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!

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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!