Friday, May 29, 2009

London Town...Continued


We visited Harrods, earlier in the day. I've never been before and I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed not to be greeted by a butler as I entered the store. Instead, I was barked at by a gorilla posing as a security guard. He didn't like the look of my back pack. It's amazing the reaction I get when I carry a back pack. I've actually been chased by an over excited shop boy in Delhaize because he thought I was going to stuff it full of goods without paying. Personally, I think it's a bloody cheek, what makes a back pack wearer more likely to steal than someone carrying a large shopping bag? It's discrimination, pure and simple. In Harrods, a back pack is regarded as a weapon of mass destruction. I actually think that some of the drunk old rich women, tottering around the store, would be more dangerous than my back pack, but there you go...
Harrods is a strange place. It's half chique boutique and half Las Vegas casino without the slot machines. Last year, we stayed at the Luxor, in Vegas, and Harrods is like a down market Luxor! My fiancée tried to buy something in the HUGE cosmetics department and they didn't have any!
After leaving Harrods, we had a choice. Natural History Museum or Tower of London? We chose the Tower. When we bought our train tickets, the nice lady who served us, gave us a booklet with saving coupons in it and one of the savings was buy 1 ticket and get the other free for the Tower of London. That was a saving of £17! The booklet can be used until the end of September, so anyone going to London this summer should look out for it. The Tower was also closer to the Pie and Mash shop than the museum.
Anyone who finds themselves in the vicinity of the Tower can't help but notice the huge posters covering scaffold around parts of the building. The posters promote the Dress to Kill exhibition and it's well worth going to see. The exhibition shows off Henry VIII's armour and weapons and the some of the pieces on display are quite stunning. We gave the Crown Jewels a wee body swerve, the queue was of Disneyland proportions and we had both seen them before. One of the other 2 for 1 tickets we had was the Tower Bridge exhibition. The famous bridge is right next to the Tower of London so we hurried along to it before it closed.
The £7 entrance fee was a waste of money. For that you get to have your back pack go through an x- ray machine, your photo taken in a shameless money making operation and then a walk up to the top of a tower. At the top is an empty room with a screen which shows a 5 minute documentary. Once you have your breath back you can walk across to the other tower, which should have been exciting but...wasn't. In the second tower you get to watch another documentary and then walk back to the first tower and down! true, you get a nice view of London's skyline, but you get an equally nice view from ground level. We were too late to visit the room where the mechanism to raise the bridge is kept, it may have changed our minds about the place but we were very unimpressed with what we had seen. We left, glad we had only payed £7 and not £14.
One of the nicest and cheapest things to do in London is just go for a walk along the Thames path and just let the history of the place flood over you. Doesn't cost a penny!
Joggers!
I can't end this post without talking about the pedestrian equivalent of bike riders! Normally, I have no opinion about joggers but is it wise to try and jog amongst the thousands of tourists that walk the streets of London? Dodging in and out of people and occasionally bumping into me...them! No, I don't think it is. It can't be fun for them, it must really break their rhythm up and it's certainly no fun for the innocent walker having a strangers sweaty arm brush up against your own unsweaty arm?
We always have a great time in London, it's a fantastic place. A final word if you are thinking of going. When you go on the Underground be sure to take a newspaper with you as you will need one to leave either on the seat or the shelf behind the seat.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Video of the Day

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

London Town


When I was a kid, Whitsun week was spent at Leysdown, on the Isle of Sheppey. Apart from rain, the only other thing we could be sure of was a visit to the Pie and Mash shop.
Pie and Mash is a traditional London working class meal and once upon a time, you could find a Pie, Mash and Eel shop all over south and east London and many parts of Essex.
I think there was a time when I actually liked Pie and Mash, but after losing my heart to Curry, nothing was ever as tasty as a Beef Madras.
A few months ago, I was watching Saturday Kitchen with my Fiancée when suddenly, up popped a video about Pie and Mash. After explaining all about it, how it's a traditional working class meal, dates back to the 18th century, consists of a meat pie, mashed potato and a sauce called Liquor, which isn't alcoholic but is made of Parsley, she said she would like to try one.
Last Friday, we visited London. I had looked up a Pie and Mash shop on Google and so we paid it a visit. Visiting an authentic Pie and Mash shop is an experience. This particular one was covered in tiles which made it look like a public toilet, the seats were wooden benches, the staff had most of their teeth and the other customers looked like extras from Oliver. I ordered Pie, Mash and Eels, for both of us, and took a photo of it (see above). It tasted as good as it looks. I'm all for tradition, I really like Duvel Day, which is a tradition I made up. But Pie and Mash is one of those meals that earned British cuisine its bad reputation. I really like that scene in the Simpsons when homer is on a diet and he takes a bite of a rice cake, looks at it and shouts "Hello, taste?" Eating Pie and Mash is like that, it's bland, uninteresting food and even after remembering that you had to add a splash of vinegar and pepper to the liquor to spice it up a bit, it was still bland. It certainly fills you up, though. I had the pleasure of its company for the rest of the day...end of part 1.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Video of the Day

Monday, May 25, 2009

Son of a Beach!

People of Belgium, hear my plea! For the love of God, stay away from the coast at bank holiday weekends! What's the matter with you people? How much punishment can you take? What possible pleasure can you take from sitting in a traffic jam on the way down to the coast and then sitting in another on the way back, with the only thing to show for it is finding sand in places it has no right to be?
Unfortunately, the bank holiday exodus to the coast is as inevitable in Belgium as being 'tinged' by a bloke on a bike. I've never really understood the attraction of sitting on a beach and getting sand up your bum, much more exciting for me is walking coastlines like the one in the photo. The photo was taken on Beachy Head, in England. Just a short ferry trip across the Channel.
I was unfortunate enough to be caught up in a traffic jam going to England on Wednesday and coming home again on Sunday. Thursdays journey to Dunkirk was a nightmare, the usual 2 hour journey took us 4 and we arrived at the ticket office with 15 minutes to spare and a pompous French git of a man telling us that we should have got there earlier. He gave us our tickets but instead of the 10pm crossing we had booked, it read 12 midnight. A 2 hour wait. The ferry was still there and also still letting cars on, so once through British customs I drove as fast as I could to join the cars going onto the ferry. By the time I reached the end of the queue the guy taking the tickets had decided no more cars could board. That was the signal for people to start sounding there horns and shouting irately out of their car windows. Then, in scenes reminiscent of the storming of the Bastille, all of remaining cars started to edge forward. The flustered French man who was taking peoples tickets suddenly decided that in the spirit of Entente Cordiale he would let us through. It was a nice feeling after all the BS we had gone through to get there, a bit like your favourite football team scoring a winning goal in the 3rd minute of time added on, although as I looked at the face of the guy taking the ticket, I noticed that he had an expression on his face that said "enjoy your victory this time, Englishman, but we will have our revenge!"
So, maybe have a think about visiting England next time the sun shines or a bank holiday comes up. It's a great place to spend a weekend, we all speak English, like you guys, and the pound at the moment has slightly more value than Monopoly money. The ferry is cheap to take and you needn't travel too far for lovely beaches and stunning scenery. Oh, and the bars and resturants don't all close at 9pm like they did in Zeebrugge, last time I visited! Go early and come back late because I always go late and come back early!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Welke Taal Spreek Je?...My Mistake

I was watching the news yesterday with my fiancée, she was listening and I was looking at the pretty pictures. Suddenly, the village of Werchter appeared and to my horror I saw what appeared to be a giant alien robot attacking the houses!
Oh my God! I cried, Transformers are attacking Werchter!
Luckily, my fiancée could understand what was being said and it wasn't a giant alien robot invasion, it was the new stage for U2's upcoming world tour. Phew!
Stage Co is a company based in Werchter and they make stages for some of the biggest acts in the world of rock. They can count Springsteen, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones amongst their customers and built the stage for U2's Pop Mart tour in the late 90's.
I found a video on Youtube, made by, I think, a resident of Werchter. You can find it below the adverts.

The Claw

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Video of the Day

Monday, May 18, 2009

Bloop

I like weird stuff. That's why I live in Belgium! Sorry, that was uncalled for and I apologise unreservedly for a feeble attempt at humour. Where was I? Belgium...NO!...weird. I enjoy reading those quirky stories that occasionally show up in newspapers and on the news in an 'and finally' segment. Ghosts, UFO's, strange shaped vegetables, I love them! Which is why I was surprised to hear about a phenomena that was new to me but apparently a bit of a star on the internet. A recent survey by me, Sunday evening at dinner, received one yes and one no when I asked if anyone had heard of Bloop. That means that an average of 1 out of every 2 people have heard of it...I'm pretty sure that's how surveys work. So, by now, half off my readers should be scrolling down to look at the sneezing panda again whilst the other half are waiting with baited breath for me to enlighten them!

Bloop is the name given to a sound repeatedly recorded in 1997 by underwater microphones in the South Pacific. The microphones were originally placed to try to pick up the noise made by soviet submarines. Microphones all over the world pick up a variety of sounds emanating from the Earths oceans, they have names like Slowdown, Upsweep, Train and Whistle. What makes Bloop special is that it is the only sound that has been recorded that bears all the hallmarks of a living creature. Ok, so it's a whale with wind. No, it's not. The sound much louder than any ever recorded by a marine creature, the two microphones that picked it up were 3,000 miles apart, and the creature, if that is what it is, has been estimated to be many times bigger than a Blue Whale. Blue Whales are around 100ft or just over 30 metres long so that what make Bloop...bloody big!

Next week...I shall be reporting on the carrot shaped like a tomato.

Camp


We have been thinking about buying a tent. There is such a lot of Britain we would like to see that indulging in a spot of camping seems like a great idea! My very first camping trip wasn't that long ago, maybe 12 years or so (alright, 12 years is a long time if you are 11 but not, if like me, you are 45). I went to the New Forest (see photo) in Hampshire. A pretty place with the odd village dotted around and plenty of trees. William the Conqueror liked it so much he spent his holidays there, hunting. That was 1079, and it's official title then was New Hunting Forest. Apparently not a lot has changed since then. It is still managed by following a set of ancient rules that date back a thousand years. It's not hard to imagine it as it was then, it was probably more dense, but the wildlife is still there to see and if the amount of deer that live in the forest today is any thing to go by then it would have been a hunters paradise. However, if there is one animal that seems to be everywhere in the New Forest then it has to be the New Forest pony. Ponies have been present in the Forest since 1016 and although they seem wild, they are in fact owned by the people who live in the villages that are situated within the Forest. I can speak from personal experience when I say that the ponies are a pain in the arse! My first camping trip was not the wonderful experience I had wanted it to be. I have always had an interest in the great outdoors, climbing hills and Monroes in the rugged wilderness of Britain is one of my favourite pastimes. But I enjoy my comfort and any trip would be made with the knowledge that at the end of a hard days climb there would always be a cosy b&b or cottage waiting for me at the end of the day. After watching a few episodes of Ray Mears Bushcraft, though, I was ready to sleep in a tree and if needed, kill my own food. Maybe tv is a bad influence but even though I'm old enough to know better, I still go all misty eyed when I watch those sorts of programmes, yearning for the days when Man was self sufficient and savvy when it came to the outdoors. The simple truth of that is that Man was NEVER that self sufficient! It's a fact of history that one of Mankinds earliest inventions was a pair of slippers and the armchair! One watch of the wonderful movie Into the Wild should be enough to wipe all thoughts of living off the land from any sane person's mind!
Admittedly though, we were in no danger of eating poisoned berries and the closet I got to killing my own food was a godawful bicycle ride to a butchers shop 6 miles away. The weekend was a disaster because we spent most of it wet. Waterproof clothes are only waterproof up to a point and if you haven't spent 2 nights listening to rain hitting the lining of a tent then, boy! you just haven't lived! The campsite we stayed on was infested by ponies...who had learnt that tents were easy pickings when they were hungry. We were amazed to see a pony walk into a large tent and run out a few seconds later after the supporting pole broke, munching on a pair of underpants! Riding out on our bikes a little later we spotted a pony with its head in a lower, 2 man tent...suddenly we looked at the ponies in a different light. No longer were they dumb animals but instead it was starting to look like Dawn of the Dead, with the zombies replaced by horses intent (no pun intended) on eating not us but our underpants! We left the New Forest later that day. It wasn't the last time I went camping, but I haven't been for a few years now. I have to admit that I'm really excited by the thought of spending a weekend in the Lake District, sitting out under the stars on a balmy summers night, drinking wine and reading after a glorious day walking in the hills. Whether it will be like that...I don't know, but if it isn't then I think there is a good chance that I shall tell you all about it!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Exams...Continued.

I put a lot of time into studying for these most recent exams. A month ago I had almost given up with this course, I was struggling to understand what I was being taught and my attitude was, what's the point? As much as I joke about learning Dutch, it is something that I really want to do. Communication lets me down...so sang Spandau Ballet in their song called...erm, Communication. Being unable to communicate with people leaves one feeling incomplete.
About a week and a half ago, our teacher told us which pages to go over in our course book. I naturally assumed that these would be the subjects which would be covered in the exam. Well we know what assuming does don't we? It makes an ass out of ume...something like that anyway. It was exactly the same as I wrote in my previous post on wednesday. We were given 6 pages to study, none of which were included in yesterdays exam!
My capacity for languages has a limit, admittedly it is not a very high limit! But I spent around 3 hours a day studying. At around the 3 hour mark my brain starts to do the mental equivalent of going to the corner of the room, placing an index finger in it's mouth and moving it up and down very fast whilst making a blibble, blibble noise. It's an amazing feeling and not one I enjoy.

Me:- Can't think...brain shutting down...must...watch...Eastenders...

And very quickly I'm back to my normal self, reassured that I'm not as stupid as I thought! Sadly, that joke will mean absolutely nothing to the majority of readers but it was very, very funny!(yeah, right...)
Language can be interesting, no really it can, and I am always interested in the use of words in Dutch which have similar meanings in English.

Babble:- to utter words, sounds, etc in an incoherent or indistinct jumble.
(what are you babbling on about,man?)

Babbelen, which is a Dutch word, is pronounced the same, or as near as dammit, as babbling.

Babbelen:- to have a chat, conversation

So, yesterdays exam should have been babbelen but I'm afraid it was babbling! If the purpose of the exam was to use as many words as I could in the wrong order and also in fact, in the wrong language, I would have scored highly! I think it's time to leave the subject of exams alone for a while. I wont learn how I did until 28th May ( that's a date to put in your diary, folks!).

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Video of the Day

Exam Extra!

I don't usually write 2 days in a row but I thought I would quickly post an update on the speaking exam I took earlier today.
My initial reaction after the exam was bloody hell, I certainly screwed that up! However, an hour and a half later, sitting here with a mug of tea and a chocolate hobnob and able to reflect on the exam calmly, I realise that my initial reaction was not strong enough!
It should have been more of a aaaggggghhhhhh...what the hell was I thinking of?????
Now go watch the sneezing Panda!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Welke Taal Spreek Je?...Exams

Exams and me don't get on. At school I had a series of average scores, remarkable only in their averageness. Apart from one year, I think I must have been 12 and I achieved 86% in my Maths exam. Now anyone that knows me will be able to tell you that me and numbers have never seen eye to eye.

Question:- How many beers have you had?
Me:- Erm....

So 86% in my least favourite subject was something of a surprise! Of course, the following year was a nightmare. I found myself amongst kids that bullys like to beat up for being brainy. I thought that Algebra would be easy because it used letters, but boy was I wrong! I was also questioning the point of learning some of the things we were being taught. Below is a short list of things I learnt at school but have never used since:

1. Algebra
2. Pie Charts
3. Logarithms (the answers were at the back of the book...what's the point of that?)
4. Fractions
5. Long Division

This week I have 2 exams, one of which I have already sat. The one I sat on Monday concerned writing, reading and listening. I have studied for it for the past few weeks, writing letters and short essays. However, I still have the same problem today that I had as a kid. As soon as you are told that you can turn the exam paper over you get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you can't make head or tail of what is written on the paper!
After realizing that it was in fact upside down I found it a lot easier...I can never judge my performance when I take an exam. I found the parts I studied to be the hardest because they were slightly different to what I expected and had to use words that I didn't really know. The guy I sit next to was a bit nervous so I advised him to keep it simple and don't use words you are not sure about. I found myself not following my own advice!
Tomorrow I have the exam I dread. I have to speak! I always score badly and after every talking exam I promise myself I will do better next time. 1 day to go and I haven't got a bloody clue about what I've got to talk about!
Wish me luck!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Video of the Day

Monday, May 11, 2009

A Walk in the Countryside

Yesterday was a lovely day here in Flanders. My better half and myself decided to go for a walk, after dropping off this weekends dvd at the dvd shop. If you are interested, this weeks offering was The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu "I know kung fu" Reeves. Worth a watch in my opinion. It didn't take us long to get off the main road and into what passes as countryside in this part of the world. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was shining and in the distance we could hear one of my favourite springtime sounds, the cry of the Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus).

A Sparrows nest, somewhere in Flanders...
Father Sparrow:-He's a little on the big side isn't he?
Mother Sparrow:-Oh hush, he gets it from my side of the family. My dad was a big Sparrow, people used to mistake him for a Thrush, remember?
Father Sparrow:-And not only is he big, he doesn't even look like me!
Mother Sparrow:-Listen, he's trying to speak!...
Cuckoo:-Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Father Sparrow:-Why doesn't he say tweet like his brothers and sisters?

It must be a bit confusing for the poor things. Just imagine a young couple in England waiting for their first borns first words and he says "Bonjour Maman, Bonjour Papa." It's the same thing really!
The walk took us alongside some farms. Am I the only person that can't walk past a cow without saying moo to it?
Ting ting...ting ting...ting ting...
A familiar noise, behind us but approaching fast.
Ting ting...ting ting...
I looked over my shoulder and sure enough it's the Wieler Toeristen (Painus inde arseus).
Resplendent in their blue and white Lycra plumage, their familiar helmet's perched upon their heads, the Wieler Toeristen rides from café to café to drink beer and show off their wonderful colours. The WT, as we shall hence forth call them because I can't be bothered to keep writing Wieler Toeristen, will gather in large groups on the pavement, blocking the humble pedestrians path and thereby forcing them to walk in the road where hungry predators roam. In Belgium, pedestrians are often forced to use the same paths as the Cyclist, which is why the cry of the Cyclist is often heard whilst walking.
Ting ting - get out of the way!
Ting ting - yes I can see you've moved to single file but could you walk in the ditch?
Ting ting - would you please get out of my way otherwise we will be forced to ride in single file and I want to ride next to my friend!
Ting ting, ting ting, TINK!
That's the sound of me inserting a bell....nevermind.
I must point out that I have nothing against bicyles and I've nothing against people...I just hate it when you put the two together!
You will be relieved to read that both WT and ourselves survived the encounter, this time...

Friday, May 8, 2009

Studying

The following takes place between 10am and 11am.
My exams are next week. That noise you can hear is me tapping a pen against my teeth...annoying isn't it?
Let's see...Onderlijn de letter van het juiste antwoord op de volgende vragen over griepinenting:
1. Hoeveel van de verplegenden in Nederland zin ingeent?............tap, tap,..tap, tap...hmm, think I'll check my emails....................Ok, what have we got today?
Spam...spam.....spam....spam...spam,spam,spam,spam,spam,spam lots of spam wonderful spam! I do like a Monty Python sketch!
Click favourites.
Click comingsoon.com...wait...any new movie trailers?
Nope...watch Terminator Salvation trailer...again.
2. Als alle verplegenden gevaccineerd hebben we in de verplegenden a. 20% b. 60% c. 80% minder griepzieken.........tap, tap....tap, tap.....hmm, I always forget the small words, I really should know what als means by now....where's my dictionary?
Als-like, as
Right, so lets try and translate this...like every something something have we in the something blah, blah blah something something...think I'll make a cd for the car journey tonight............wow, the cars gonna rock tonight! oh yeah! starting to regret putting Do You Think I'm Sexy by Rod Stewart on it now...
3. Wat adviseerde de gzondheidsraad over vacinatie van verpleegpersoneel? (meer dan 1 antword)...anyone out there remember the old Charlie Brown cartoons? When you used to see him at school you could always hear the teacher making a noise like an out of tune tuba. That's me. Not the tuba, but Charlie Brown. That's how Dutch sounds to me sometimes, it makes as much sense as an out of tune tuba........hey wow! a wood pigeon just landed on the tree outside...interesting bird the wood pigeon...technically, it's not made out of wood at all.....pffffff....what time does the cricket start?
Wish me luck for next week!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Football Bloody Hell! - Why I Love Football

This is why I love football, it can be so bloody unfair! A team that didn't deserve to win, an incompetent referee, a red card that wasn't a foul (the player tripped over a particularly robust blade of grass) and hysterical prima donna players who don't know how to lose with dignity...roll video and enjoy!

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Football...Bloody Hell 2

I thought I would be happier. My football fans brain should have kicked into action last night. A football fan can be a rational and responsible member of society for much of the time. However, for 90 minutes a week a strange thing happens to them. They become tribal. If they are lucky enough to be able to afford to actually go and watch a match, they may chant songs invented by their tribe. Sometimes they steal other tribes songs and pretend they made them. Manchester Untied stole Glory, Glory Man Utd from Tottenham Hotspur and because it's been so bloody long since my beloved Spurs have won anything people believe it's a Utd song. Once the game has started, the football fan begins to believe utter nonsense. They believe that it's ok for a player on their team to dive to the ground if an opposing player gets too close but if the situation is reversed then it's a cynical act of cheating and how they howl and spit and swear at the wretch! They believe that the laws of the game only apply to the other team and have their own special laws when it comes to fouls. A crunching tackle becomes a career ending attack and vise versa. They believe the referee is a secret fan of the other team. Some even believe that it's acceptable to wear an amusing comedy hat to a game or God forbid, a wig!
I believed that last night I would sit down to watch a great game of football and was hoping for a Man Utd victory. What I saw was a boring game with Arsenal (spit!) rolling over on their backs like the submissive dogs they are...sorry about that, I promised myself I would be objective and unbiased. So Utd won, but for some reason I didn't feel all warm and glowing inside like I usually do when Arsenal (spit!) lose important matches. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a few weeks ago my team Spurs were destroyed by a stunning 2nd half display from a fantastic Utd team. I think not, I'm used to Spurs throwing away impressive leads in games. In this instance we were 2-0 up at half time, only to lose 5-2! Still, at least we managed to score against them!
I think the problem was that the match, as a sporting competition , was effectively over after 15 minutes. It wasn't going to be the classic we all expected and hoped for, instead it turned into a damp squib, whatever that is...answers in comments if you know.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Video of the Day


Regular readers will understand the significance of this video, those who don't should read my very first post.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Trams

I always expected to have a problem driving on the wrong side of the road, as they do over here in Europe. It's not as bad as I thought, although there are some squeaky bum moments in Antwerp at times with some really imaginative road lay-outs!
I do have a problem with one mode of transport, apart from bloody bicycles, and that is the tram. Don't get me wrong, I like trams, they remind me of movies from the 1960's starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. But I have a blind spot when it comes to trams. Antwerp has an extensive network of tram-lines, they run a lot more often than buses and provide a great way of getting around town. When I was a kid, I was taught the green gross code, which is a little trick to help you get used to crossing the road. Look left, look right, look left again. Or was it look right, look left, look right again? Whatever, whilst looking both ways you look for cars, buses, lorries and bikes. Nothing about trams. Most tram-lines in Britain were dug up after WW2, if they survived that long. True, they still survive in some cities, but they are few. So, whenever I attempt to cross the road in Antwerp I usually find myself receiving a 'CLANK!!!!' from a passing tram. For those who don't know, the tram makes a wonderful warning 'CLANK', kind of like an out of tune church bell. I suspect that the new trams, as pictured above, have been painted with the same paint the Americans use on stealth bombers to make them invisible to radar, only the Belgians use paint that makes them invisible to Englishmen! I'm sure I will get used to them one day, if one doesn't kill me first!

Friday, May 1, 2009

Shut.

It's a beautiful day here in Flanders, much too nice to be sitting at my computer and writing. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and everything is right with the world. It's also a bank holiday, which means, apart from the bakers, everything is shut! Suddenly Belgium feels like Sunday did when I was a child. Sundays in the 70's were sooooooo boring.
It's not that I particularly feel the urge to go to any specific shop, it's just that if I did want to go to a shop for something...I can't. It leaves one feeling a tad...oh I don't know...deflated? It's not as if my civil rights have been violated.
Britain celebrates May Day on the first Monday of May, not the 1st May. Not sure why, maybe because a long weekend is preferable to a day off in the week. But on Monday every shop in the country will be open and not only that, the big stores will be doing special deals for the bank holiday. Over the past 10 years or so the traditional day of rest has been done away with so that now Sundays are just another day. Bank holidays are, as well, and some stores even open on Christmas Day. I can remember when I was younger, maybe 17 or so, walking to the pub for a traditional Christmas Day pint and discovering the local Indian owned newsagents open for business. The shock was palpable, I had to go into the shop, even though I didn't want anything. I walked in, did a circuit around the shelves of Dolly Mixtures and Black Jacks and walked out again. The owner gave me a world weary look that suggested I hadn't been the first person to do that, that day.
I like living in Belgium, but sometimes it is a bit like living in a real life version of the BBC programme Ashes to Ashes( a series about a bloke who finds himself in 1970's Britain). I still can't get over the fact that nearly every shop, Bank etc. closes for lunch! At lunch time...when people can nip out of work and do a bit of shopping!
 

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