

1. Sanne

2. Greet

3. Lama

Three Things you ate today:
1. Poached egg cos made by sarah cos Belgies don't eat them and i miss Auntie Betty's poached eggs!!!

2. Powergel - whilst riding

3. post ride home made bananananana shake

Three people you last talked to:
1. Sarah

2. Helen

3. Today is my catch up day with mates

Three things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Working, drinking lots of cawfee and eating a Belgie waffle

2. doing a nice loop home from work

3. Making my own dinner cos Sarah's deserted me and is in Gent for the night :(

Three favourite holidays
1. California 98-99 turned out to be a loooong holiday

2. Belgium Easter w/end 07

3. Toronto 88

Three favorite Drinks:
1. Coffee

2. Errrol Grrrrey

3. Milk shake

Return to sender

So it would appear that I'm rather inept when it comes to the fine art of posting. I sent a slightly belated bday card to Annika last week to discover it in my letter box saying:

'Het juiste tarief is 2,40euros.'

In my defence Sarah -who is my consult for everything Belgie- said that it would be ok to post a regular card with a *postcard* stamp on it.

Apologies A, I'll lick, stick it and re-stamp it and get it on its way ;)

Oops!

Just spoke to my wee brother to check that he got his birthday card that I'd addressed to Johnnie-boy (that's what I always call him). This cracked me up, turned out that the hall porters had filed it under the surname 'B' for Boy - ROTFL!!! Poor Johnnie got his card a day late cos naturally he was looking under 'M!'

Johnnie, next time I'll be sure to put your full Sunday name down.

Pukkelpop day 1

Yes, I managed it last night. But I've slept most of the day today to compensate. Feels so good because I haven't allowed myself that luxury in a long time.

Fave bands of yesterday:

Amy McDonald - a fellow Scot had the opening slot on the festival and even dabbled in a wee bit of Flemish.

Roisin Murphy - I absolutly love Moloko and Ms Murphy. We'd seen her in Eindhoven last year and we didn't think that it was her best performance. However, she totally redeemed herself with the set at Pukkelpop with some major bum wiggling dance tunes!

The Killers - ended the night with a mesmerising performance...for Sarah...she loves Brandon Flowers. Bit gutted that they didn't play some of their old hits.

We've got Alphabeat and Metallica on the list for this evening...FAAASSCCINNAATION...I'm off to look for my shoulder-padded shirts and lots of hairspray for Alphabeat - yay!

Pukkelpop

We're off to Pukkelpop today - WOOOHOOO! Sarah, organised as ever, has put together a wee schedule of all the bands that we'd like to see. They kick off at 2.30 this alvo and last until 2am tomorrow morning...I fear that around 11.47pm Sarah might feel that it's a burden having an older girrel who needs her beauty sleep lol.

Just been informed that we have to leave now.

BYEEEEEEEEEEE!

It's raining, it's pouring...

It was lashing down tonight. I got completely soaked on my ride home from work. It felt almost spiritual. There's something about wet lycra and the rain coming down so hard it's nipping your skin. It's some how softened by the rainbow just up ahead and the knowledge that you've had the best ride home this week.

In the words of the Wicked Witch of the East - "I'm melting! I'm melting!"

How to fleece your neighbours

Ok, so Scottish people are normally accused of being tight, but on this instance I'm sure you'll agree with me. We've been invited to a communal BBQ by the residents in our block. (we're not the only lesbot couple btw!). We're thinking this would be a great opportunity to meet our neighbours.

That's all grand. We then read the rest of the flyer and realise that the buggers are charging us 35 euros EACH for the BBQ. So that's 70 euros for Sarah and I. My mate Wendy never charged that much and her food was from Marks and Spencers!

Now let's be reasonable here. How expensive can a BBQ be?! It says on the leaflet that it's a culinary BBQ. HOW CAN A BBQ BE CULINARY? I'm thinking baked potatoes, chicken wings and burgers! Not particularly appealing to a pretend vegetarian.

To make the spend justified they also state that you can come back on the Sunday and have leftovers. We'll be camping out all night to make sure we're first inline for the doggy bags.

Other options we have are:

1. Pretend that we both have major food intolerances so cannot pay for food we cannot eat.

2. Start our own BBQ and only charge 15 euros per head.

3. Ask them if they accept meal cheques.

4. Say that Scottish tradition abhors lesbots being charged an entrance fee for communal festivities.

Any other suggestions are welcome :-)

Gentse Feesten

I'm chilling on the sofa just absorbing the last couple of hours of a city in relative silence before things go completely mental in Gent. The parties kick off tomorrow which will be when Sarah and I retreat to the burb for some sleep. We were wakened this morning by some inconsiderate twat testing their drum kit on a nearby stage at 4am. And I thought contending with the bells was difficult. Ah, *strains ear* just on cue - the bells and said twat drummer have just started again lol.

On another note, I think old age is setting in. We packed up our stuff yesterday to head to Gent. I pack everything I could possibly need...bike, bike kit, clothes for this, clothes for that, hairspray - lots of, yadda-yadda. We get to Gent and unpack everything from the car and I have this nagging feeling that I can't quite put my finger on. Only to discover that I'd left the bag with all my clothes in the country pad. Joy! Lol. On the upside, I am a lesbian with a g/f who has many clothes ;-)

To console myself I've eaten pretty much a full chocolate cake to myself!

Drifter

How fitting cos that's kinda how I feel just now lol.

Since my ventures started nearly 3 weeks ago I've been hunting down Drifter bars. No, not of the dodgy establishment variety but of the chocolate bar variety and I've yet to find one :(

Can some of my beloved friends/family please send me some if I can't find any? Pretty please???

Coffee justified

Remind me the next time that a hotel situated between a major motorway and an airport is never a good thing, especially when you're hyper and struggling to get to sleep *bleary eyed look.*

And now, as I type this across from the mirror in the room, I can't help but notice the throbbing heat spot permeating from my chin. Nice. Red eyes and a red chin, just what you need when you're meeting customers. Heat spot I hear you ask. Well, I'm trying to make it sound more exotic than it is cos it's pissed down for the past few days. It's probably a bed bug bite...

Anyways, only 3 more sleeps and I'm back in Belgie Land - Yay!

Ramble

You'd be shocked if I said I was staying in a *rather* nice Travelodge tonight, I am too. Shocked that is. I'm also tired but can't quite settle into sleep just yet so I thought I'd have a wee rant about the breakfast at this delightful establishment.

7 pounds and fifty pence for breakfast! No option for just toast and cawfee. Bit of a rip-off if you ask me. So, tomorrow morning I'll be hunting down some deserted Little Chef (hope I don't find one) or if I'm lucky a Starbucks or equivalent.

I am totally rambling and yet again I've realised that I don't have all the options for sticking in images etc for my post.

Sarah - what's wrong with my blogger??? *pout* I had a nice picture of a box of Scots' Porridge oats as well...

Shitty motorway services

Gutted! My vehicle kind of broke down last night and I'm currently stranded on the M6.

Will I make it to Scotland tonight???

And and and my blogger isnae working properly so I cannae spruce up this blog with images!!! Sympathy please! I can't even leave my 5 bags to go and powder my nose, or go and grab a coffee cos the useless regulations at travelodge wouldn't let me leave my luggage there!!! GRRRRR!

May have to trip up some old age penshies walking smuggly past me with their lunch and cawfee

Ubiquitous

Sarah, after much deliberation has decided to call it a day with her blog. She can take comfort and pride in the many readers who'll miss her eloquent tone, her very unique perspective and her ability to captivate her audience.

Sarah's blog was my first introduction to her. I would visit her blog countless times throughout the day. Captivated ever more by each post that I read and re-read and re-read (and analysed lol). Sarah was, I'm sure, ecstatic that her statcounter was ticking over at a rapid pace. At the time, I was completely unaware of fact that she could see who visited her blog, when they visited, how long they stayed for and how many times. The rouge filled my cheeks when she announced that someone from Yorkshire had been on her blog a *few* times. I was absolutely mortified! No one likes being caught red-handed at stalking/obsessed over a potential mate.

Well, for me, old habits die hard so I'll still be checking out her blog every day like a true devotee (read stalker). I look forward to seeing what my girrel does next...

Daily ride

I've been riding to work for the past month and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'd promised myself that the next job that I take I must be able to ride to work. I'd much rather be out on my bike than stuck in a traffic jam or overcrowded train/bus, even it it does take me until the 3rd km before I'm awake (the joy of getting up early). It still amazes me how tolerant Belgian drivers are of cyclists. Having refined my route, I've even managed to fit one hill into the ride, which is impressive considering the surrounding terrain. And more importantly, Sarah is now slowly accepting my demands for the daily application of E45 cream on my slightly chaffed derriere - it's purely a medical request on my behalf of course ;-)

Here are some pics from my commute:

Just in case I fancy a mid ride snack

I have to say that riding along the canal does make me reminisce of Old Blighty. No dumped shopping trolleys, no floating tampons or similar, no dead bodies and no burnt out Ford Fiestas! Here's a pic from the Water of Leith in Edinburgh just to prove my point.

This is the only thing that I've seen floating in the water so far.

Open wide...

One of the benefits of living in Belgium -as put to me by my g/f- is that Belgium has an excellent health care system. I had no reason to doubt this, up until last Friday that is.

I needed an urgent dental appointment so Sarah lined me up with a local dentist that we pulled from golden pages. She was told that there was no need to make an appointment and that it should be ok to just drop in. Sarah thought at the time that that was a bit strange; unfortunately it wasn't enough to ring any major alarm bells.

Now, I'm not one to prejudge people...that much…but upon arrival at said practice, to say that the outside was more akin to a funeral parlour was a bit of an understatement. Sarah brushed this off with "that's a *ahem* kind-of standard front shop for a Belgian dentist *ahem*"

Owkaaay.

We walked through the front door and the smell of cigarrettes instantly smacked us in the face. We find the waiting room with; you guessed it, no other waiting patients. We’re then greeted by an older man in a white coat with jeans and a fag in his hand. His appearance did nothing to instill confidence.

As he continued to smoke, I whispered to Sarah that if he asks, I'm here on holiday and we’re only here for a diagnosis and no more! Taking another draw of his fag, he gestures for me to sit in his dentist chair. Glancing down at the chair I notice a huge slash mark in the head section and some very antiquated looking tools to the right. He’s still smoking and now I’m really panicking!

He pulls the light overhead to inspect my mouth. He explains to Sarah in Dutch that my tooth is fine - relief! However, I become aware of a burning sensation on my delicate alabaster skin, which then breaks out into a small sweat. This is not nerves dear reader; this is me being burned by the ancient overhead light. Surely there must be regulations for melanoma inducing lights?!

And the radiation didn't stop there. He decided that it was best to take an x-ray of my gum. In the mean time he declared that I had an infection in my gum, possibly caused by a filling that was too close to my nerve. And you wonder why Brits have a reputation for dodgy teeth! After his postulation, he began, rather forthrightly, to question me on the causes/symptoms/treatments for bacterial infections.

Now, to give further insight, this guy was a paratrooper until 2 years ago, so you can imagine the military interrogation style that his questions took. Still having to cope with being burnt and the prospect of his fag fingers going in my mouth again, I was in no mood for being questioned. I was after all the patient, and he the dentist. I popped out a few pathetic nonchalant answers to which he was not impressed. This was when Sarah regressed into school mode. She had all the answers he was looking for and more! I think she even put her hand up once or twice to answer a question and I was thankful that the attention was removed from me and onto her. She appeared to be quite enjoying the bullet round of questions and answers.

Yes, back to the x-ray. He brought out this machine that would look more at home on a Marvin the Martian Looney Tunes cartoon. The X-ray confirmed his original diagnosis. Thank goodness for that, no more questions and answers.

Lesson learned: ask for recommendations for local dentists first before randomly pulling one from the golden pages and never, NEVER, visit one that doesn't need an appointment of sorts!