Went for a Walk Yesterday

It was a beautiful autumn day with wonderful sunshine without a cloud in the sky. The little roads and paths were brimming with life; people of all ages took advantage of the opportunity to walk or cycle. You met people in the remotest corner of the forest and we all said our polite “Guten Tag” to each other, making it even more enjoyable. How very civilised!

My camera accompanied us and I snapped a few here and there, trying to catch some interesting light. After two hours’ walking this was my best attempt.

Girls Girls Girls!

I have posted many photographs here but not any Pic of the Week for a long time. But here is one I could not resist putting up. It is not one of outstanding beauty, but a funny one.

I am still in Brussels, La Grande Place, the main square where people gather and lots happen. There is music and giant puppets walking about, people having a relaxing drink and then all the tourists taking pictures of all those fascinating buildings I mentioned in a previous post.

On this car-free Sunday the square was very crowded and some girls in their early teens put big smiles on many faces with their antics. What they did? They moved like a lightning-quick snake positioning itself behind people snapping the imposing buildings with their backs to the centre of the square. The girls also walked behind people copying their every movement, like some delayed ripple effect. Extremely funny.

I have never seen so many (at least ten of them) in such a well-choreographed action. It only took them a few seconds to get in line behind this man, the only one actually with a camera in his hands. Good, clean fun!

How Likely Is That?

When we were in Brussels a couple of weekends ago we stayed in a B&B where one other guest was a young Russian, who was there for some conference, and then there were two Belgian women.

At breakfast on Saturday we chatted like one does, and the topic of the state of the Belgian motorways was introduced (by me). I explained with my standard joke “How do you know you are travelling through Belgium? It goes bumpety bumpety bumpety.”

One of the ladies said to the other “You have to tell your boss that!” It turned out that one of them worked for the Minister of Transport. Ooops!

Another unlikely meeting took place in one of Brussels’ many excellent restaurants. Since Brussels is a city of two official languages, French and Flemish (Dutch), you are not quite sure how to start a conversation. Mrs S spoke French, since neither of us speak Flemish, and the waitress replied in fluent French, of course. But it turned out that she actually was French.

Mrs S continued to tell the waitress that we had a holiday home in Normandy, and she wondered where. Before Mrs S had finished her geographic explanation the young French waitress said with a broad smile that she came from a town not far away from there, and that as a young girl she had often been with her mother to the swimming pool in our nearest little town, the very same pool Mrs S regularly frequents on our holidays. How about that for a coincidence?