Ring my bell

I've figured out why I have 'issues' with the local bells in Gent. They sound like they're not quite there, they're not deep enough in their sound. To my uneducated ear, they sound like a highly irritating mix between the local ice cream van and something you'd hear at a carnival/merry go round.

The fact that they're vaguely reminiscent of the ice cream van provokes an alarmingly rapid response in me, so much so, that I'm convinced it could win me a place on the 2012 Olympic sprinter squad. I automatically bolt in the direction of the door in nano seconds, sometimes without changing out of my slippers, shouting 'Hurry, we're gonna miss it! Have you got 50p? Where are the empty ginger bottles?'

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that there was nothing more upsetting than seeing the back end of the ice cream van pull away, just as you start to accelerate out of your drive way and onto your street. Perhaps it's this deeply agonising realisation that the ice cream van isn't actually there, and that I wont be getting a single-nougat ice cream with raspberry sauce, a bottle of Irn Bru and a ten-pence mixture after all.

I'll settle for a waffle instead though...