Sugar High

The end is nigh. We're back at work - all be it in the obligatory Training Day uniform of ill-fitting jeans and bad trainers, but it's work nevertheless - and teaching starts next Tuesday. SOB. Where did those glorious weeks go? And, more to the point, where did this belly come from? I left school at 19 weeks preggo and I'm now 27 and WOOOAH there.is.a.difference.

So, pre-empting the Nightmares Of Doom (and I still had one!) on Wednesday night before the official return today, I got up on Monday, got the tram in at normal time (ugh, hello 7am daylight, haven't seen YOU for a while) and did a day 'to get ahead' (hahahahaha oh sweet, naive Laura). I was mightily smug. The next morning, however, I was knackered. That's the thing with this work business - it's every day, five days on the trot. Who came up with this? Not Scandinavians, that's for sure.

Oo, and we've been to see some creches too. I know. HOW. WHAT. My mind is still struggling to compute that this child is NOT YET BORN and yet we're thinking about its childcare in over a year's time. This is the norm, apparently - in fact, we're late - you're supposed to inform creches 15 weeks into pregnancy to get on some kidney transplant-style waiting list, at least if you want a hallowed place at a Francophone commune creche where the fees are cheap (500ish euros full-time, or so goes the rumour) and doctors' notes result in deductions of fees for days legitimately missed due to sickness. I KNOW! My sister was speechless with admiration/envy.  

This was not a commune creche. It was a private creche. It was lovely (although the Romanian-orphanage-style room full of cots was a little bit, well, odd). It was also expensive. It's in the right area for us (I don't mean that in terms of our baby wouldn't be seen dead anywhere else, but rather that the transport links for work are good). Apparently we can claim some of the eye-watering outlay back in tax. In fact, I had the most boring text message exchange of our entire relationship with Adam about this very important fiscal issue. I've never felt more attractive as when typing the words 'we'd qualify for 11 euros tax back for each day of FT childcare' into BBM messenger.

I also went for a scan and the gestational diabetes test at the hospital. AGAIN with the mental private healthcare process: display no symptoms of anything ever but for the LOVE of your unborn CHILD make sure you have every expensive diagnostic test under the sun - and thank your gold-plated-Daddy-Warbucks-health-insurance-stars for it. And actually, while I'm on, in a bizarre twist of coincidence do you know how many times I've come across the term 'socialised healthcare' in newspaper articles - all right, all right, episodes of The West Wing - as if it's something dirty or cheap or dangerous recently? I'll tell ya: LOADS. And to me, and maybe to Brits on the continent generally, that's just mad. My hospital is lovely, don't get me wrong, and my doctor is lovely and I am appreciative that I won't be forced to conjugate unfamiliar French verbs mid-delivery AND I can buy a bloody leather bag in the giftshop should the fancy take me, really I am, but it's just all a bit - excessive. There's a post-modernist sculpture in the hallway. The fella at the sandwich bar today asked me if I wanted balsamic vinegar.

And I think of the NHS vision and their wonderful staff, doing things efficiently and largely in the most cost-effective way possible, and I like that. It's responsible. It's no-nonsense.

ANYHOO. Check me and my first world problems out: my hospital is too nice. My luxury leather handbag bought in the giftshop (not really) is chafing my shoulder. The midwife makes crap tea (not really). Second time around (!) I'll be a lot more informed and a lot braver about sacking some of this guff off, I feel.

So today I had blood taken and then I drank this. It was rank.

Mmm, sweet all-natural naranja. 

Then I sat about for an hour and had more blood taken. My veins started putting up a fight at this point - "Ce n'est pas vrai, ce n'est pas vrai" muttered the nurse, which disturbed me a little - and she had to take it from my wrist.

Then I sat around for another hour and had more blood taken. By this point my veins all seemed to have pretty much collapsed. I thought she was going to have to start hunting in between my toes and I would leave l'hopital looking like Amy Winehouse in those horrific 2007 ballet shoe paparazzi shots.

But hey, test done, and hopefully I don't have diabetes, my bairn will suffer no lasting side-effects other than maybe a predilection for Monster energy drinks and I can just get on with the serious business of getting fatter and fatter. After being bridesmaid for my friend this weekend, obvs. Everyone loves a pregnant bridesmaid! Woop woop! That DJ better have Salt n Peppa Push It, I'm telling you.

And so I shall leave you with a few things that are floating my boat this week despite the impending tolling of the Back To Work bell:

* James Booth's new biography of Philip Larkin is Book of the Week on Radio 4. YOLO! You can listen again for seven days only here. It sounds wicked and is giving me endless quotable nuggets of twitter joy. Don't thank me all at once.

* The idea of getting a tattoo done by this woman. In another braver, edgier life.

* Donna Wilson has launched a range of baby and children's clothes for John Lewis. LOOK. Can I justify buying this now? Do you think a boy could wear this? I totally do, so don't tell me otherwise, yeah?

* This is my favourite twitter account ever. Everything she says makes me die. There's an English Language A level coursework project in it somewhere.

And you? What's rocking your boat? I could do with some good social media accounts if anyone has any recommendations (I want more real people, yerr narr?), book recommendations to keep my reading strength up as term begins or, you know, places where I can look at pretty baby stuff is always welcome. And if anyone has any creche advice for an actual Creche Idiot (that's me), please do tell. What should I be looking for? What questions should I be asking? Although you should know I have all the tax questions covered. I'm cool like that.

Cinquantenaire Parc

I've lived in Brussels for a year and a half. It took me until just before Christmas to climb up to the top of the Cinquatenaire arch.  

Alternative title for this post: Stop Taking Pictures With Your iPhone And Persevere With The Fancy Lens. 

Or perhaps: I Am Turning Into My Mother And The Terror I Feel Climbing An Enclosed Spiral Staircase Is Ridiculous.  

Harvest

October! *doubleblink* October is here, and it's a palace.

This is as good a place to start as any. 

All Quiet On The Belgian Front

Except it’s not all quiet, is it? It’s bloody mental - hence the disappearing act. 

Firstly, WE NO SPEAK NO HALF-TERM. I know; an unthinkable outrage. School continues slouching towards the 28th June (yes I know, we break up in June, for two magnificent months; I need to put the ‘unthinkable outrage’ into perspective before some Gove-toady points it out). And despite missing out on my usual time-celebrated half-term traditions like, you know, watching an entire series of America’s Next Top Model in one go, I should probably acknowledge the fact that we have had forty-four billion bank holidays in May alone (hurray for Pentecost and all its friends). 

Plus things can’t be that bad because it’s May, and that means only one thing: the season of the street festival is upon us. I can barely step outside of the door without hearing the jolly rump-pump-rump of a marching band, and that kindles a certain pseudo-holiday-feeling in the soul. It was the birthday party of a local street (?) a couple of weekends ago and there was a veritable bonanza of food, drink and inflatable-related fun. There was even a medieval market at Montgomery. Apparently it’s an annual occurrence and a Bit of A Big Deal, so Bedders and I headed up there on a Friday evening to find a graveyard of sad Monk and Merry Maiden stallholders peering through the drizzle. The air was full of the smell of leather goods at highly-inflated prices and there were some quite, err, specialist stalls selling bows and arrows and mead. 

Anyway, back to contemporary Europe. So today Bedders was on his way to work - minding his own business, dragging his Ryanair-approved trolleybag - and, somewhere between Montgomery and Maelbeek, was relieved of his wallet. Several phonecalls and one frantic bank visit later and our joint Belgian account was three thousand euros lighter (thanks, guys). PLUS our HSBC account had been stripped of a grand (most of which belongs to HSBC, who didn’t seem to think it strange that we were out spending hundreds of pounds of an overdraft we don’t even have at quarter to nine on a wet Thursday morning). 

(NB If we sound we have enormous amounts of cash, we really don't. We're burrowing money away for a sickeningly enormous tax bill that'll land sometime in December) 

Parental Reaction:

My mum (she’s definitely what I’d call Crime Aware) is currently waiting for a lift to her knitting group somewhere in South Wales and muttering furiously about how she saw an episode of Crimewatch or somesuch recently that said thieves in London use flick knives to slash handbags and then buy FUR COATS and CROWNS with their ill-gotten gains. 

My dad rang me (he never rings me) and was rendered inarticulate with rage: “How in the name of Jaysus....the bastards.”

Quite a crime wave going on at the minute in Brux, it would seem. Some friends of mine from home were here for a mini stag do early this week and saw a literal and actual DIAMOND HEIST taking place. Well, they saw some plain-clothes police wrestling a bloke to the floor and extracting a gun from his back pocket, then blindfolding him in the Grand Place. Sheesh. 

But enough of this seedy underbelly of society stuff and onto more pleasant Brussels craic. Oh, I did the 20K! And didn’t die! Good, eh? I made it in a relatively comfortable 2 hours and 4 minutes and I’m now feeling all sorts of uncharacteristic and unwelcome pressure to go ‘sub-2 hours’ at the Great North Run (that’s a nauseating running phrase and I promise to never, ever use it again). And I saw Freddy Thielemans, Mayor of Brussels, at the starting line who waved us off and for one glorious moment I thought he was smoking a fag even though the whole event was heavily-sponsored by the European Commission and their ‘Ex-Smokers Are Unstoppable’ initiative that meant that there were sinister-looking black balloons everywhere (ugh, black balloons. Just ugh.) But alas no, it was merely the angle of his hand. So anyway, the race began, I successfully avoided the Brussels TV cameras (oo yeah, interview me, I look particularly beautiful today with my scraped-back hair and five hours sleep!), the open manhole (no joke) and the slippery cobbles. And afterwards I used a sweaty 10 euro note that Bedders had secreted in a pocket to satisfy a perverse post-run desire for a waffle and a Martini. Oh, it was a tremendous moment. 

So, what else has been happening? Well, a new tramp has started hanging out across the road from our apartment, and what a fine fellow he is. He has a paper cup and a brass neck and expertly weaves in and out of the cars while the traffic lights are turned to red gesturing mournfully at car windows. Then the lights flick back to green and he stands to one side, drinking a beer and occasionally pissing against a tree. 

So that’s been interesting. 

I’ve also been busy indulging my inner angst-ridden teen by reading age-inappropriate books. Despite that fact I’m hurtling at alarming speed towards a milestone birthday (clue: it starts with ‘thir’ and ends in ‘ty’), for some unfathomable reason I’ve been indulging in the latest Year 9 craze: namely, John Green. I read The Fault In Our Stars in two days on the tram and this was only because I just about managed to prise it out of the clammy hands of a thirteen-year-old girl who declared that it was THE MOST AMAZING BOOK OF ALL TIME OH MY GOD LAURA I JUST WANT TO MARRY AUGUSTUS WATERS HE IS LIKE A DREAMBOAT. Or something like that (as IF teenage girls today use the term ‘dreamboat’). Let it be known that my Year 9s are, quite literally, wetting themselves about it (ha, that’s an in-joke. The narrator of the book can’t abide it when people mis-use literality. I feel similarly). 

Seriously, though, it’s good. And miles better for a thirteen-year-old than the likes of Twilight and Bella Bloody Whatsherface who’s moody for no good reason (unlike, say, the good reason of Having Cancer) and just CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY ALL THE WORLD FANCIES HER. The key to Hazel’s attractiveness is that she’s mad into Literature and she quotes T S Eliot at will. And the pair of them - Hazel and Augustus - are actually quite witty; although I should warn you, they do occasionally sip into Dawson's Creek philosophical-analytical territory. But back to the plusses: the title comes from an expertly-deployed Julius Caesar quote. Ultimate kudos. 

Picture

So I read it and my review to them was, ‘Well, I like it very much. But if I was thirteen I would freakin’ LOVE IT.’ Which went down rather well, I must admit. I declined to mention that if I was thirteen I would have been paralysed by awkwardness and been forced to smuggle it out of the school library because it has a cover that alludes to a romantic relationship. It reminds me of the time I went on holiday to Ireland with my parents and was reading an Irvine Welsh novel. 

Picture

Had to keep that bad boy on the Down Low.  

And finally, as I mentioned last time, I saw Gatsby. If anyone’s been waiting for a review of Luhrmann’s Ode to Excess, here’s my mother’s verdict which I received via stream-of-consciousness-style text messgae:

“Saw that Great Gatsby film it was a bit strange at the start but then it was quite good. X” (sic)

Get her Caitlin Moran’s job, people!

Read/seen/done owt good recently? 

Sometimes...

...you don't need to buy stuff.

...you just need to move it around. 

Perfick Weekend

OK, so we weren't going to spend any money ever again until March. 

But then Bedders was about to depart for the UK for work for a wee while and so we spent our last Saturday together for a fortnight doing All Of The Things In Brussels We Like Best. 

This consisted of the following: 

Bedders going for a haircut while I browsed the second-hand bookshop Pele-Mele (I beg of you, watch the video), then Bedders joined me and browsed too (I'd nearly gorged myself on smelly books by this point, so we only needed another 15 minutes or so). 

Then we went to Belga which is full of boys with little beards and silly hats and too-cool-for-school sailor tats but the food is luscious and the mint tea is awesome. And we saw some friends and had some craic and that was pretty sweet. 

Then we debated going to Le Petit Coin (they now have a website, which is here, but it doesn't show their current stock and you can't buy anything via it, which renders it pretty pointless, although here is some other stuff I bought there if you're interested in).  

Sometimes we go and there's nowt of interest. Sometimes, though, we go and we DIE. 

Yesterday was one of the latter instances. 

So we bought a luscious chair, and a cushion ('Eeet is made of vintage how-you-say fabrique, non?') and a blanket and bedside cabinet of my Actual Dreams (my pinterest board 'Wor Hoose' has almost turned into a homage to bedside tables, of which this particular one from Le Petit Coin is the pinnacle). And then we just had to go to Habitat for crisp white bedding and a rug and some more cushions. And a lightshade. And a rug for the living room which is kind of brown and fluro pink. It sounds totally VILE but in reality it's Beauty Incarnate. 

Gaaaah. 

And so I'm getting the newspapers Bedders gave me for our anniversary framed. We were both born on a Sunday, so he procured the Observers from the days we were born as a first 'paper' anniversary gift - I was obviously born on a bumper news day as the headline screams something about POISONOUS LEAD PAINT IN CHILDREN'S PLAYGROUNDS, and Mark Thatcher was doing some wheeling and dealing on the day Bedders entered the world. I think they'll look a treat above the bed.  

And then our new neighbours had a party last night and invited us up. Marion wore a party dress and heels and served canapes and Laurent kept topping up the champagne. Everyone was lovely and we had the easiest journey home ever, i.e. down the internal stairs. BONUS. 

It started snowing yesterday afternoon and it hasn't stopped since. It's freezing but the light is lovely. 

So really this weekend has been rather lovely. It's almost alleviated the pain that the Gatsby release has been put back till May. 

Hope you've had similar amounts of fun!

Spexy Specs

Jesus. It's been bothering me that Jimmy Savile has been up here for so long, depressing you all. Still, a brain vomit is good for you every now and again, I'm sure.  

A super-inspirational lady I work with who's currently finishing her first novel after being 'Highly Commended' in Good Housekeeping's novel-writing competition (seriously, she is a wonder - 'Writing? It soon stops seeming pretentious when you realise it's bloody hard work,' she says) argued today that the brain of an English teacher is 'like a compost heap' - literature's been dumped in it for years, stewing and fermenting and doing whatever it is compost does, and somewhere along the line you realise its morphed into entirely different (very fertile) matter. But you need to get rid of the compost and put it to use somewhere. Do something with it. Otherwise...I dunno, it'll....get really smelly?

She was talking about writing a novel, of course. But I'm going to apply the same theory to brain dumps about TV personalities bloated on their own egos and child sex rings in Rotherham. They're necessary. I had to do something with all of those scandalised headlines I'd been reading. 

ANYHOO. 

I promised you sexy glasses. I bring you sexy glasses. 

CUE THE JURASSIC PARK THEME MUSIC. 

For the interested, they're LaFont Jupiter (619). H'apparently. This is the art of instagram, where I go by the name of missmacdonner. 

Basically, I've been looking for new glasses ever since I moved to Brussels and started checking out all of the sexy Europeans with their sexy European eyewear. I even started a Sexy European Eyewear pinterest board. 

(Actually, that's a lie. I started wanting new glasses ever since I sat on my last ones. But ssssh.)

They were probably a bit more expensive than they should have been that close to payday but they are BEAUTIFUL so we're not going to talk about that, yeah? Yeah. And I think you can totally justify any purchase as long if you're wearing them regularly on your ACTUAL FACE for several years. Yeah? Totally yeah. 

Meetup

At the grand age of 29 in the year of 2012, I've discovered Meetup. I know: I'm always late to the party. 

So yes, last week, I joined Meetup. 

I'll explain the basic concept. Every major city seems to have a Meetup site for people who are new to the area/looking for something different to do. In a place like Brussels where the expat community is so transient (we've been to two leaving parties already), Meetup is invaluable. 

If I'd taken the fancy, I could have gone beer-tasting. Or card-folding. But I went on the 77 Pencils of Brussels run. And it was ACE. 

Everyone was uber-smiley and welcoming. And I (somehow) ran 15k. And now, wherever I go in Brussels, I see pencils. Batman Pencils. Angry Pencils. Indiana Jones Pencils. Sexy Pencils. Window Pencils. Pencils EVERYWHERE. 

source and source and source 

There is graffiti everywhere in Brussels - and lots of it is artistically decent, interesting stuff rather than inexpertly sprayed teenage tags. It's inspired me to go on a Brussels Graffiti tour and take photos aplenty.

Have a good weekend. 

Roots

Often, when I talked about moving abroad, people would say, 'Oo, aren't you brave?'

I feel like saying - well, no, not really.

I feel like saying my dad moved to London from Ireland when he was sixteen, you know. All he'd ever known were fields and bicycles and priests and Sunday mass and confession and wedding receptions with jelly and custard and Granddad singing Galway Bay. 

Suddenly he was in a city of millions and money. 

He'd gone off to a place of temptation, my grandmother said. Nothing but smog and sin in that auld town, she sniffed. 

It was the 1960s. Boarding houses still displayed signs in the windows: 'No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish.' The Rolling Stones were singing Satisfaction, but he preferred dance halls and Jim Reeves (still does). He didn't have a certificate to his name - he can't even remember if he sat the Junior Cert. He could ride a bicycle and cut turf. He had nothing but his wits and his hands and a smile. 

And, you know, a drink or two. To help you hold onto the smile. 

***

My mum married my dad at eighteen and a half. Eighteen's an age where half years are still appropriate,  I think.

That's brave, for a start. 

I look at the photos taken on her wedding morning. She smiles stiffly against the backdrop of the pea-green kitchen. The gas cooker. I try to read the look in her eyes. She looks like a little girl. She was. 

She grew up all over - in London, in the West of Ireland, in Leicester, back to London again. She remembers starting primary school after primary school without ever cementing the basics. 

We've done that already, we've moved on. You'll have to catch up. 

Granddad was a rambler and a gambler, as the song goes. He had a pub, a landline and a sister who covered for him. A half-brother emerged in Wales - red-eyed, liked a beer - in Mum's 50s. 

Grandma struggled with her nerves and had a doctor who was fond of writing prescriptions. 

Noel, a brother, was left in a boarding school in Ireland on a scholarship for months. Paul got onto a degree course but Granddad wouldn't fill out the income assessment form. They ended up in a council maisonette in Camden Town. 

Maybe getting married wasn't just being brave, or being in love. Maybe it was a way out. 

She had two unfaltering obsessions: to own her own house, and for her children to go to University. 

She did it. 

***

I've moved to Brussels with a clutch of qualifications and certificates. I have enough money to pay for French lessons. I go running and eat sushi and I have a job that keeps my hands soft. That's not brave at all. 

***

We've been doing some work on Slam Poetry in school at the minute. You should really watch this video. And I defy you not to think about where you come from and how lucky you are. 

Africa Museum, Tervuren

In our mission to visit as many different tourist attractions with as many of our visitors as possible, we took a trip out to Tervuren last weekend. 

Next door to my new school, there is a museum dedicated to Belgium's colonial past; specifically, in the Congo. It boasts an enormous taxidermy display and rooms filled with instruments, weapons and Picassoesque masks. Leopold II commissioned the building of the museum - take a look below, it's a pretty grand place - to house his growing collection of African artefacts and show them off to the Belgian populace. 

In the entrance hall there are several gilt statues of African children with swollen bellies kneeling at the feet of wealthy Belgian benefactors. It takes that kind of angle. The circa-1900 angle. 

He was quite the boyo, Leopold. Museum already in mind, he headed out to the Congo for a shooting trip with his pals every so often with the intention of recreating the African savannah in several dozen glass cases. He was like a mad Noah, killing a male and female of every creature he could get within 20 feet of. 

He even shipped out a number of natives, built African-style huts in the carefully-pruned gardens of the museum and invited visitors to view his 'human zoo'. 

Along with the spoils of Belgium's spree, there's also a (much smaller) interactive section with gory photos of plantation workers holding the severed hands of other Africans who raised voices against the brutal exploitation of the country, the random acts of violence executed by authorities and the rubber trade. 

The guidebook explains that the Museum will close for a refurbishment at some point in the next year, and the new-and-improved Afrika Museum will place more emphasis on the darker side of Belgium's past, and the emergence of Zaire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The intention is to redress the balance between the awe inspired by viewing the extensive collection of artefacts and set it more firmly against the exploitative means used to acquire it. 

Meanwhile, I'm taking my Year 10 class there in a couple of weeks for a creative writing exercise. I think the grinning toothy skulls will really bring something special out of them...

Phototastic: Brussels update

It's my fifth week in Bruxelles. 

I no longer feel a complete div when asking for something reeeeeally simple in a bar/café/shop. 

We have blinds up, which means no more commando-crawling from the shower to the bedroom in order to avoid the neighbours' stares. 

I know my route to work. I read on the tram. It is lovely. Next week, I will cycle. Grrr. 

I feel I'm getting to grips a little with this place and its eccentricities. 

This week, Matthew of Telegraph fame visited. We chanced upon a festival where 12-foot-high figures danced and span to a marching band playing Quando, Quando, Quando. Belgium loves a marching band - I know this, I've learnt. We ended up watching them dance in an old folks' home courtyard. The old folks were loving their lives. 

We've been pretending to be cool enough to hang out at Café Belga at Flagey. In actuality, we are nowhere near cool enough. But when I have some beautiful European tortoiseshell spectacles, well, we'll see. I'm going to start a pinterest board dedicated to sexy eyewear. 

They do graffiti really well in Brussels. Whole sides of buildings are dedicated to Tin Tin, Snowy and that Captain Birdseye bloke. I think you can do a tour. 

We've been to the flea market down at Jeu de Balle a couple of weekends in a row. It's sort of full of crap, but interesting crap. 

Oh, now cake. Cake is good. Although it had been So Flippin' Hot (these blue skies are not touched up, Guides' honour), cake has not really been on the agenda. Beer has.  

We have been 'doing' cafés at the weekend. I like the concept of Make Yer Own when it comes to sandwiches. 

Surely to God no one would buy a fur coat in this weather? Yikes. 

Oh, and I like the greeny glass and the pointy roof that this house has going onnnn. We could have ended up on this street, although I'm glad we didn't. The tram is noisy and the pizza takeaways are plentiful. 

After my little clothes splurge (ahem) Bedders and Matthew had a nose around some blokey clothes shops. The wooden walls in this place (the website is amusant) inspired Matthew to finish his sauna. I loved the cabinet and the faded rug. 

Oh, and we have done The Brussels Bus Tour. We did it with our other recent visitors, Matt (different Matt) and the Very Pregnant Shirley as it was A Pregnant Friendly Activity. It was clumsily translated and slightly baffling - "Let's just take a moment to run you through the three main European institutions for which Brussels has become so famous - the Parliament, the Commission and the Council." Eight and a half minutes of mind boggling information later - "So there you go!" Um. OK. 

And clearly I have been playing around with the camera. Ta da.

Work is brilliant - like, so very, very brilliant, and I probably need to have me some revised thoughts on private education, perhaps in written form to get my head around it all - but busy, and so this is a lazy string of pictures. 

More soon.