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!

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!

We've got TINTERNET!!!

More blogs to follow shortly...

Neighbours

The painting is now pretty much finished apart from the door frames, and there are just a few items of furniture left to get. The sofa is currently in the garage because it wouldn't fit through the main door :-( As I write this, Sarah is currently sitting on a pink lilo - no joke! As you can imagine, we've spent a lot of time in Ikea over the past month, and dare I admit it, I'm starting to enjoy Ikea. But take my advise, please don't go on a Friday night. Everyone, along with every single person from their extended family goes on a Friday night. The only good thing about Friday night Ikea is that it is also homo night!

Talking of which, unless my gaydar/eyesight have been slightly damaged in the move, we've spotted another lesbot couple in the block. So it would appear that we're not the only gays in the village. Naturally we'll be hanging the dungarees and tank tops out to dry on the terras to display our solidarity. Next door to us we have some ppl from the Netherlands who smoke pot for dinner and breakfast. Here's me thinking I was bad having chocolate cake for my main meals. Across the road we have pigeon man, who I talk to in pigeon dutch (sorry, couldn't resist). He has over 100 competition pigeons and other bird type things. I have to stop myself from shouting BBBIIIIIIIIIRRRDMAAAAAN every time I see him.

Fly fishing

As cultured individuals, we were quite astonished at just how much fun we've been having at fly baiting. No, I'm not talking Venus fly traps. Just your plain and simple sticky fly tape that you see hanging in dodgy kebab shops. I couldn't stop laughing last night when Sarah took it upon herself to be the sticky tape sticker-uperer. On her first attempt she got the roll stuck to her chin! Bless, she wasn't too pleased.

We've now placed a bet to see how many flies will be attached to said devices by the end of the week. Is that gross? So far, we just have one poor we soul. Answers on a postcard please. And whilst we're at it, why do flies seem to fly in a square pattern? Can you tell that we're living in the country?!

Sundays

Life is fab people! I officially own garden furniture!!! We went to Ikea yesterday for the third weekend in a row, yes, it was a slight struggle. We got to the end of the market place just to realise that there were a few things that we'd forgotten to pick up. Have you ever tried going against the flow of traffic in Ikea on a Saturday? Not easy. Add to that a rather heavy iron board (my old Tesco one was lighter lol), hunners of kids in the way eager to get to the end for their hot dog or ice cream and a few dodgy trolly pushers who clearly couldn't control them.

All in all, it was a very successful shopping day. I'm now sitting on my terras with my new garden furniture and I'm absolutely loving it. Why move to the continent if you can't enjoy sitting out on your terras! We're lucky, we're one of the first apartments to catch the sun in the morning and we have it for most of the day too. Of course, in preparation for this, I bought my factor 50 sun cream or should I say sun block. Sarah is currently sun bathing and I, the ever alabaster-one, am sitting in the shade with a full length sleeve top on and trousers. You can take the girl out of Scotland but you can't take Scotland out of the girl!

J-ho expands

Dearest Annika and Gill, I'm branching out. I've decided that the people of Rotterdam need my help to find them the most fulfilling vocations and vacations ;-)


I wonder if they realise the connotations lol...

Long time no see!

Well, the past few weeks have been pretty busy to say the least:

1. Dutch course completed and passed.
2. Moved house.
3. Spent too many Saturdays in Ikea only to walk away (not literally) with only a bed and mattress. Help!
4. Started my job 2 weeks early and experienced the joy of the Belgian motorway otherwise known as a rather long and bumpy car park.
5. Sarah and I have started to paint the apartment...see the end of point 3!
6. Ecstatic that we've found a baker that cuts bread with thick slices.

More to follow shortly...

"Much to learn you still have"

For the past week I've noticed that the surrounding "white noise" of the spoken word is starting to diffuse as my understanding increases and it feels fabulous!

My vocabulary is limited just now, but it's amazing how much you can communicate with such a small number of words.

Luckily for me, I have a very supportive Flem who does well to disguise her giggles when my attempt at Dutch sounds more akin to Yoda-speak - "Exam passed did I..." From now on please just refer to me as "Master" ;-)

Testing, testing...

I have a Dutch test in about 40 mins - *meep* We're not even allowed to bring in dictionaries or our work books, how cruel is that?! And, and, and, we've only had 8 lessons.

Actually, it should be ok really, *talks to myself, really it will be ok lol.* It's a written test and will only last 30mins and it will cover everything we've learned up until now.

Here goes...Success eh!

Not so serious Radio 4

A newsreader on Radio 4 got a very infectious fit of the giggles this morning.

At the bank

Note to self:

Familiarise oneself with the instructions in Dutch for getting through the doors of a bank with secure entry system. D'oh!

Photographic procrastination part 2

I got up early the other morning in an attempt to catch the snow before it melted. After falling on my arse twice and getting slightly lost, I returned home after a wet hour with the following pics of Gent:

This was a really hasty shot because I thought the van driver was going to drive through the snowman, but he didn't. I'm sure a British white van driver would've ploughed straight through. Belgians are nice!
Erm, that's a rather large stick.



I thought I'd look rather attractive in this beautiful lacey number and streaked hair-flair wig should Sarah and I ever tie the knot...

We went to the science museum and stumbled on an sex educational piece for young children and teenagers. It was very refreshing to see such a liberal approach to sex. I am so in a Dutch country lol!

'Girl and boy'

'Boy and boy' 'Girl and girl'

Week 3

I may have mentioned this before, so apologies. Since I've become a lesbot of leisure, I've had all the time to do what I want. The only major downside to this is that all of my playmates are fully fledged National Insurance contributing kind of people. And, more importantly, they're not here in Belgium!

So occasionally I've felt like Bea Smith in solitary confinement in Prisoner Cell Block H. But at least she got visits from Vinegar Tits and

old Lizzie during the day ;-) However, everything is starting to settle in now. After a very relaxing and social Easter weekend, I feel like I've been recharged. I think part of that was also down to the excessive consumption of chocolate, and I did manage to get out for a ride despite the weather.

We also went to view an apartment at the w/end which I just fell in love with. Unfortunately for me there was an 'optie' on it (pronounced 'opsie', go figure). Sarah decided to only point this out after I'd said optie to the estate agent about, oh, 10 times. Gotta love her ;-) The optie means that someone else has a hold on the apartment for a week. I tried the old Scottish charm which seems to have paid off - woohoo! Just found out yesterday that the apartment is mine!

It's got a beautiful terrace -essential for successful continental living. But I think that it was the homing pigeon sheds and allotment in a neighbours garden that really swung it for me.

Whilst we're on the subject of apartment hunting, the photos of the inside of apartments are a very important part of the marketing of a property. A seller should want to utilise each photo to provide maximum impact, to compel the buyer to imagine living there. Right??

Perhaps Belgians have different priorities from me because I've seen some of the most random collection of property pics. They've ranged from unfinished apartments with all of the kitchen units still in their boxes, construction sites, nice looking stairwells, water pipes for your washing machine, a garage door slightly open, a garage door fully open, and building sites. I've even seen the odd person in the background cooking or doing their ironing.

You know you're abroad when...

1. The locals have a disturbing penchant for fur coats.

2. There is a collection of strange cheese in your fridge.

3. The lesbots look different. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think that a lot of Dutch and German women have that kind of queer look about them anyways...must be the specs... ;-)

4. You're facial hair is socially acceptable.

5. You rehydrate with coffee instead of water.

6. You add 'eh/he' on to the end of every sentence.

7. You break out in a sweat about the supermarket not being open 24 hours or shops being closed on a Sunday.

8. You pig out on Speculoos until you get a sugar headache and feel sick.

9. You cant find poached eggs, anywhere! Who wants to peel a boiled egg???

10. You drink cola light instead of diet coke.

11. You write stupid lists and procrastinate more.

12. The changing room in the gym is full of unhidden, unabashed bodies.

13. You can't find an adapter for your expensive 2-prong electric toothbrush!

14. The guy in the supermarket asks if you have one cent, and you, smiling, hand over one euro instead.

15. Cyclists rule the road, pedestrian crossings and the pavement.

16. You see women standing in *ahem* shop windows modelling nothing but day-glow bikinis.

Friday faff

Sarah promised me that the climate was much more exotic in Belgium than in Scotland, my thoughts being, well, it's closer to the equator, so that must be true, eh?!

Well. Not once have I had to get out the factor 30! I'm gutted because my class has finished for the Easter break and I wanted to get out on my bike today. With the forecast of sleet, snow and strong winds I think the ride will have to wait :-( G-U-T-T-E-D! Cobbles and ice aren't a good mix for a cyclist, but fun to watch nonetheless.

So, my plans for today are:

1. Read yesterday's Guardian which I begrudgingly pay 3 euros for every other day. For whatever reason I can't find a shop (winkel is shop in Dutch and that just cracks me up) that sells today's Guardian. *hmph*

2. I'll try really hard not to get oil on Sarah's nice wooden floors.

3. Maybe I'll put a wash on...

4. Faff on the internet. It would appear that the computer is my new best friend, which I have issues with.

5. Maybe I'll swot -I did yesterday which is an achievement for a PP- and finish off my revision for this week. Ik heb, heb jij, hebt u...and the list goes on.

I've got a presentation that I need to do you see, well, everyone in the class has to do it. We need to put together a 5 minute number about a hobby, job, family etc, etc. Then the class will have questions for you afterwards. It's kind of like show and tell lol, I'm thinking this is not the time for powerpoint and laser pen. Perhaps family tartan, a couple of bottles of Irn Bru, shortbread biscuits and some haggis will do the trick. If only I'd packed my Jimmy hat!

Tour de lesbots

We set off on a wee adventure to the big smoke that is Brussels last night. I was meeting Sarah in a somewhat seedier than normal train station, so I forfeited my hairspray for a can of mase instead.

We saw a very impressive performance by Tegan and Sara at Le Botanique.

The fab hairdos and cheeky interaction with the crowd did it for me!

Photographic procrastination

Here are some pictures of Gent: