Brussels Sprouts

We've been seeing a bit more of Paris recently and even ventured out on the Thalys train to Brussels at the weekend!

We went to the bakers at the top of our street to pick up our pain au chocolat before going underground and heading the Belgian way. I love the bakers window. I am amazed that at 10am on a Saturday morning in February, all manner of buns, cakes, tarts, fruit pies are available. In Paris it is entirely acceptable to buy all your desserts from the bakers. If you are having people round for dinner, I imagine the guests would be slightly disappointed if you attempted to make it yourself, and having seen what is for offer in the Patisserie window I can undertand their bias. I have cooked practically nothing in the last 3.5 months. Never mind any fruit tarts!

SO, purpose of this post...we went to Brussels at the weekend!

Belgium is famous for a few things.

Hervé's adventures of Tintin being one of them, beer being the other. We briefly spotted Tintin and Snowy on the side of a building, but took it upon ourselves to find out a bit more about the beer of Belgium. Happily, you can get a Dégustation menu of beer! I particularly liked the cherry beer. Slightly sweet but not too like alcoholic cherry aid. Second from the left, I think!

We had a good wander around, and benefitted from catching up on lots of sleep in our lovely B&B. Run by a gay couple, when I asked for a map he told us that he only had the Gay Map of Brussels. I am still not too sure what the main sites in Brussels are, or indeed where they are, but I do know where to get a good sauna and some lubes.

Some of my favourite people in the world were in Brussels at the weekend...the Scouts. I have a very fond affection for the Scouts, I think because I enjoyed being a guide, read the guide handbook a lot and am overly influenced by the writings of Enid Blyton. I think there must have been some sort of rally - or jamboree, prompting the following pic! Incidentally, the crazy French pronounce scouts as "scoots", with a very tight oooo sound. Nut jobs.

raising the Isobar

John Kettley was a weatherman and so is Michael Fish (see above).

I did not reaslise this, but in autumn one expects the isobars to narrow on the meterological reports which is suggestive of bad weather, storms, high winds and the like.

People are often rude about the weather forecasters - Mr Fish got a very hard time for reassuring all that there would not be a hurricane in 1987.

On that occasion, as we know, he was not right.


However, full credit must go to the meteorologists of the weekend Oct 3rd. They said there would be high winds. There were high winds. They suggested that there might be gusts of up to 70mph, there were gusts.

I know this because I witnessed the glory of the weather whilst climbing Goatfell, the large hill on the Isle of Arran. My chum and I got approx 2/3 of the way up, and then as we were crouching down to prevent getting blown over we decided we should go for the descent. It would be hard to explain to mountain rescue that our preparation for the ascent included 4 peices of fruit, a bottle of water and that our map was the Rough Guide to the West of Scotland.

It was a good climb though, my calves are still aching. My chum had completed a half-marathon in Donegal, the first 5 miles of which was up a hill, so I shouldn't have expected a leisurely stroll. It blew the cobwebs away though, and that's no bad thing.

Passport? I nearly passed out!

I have itchy feet. I shouldn't have, I should feel well rested from my weekend away in Paris. I should be glad to be back using pounds sterling and to be no longer peering at coins to figure out their denomination. I should've been speaking French all weekend and reached new highs of fluency (or perhaps just hit new lows of embarrassment).

HOWEVER, none of this happened because I didn't get to go to Paris.

All because of a pesky passport.

I had a sneaking suspicious that I wasn't entirely sure where it was, and the night before started to root around for it. After 2 hours of picking things up, going through all the bookshelves, the drawers in the filing cabinets, under the sofa, the bed, behind furniture, through all the kitchen drawers. I exhausted all possible locations and myself in nearly equal measure.

The French Consulate in Edinburgh were very nice to me when I phoned to ask if they would let me in their country bearing a copy of my marriage cert, a passport from 1999 and the photographic counterpart from my driving licence. Despite all my "I love speaking French" nonsense that I frequently roll out, after a cheery "Bonjour" from Edinbourg, I managed a reasonably confident "Bonjour" in response before anouncing -"I am a UK citizen!!". Everything they say about the Brits and their language skills was confirmed in that very moment.

Anyhow, to no avail. The French do not allow someone to enter their country bearing only their YHA membership card and a signed school photograph. And no, the damn thing never turned up and I had to call my chum and explain that Paris was fermé.

So.... we went to Arran instead.

Not quite the same, that's for sure but at least it was a holiday.

We rescheduled the flights and we are going to Paris in December- DV, passport agency allowing.