Faux Angel Delight

We were amused by a packet in the dessert section of our local express supermarche that declared itself to be 'Plop!'. We considered buying it just for the sheer hilarity, but were instead convinced by a three pack of some sort of chocolate dessert mix as I thought it looked a bit like Angel Delight.

So I had a quick look at the instructions and didn't really understand anything except 700ml du lait, but I thought that was enough - 700ml of milk, easy peasy, mix it in, voila, Angel Delight. O ho, how I misunderestimated the Belgies - nothing is that simple. It came out all runny, so I shoved it in the fridge and hoped it would solidify somehow.

It did not.

"Are you sure you read the instructions properly?" asked Ben.
I shrugged and said something noncomittal, and threw the empty sachet at him to decipher.

"You were supposed to boil it," he told me after scrutinising the French words on the back.

So I popped the whole thing in a saucepan and wandered off. It began to burn. I rushed back after Ben alerted me and stood diligently stirring whilst it thickened up. There didn't seem to be any burnt bits, so I quietly congratulated myself.

I then poured it back into the bowl and put it back in the fridge.

Half an hour later we had a look and it appeared to be custard. Burnt chocolate custard. Not actually Angel Delight at all. Faux Angel Delight. Burnt Faux Angel Delight.

I am determinedly making my way through it anyway.

After publishing this post I spoke to my sister about it online.

The following conversation ensued.

Sara says:
How was your Plop?
Amanda says:
We didn't have Plop, we had chocolate custard.
Sara says:
oh i thought it was Plop that you bought.
Amanda says:
Nice to see you pay attention. We also have cockroaches here sometimes, did you know that?
Sara says:
Shut up. You cant talk about paying attention.
Amanda says:
Yes I can.
Sara says:
You tried to refrigerate uncooked custard.

Dammit. I should have guessed she would use that against me.

Whose pants are these?

We went to the laundrette today. We've been putting it off since we got here; at first it was snowy outside and then it got rainy and it's just such a long walk that I couldn't bring myself to go. But after a while the laundry basket started to overfill and began to look like a small fabric mountain that might well topple over whilst I was brushing my teeth or something and then I'd be stuck under a pile of grimy clothes until Ben came home to rescue me. So added to the fact that Ben had run out of underpants (I hadn't - thanks to Alana) I did actually make a run last week, but didn't even manage to make a dent in the pile of clothes requiring attention.

So we packed up both of our traveling bags with dirty clothes and hung them off the handles of Ben's bike as though it was a packhorse and made the trek. We were going to wait until later on this evening to go as midday on a Sunday tends to be the laundrette's busiest time, but Ben got itchy feet and wanted to Get Stuff Done, so we decided to take our chances. When we got there I thought we'd done well because there was only three or four people, and it would have been alright, had not the young couple who must have got there just before us have bagsied no less than SEVEN of the twelve washing machines and were taking their time about even turning them on.

I think of myself as a relatively patient person but there are a few things that properly get my back up, and two of those things are rudeness and stupidity. Not only had these people stuffed their things into seven of the washing machines, but they then faffed around for a while getting the tokens, and then wandered off to get the powder. Whilst I was waiting for a machine to become free, getting more and more irate, I grumbled to Ben.
"Calm down," he said. "Perhaps they've never been to the laundrette before."
"Well, maybe," I retorted. "But it's just basic common sense not to take up so many machines and then leave them without even turning the bally things on" (I've been reading a lot of Wodehouse, and I wish I was half as eloquant as Bertie Wooster. Instead I'm going through a phase of peppering my speech with Wooster-isms, like 'Bally well' and 'G. and Tonic' and 'Well if that doesn't just take the giddy biscuit!'). I also said some other things, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn't be able to understand neither English nor Wodehouse but were probably getting the gist. Whilst they were willywallying around doing not much and being useless, one of the other washing machines finished its cycle, the owner of the clean laundry inside it managed to empty it, I filled it up with some of our clothes, and it was already washing away happily before they even managed to turn one of the seven they had comandeered on. Baring in mind that we had roughly three weeks of washing and still only used three machines I don't even know where they found enough clothes to take up seven machines.

Then they left. Ben, who had gone off in search of change, managed to get back as they were trying to drive out the car park, and he said that they were just as bad at driving as they were at doing laundry, which was comforting.

We managed to get all of our things in various washing machines quickly and efficiently and we'd already got one batch in the dryer before they got back. I then took great pleasure in taking up four dryers for all our clothes in the hope that they might learn something from it. I don't know whether they did, but Ben and I got our revenge anyway.

"Who's pants are these?! They aren't mine!" cried Ben, brandishing a grubby pair of white(ish) y fronts that he'd found as we sorted through our now dry clothes and giggling. "Ew!"
We laughed and put them to one side, just as the clueless couple pottered over to put some of their clothes in the dryer next to ours. After setting it going they wandered off again to put the rest of their washing in the big bank of dryers round the corner.
I was still quite annoyed at them so I had a bit of a grumble to myself whilst folding our laundry which Ben overheard. He patted me on the shoulder and peered round the corner.
"Quick! They're not looking!"
"What?" I asked, never the first to catch on.
"The pants! Put them in their dryer!"
I looked at the pants and then at the dryer.
"I can't do that! They'll come back!"
"No, they're putting all their clothes in the other dryers - quickly!"
So I did it. I put a pair of clean - albeit greying - underpants in amongst their clothes and it was one of the funniest things I've done in my whole life.
"You've gone bright red!" Ben told me, amused at my fit of giggles.

I really wanted to stay and watch their reaction - "Quoi? Quoi est la paire de gris sous-vêtements fait ici?!"

Brilliant.

In other news Ben is pretty pleased with himself because whilst peeling the potatoes he just found one that looked a bit like a bum.

Made up mannequins

When we came out here in September I was of the opinion that I had never even visited Belgium before and was most excited about thusly extending my horizons. Then when Alana and I visited Bruges I called my mum, bubbling over with excitement, to tell her how far and wide I was traveling, and she calmly said "Ooh, Nana's got a photo of you sitting on a monument in Bruges", which rained on my parade somewhat and then some time later I was studying Belgium on Google Maps and after a while it slowly dawned on me that not only had I already been to Bruges, I'd also been to Ypres on a school history trip. At the time I'd thought it was France, but according to Google Maps (which let's face it, is rarely wrong about this sort of thing) Ypres was firmly in Belgium.

I didn't find the trip particularly interesting, and came away no more enthused about history than I had been prior to getting on a stuffy coach and driving for an interminable time around 'French' motorways , but somewhere in the ten (ish) years since I picked up an interest in the world around me. I don't know how it happened, as I studiously tried not to pick up such a time consuming hobby, but there we have it. Somewhere along the line I began to find that subjects like History, Geography and Biology now held a kind of fascination (still not Chemistry though, despite Ben's best attempts to reel me in); sadly if I'd reached this conclusion a little earlier on in my life, possibly whilst people were happy to teach me everything that I'd like to know, I might not have gone on to study the fairly useless degree of English at Uni and might have done something that has more impact on my adult life than being able to spell and turn a phrase. And might have known, for example, that Ypres isn't in France.

So yesterday, whilst engaged in the fairly pleasant activity of wandering aimlessly around Mons with Ben, we happened across an old military museum and although he's not particularly bothered about history, Ben indulged me. The museum is fairly hidden and set back from the street, in a sort of similar way to the Irish Pub. You walk in through the main doors and find yourself in a sort of large drafty hallway. In the case of O'Malleys this area is just dead space you have to cross until you reach another set of doors behind which is the pub itself, but in the case of the museum the walls feature a set of pictures with explanations in French, Dutch and English that give you a brief snippets of events in Mons during the World Wars; it mentioned something I'd not heard of before but probably should have - the Mons Angel, which apparently appeared to British soldiers on the brink of giving up and encouraged them to fight that little bit harder and win the day. Sort of like an ethereal cheerleader.

So after all these we came to the museum itself, which was 1,25 € each entry. Whilst discussing whether we should go in (it looked a bit rubbish, in fairness) we noticed a whole row of ancient filing folders, just stacked against the wall. It said, in French "Ne pas toucher SVP; toxique", and then in English 'Do Not Touch'. Ben laughed and said "The English are more trustworthy - we're good at following instructions but the French need extra warning 'oooh, it's poison, don't touch'". This would seem to be the case, as folders by their very nature aren't poisonous, seeing as they are for practical use rather than just aesthetic and picking them to file things is more or less their reason for being. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the chap had actually imbued certain folders with poison as a nosy person deterrent, but didn't think it was worth warning the English to that extent. "Aah, the Eengleesh, I tell them no touchy, but if they do, pffff." Then when he appeared he did actually look a little bit like someone who might poison folders in an attempt to stop people getting their sticky paws on them, so we just politely gave him 2,50 € and hurried on into the museum itself.

The exhibitions were actually pretty good; they were organised into each different country's soldier's uniform and bits and pieces found - in the British cases there were exercise books, lighters, cigarette cartons and a little silver box with several signatures etched onto it that made me cry a little bit.

There was also a case with Nazi memorabilia which I didn't like to get too close to.
Something I'd known but that hadn't really been driven home was the fact that during the war Mons was occupied by the Nazis. There were pictures of the Grand Place with rows upon rows of German soldiers marching, and it looked terrifying. I know that not all the Germans were evil; that most of them were just men fighting for their country just like we were, but the case of Nazi uniforms and swastika emblazoned crockery just sent chills down my spine.


But the best bit by far was the mannequins. I'm quite frightened of mannequins anyway - they feature on a long list which includes millipedes, icebergs, tractors and hyenas, so that doesn't mean much, but these ones redefined creepy. Ben didn't get a photo of them, except for this one of me staying on the correct side of the velvet rope, so what you can't see is that although each and every mannequin was dressed in a rugged soldiers uniform, each and every one of them was wearing bright scarlet lipstick and green eyeshadow. The first one we saw I thought might have been a mannequin from a clothes shop, because at 1,25 € a visitor the museum obviously isn't pulling in enough cash to spend on custom made soldier dummies. However, as we walked round, it became clear that every single one had a full face of horribly clashing make up. But why, we mused, why would anyone go to this trouble to amass such an impressive collection of war memorabilia only to make a mockery of the whole thing with a shade of lipstick so red that not even I'm brave enough to wear? Until the obvious answer dawned on me. A lady - braver than I - must have accidentally left her scarlet lipstick behind; perhaps it fell out of her bag when she was leaning over to look at the lighter and half empty tobacco pouch. And then the mannequins come alive at night and entertain each other with bad makeovers, then leave the make up on just to screw with patrons.

I had to leave quite soon after that as I was convinced that they were going to start lurching towards me brandishing a lipstick I know I wouldn't suit.

Burfdee and crayon eating puppies

It's Ben's birthday today and I attempted to bake a cake. I say attempted, because the end result was not as cake-like as I would have liked. For this I blame the Belgians - I have been baking cakes since my primary school decided to give cookery classes for all those not sporty enough to have been picked for the school teams and generally they turn out alright, so it must be the Belgian's fault. That's just logic.

I bought the ingredients a while back, and after staring blankly at the (small) range of flour Delhaize had to offer I thought the most sensible option would be one described as 'cake flour'. I thought, cakes rise, so this LOGICALLY must be self raising flour. It's my own fault really for trying to apply logic and common sense in a country where they come out to change bus posters at 1am but wouldn't come to connect our internet for three weeks. As you might have guessed it was not self raising flour, and Ben's cake looks like it's been sat on by a small elephant.

I ranted about this to all and sundry via the awesome medium of Facebook, and was particularly tickled by the response it got from my friend Joost, who pointed out "I couldn't possibly ever be angry at Belgianry - we of the North find they have a simplistic endearing quality about them, like puppies eating crayons. Which is why we don't let them in; they'd just get sick on our carpets."

And in Lidl whilst buying Ben's birthday dinner (pizzas - the boy is easy to please) the girl on the till who usually insists on looking in my bag said something unintelligible and I panicked. I thought she knew I was English, but apparently not. Anyway, I just looked at her with wide confused eyes and the man behind me in the queue said 'Anglais?' to which I said 'Oui, oui! Anglais!' and he smiled benevolently and repeated everything the girl had said in French, only louder. Nice to see that some things are the same anywhere you go.

Black Swan Sweethearts

Having exhausted all of Mon's interesting sights on the first day of their trip we decided to finish off Ben's family visit with a trip to the local duck pond. An adventure that manages to be better than it sounds, as this particular duck pond boasts a pair of gorgeous black swans. They are simply beautiful creatures and, unusually for swans, they're also quite sweet natured - although I don't know how they'd be with us if we dared to turn up without our usual offering of stale bread.

The pond looked a bit odd as we approached and Ben offered the opinion that perhaps the whole thing had been drained, as the swans seemed to be standing up in the middle. As we got closer we realised the pond was actually quite full, but rather than the swans being the foretold second coming of Jesus, the whole pond had simply frozen, and the birds were perched somewhat bemusedly on top of the ice.

We were just as bemused as they, as although it was very cold in the beginning of January (-14° centigrade at one point, a fact Ben's sister Jo couldn't quite get her head round - "C?" she repeated incredulously, "C?!") of late the temperature has hit such heights as 3° centigrade, thus thawing the snow we had hanging around endangering unwary pedestrians for a week or so. Nevertheless, most of the pond was still iced, except for a small corner which the swans wearily made their slippery way over to, apparently in order to menace a fat looking fish that had sleepily ventured out from under the ice.

As we were feeding the black swans a large white one saw us - or rather, the bread we were touting - and started to make its tiresome and arduous journey across the ice over to where we were standing. It took the poor thing ages, and then when it finally did arrive one of the black swans made it abundantly clear that it was not at all welcome and should possibly sling its hook. It rapidly did as suggested with a rather put out demeanour, so we threw some bread at it anyway whilst doing our best to ignore the irritated stares of the black ones.

I tried for ages to get a photo of one of the swans on its own, but one of the sweetest things about them is that they're always together, and - except for the incident where one of them had to see off the unwanted attentions of the white one - they were never more than a foot away from each other.

I took loads of videos of them slipping all over the place as frankly, it was pretty funny, so for your viewing pleasure I've uploaded one of them as they trudge towards the thawed area, and another that shows the white swan midway through its ill fated journey over to see what was going on.





And for those of you who would like to have a cockroach situation update, here it is: the little bastards laid low because we had guests. Thoughtfully not forcing their presence on visitors not quite accustomed to their ambush tactics, you say? No! Do not give them more credit than they are due. They're just trying to convince people that we're making them up, so that we get no sympathy. They're cruel and unusual beasties.

Yes We (Coke) Can!

We were kept awake last night by the wind, which blew the window open and sent a noisy drinks can scampering with a mad gaiety across the road and back, over and over again. Ben's mama and sister had wisely opted for a hotel, so when they came round this morning full of the joys of life and quiet hotel rooms we told them our woes.

"It was a Coke can!" I told them joyously, always one to keep a theme going.
"How can you possibly know that?" asked Ben's brother Jack. "I bet it was a beer can."

I was about to admit that yes, knowing the BelgyBums it probably was an errant beer can, when Ben's mama chipped in sagely.

"Of course it was a Coke can, Jack. Otherwise it wouldn't be relevant."

The title of this post was inspired by an inspirational marketing move by one of the Belgian shops that we walked past yesterday. They have a big sign in the window saying simply: Soldes! (Sale!) YES WE CAN!

Good old Obama, still working tirelessly to shift cut price clothes across Europe.

Cockroach Attacks Weatherman

We found the following video on failblog.org and thought that it pretty much sums up how I react to the cockroaches we find. Cockroach Attacks Weatherman! Wait to the end of the post to click on it, otherwise you'll get sucked in by the awesomeness of the Failblog and you'll forget what you were doing before. Yeah, I know what you're like.

I had to kill another one yesterday - this one was a baby, so I felt even worse than when I tried to kill Mr Whiskers, our resident under-oven dwelling friend who hasn't shown his mandibles in our presence since I unsuccessfully tried to smush him. I might have jumped the gun though on proclaiming the invasion, as we've only seen two. As the well known phrase goes, two cockroaches do not make an infestation. So long as they're both lady cockroaches and haven't been getting jiggy with any gentleman cockroaches prior to stopping by. One of them is dead now anyway so it's all acedemic.

Ben's lovely fambly have been visiting this weekend for his birthday and we all went out for a meal at the local Italian (I know, I know, they've come all the way to Belgy only to eat at an Italian restaurant, but it really is the only place you can get friendly service - last time we got food at a Belgium eatery the lady shouted at us for ordering extra chips. True story). Whilst there I spotted a young couple out the window, and it amused me as he appeared to be trying to smooch her whilst she was blowing her nose. I drew the attention of the rest of the table to the amorous/ non amorous couple, and it became quite an interesting topic of conversation. It slowly occured to us that she was doing everything in her power to subtly not smooch him, without actually stepping away, and during one intense hug (we did feel a bit weird nosying on them at this point, but it was just fascinating) he actually checked his watch over her shoulder. Then she skipped away! Brilliant. Better than Hollyoaks.

On the subject of things that are more interesting as they are happening than when I later come to write them down, we saw another abandoned Coca Cola can on the way home. Naturally we took a picture of it (we didn't think to turn the can round so it looked more aesthetically pleasing; blame the jug of wine we had with dinner) and as we did so a police car drove past and looked at us suspiciously! I'm beginning to wonder if it's some sort of Coca Cola can conspiracy.

So go check out that video now - it's me! Apart from the African American gay weatherman thing, obviously.

Pickchures!

Mons in 'Actually Quite Interesting' shocker:


I got a bit carried away taking pictures of the gargoyles.

It has begun.

The cockroach epidemic that I joked about but never really took seriously has, in all seriousness, begun.

Whilst minding my own business earlier one ran at me from underneath the oven. I reacted with my typical lightning fast reflexes - pow! Luckily for the cockroach my lightning fast reflex was to jump back and flap for a while, whilst looking for something flat-ish to flatten-ish it with. Then as I was merrily hopping from one foot to the other it casually trundled back under the oven, where I watched it wandering back and forth for a while, before I remembered that I have to wait until it eats the poisoned food. The chap was most clear on that - don't kill them until they eat the poison, which makes no sense, because whether it's dead from poison or dead from slipper, it's still dead, right? Dead cockroachs being preferable to live ones (to me, probably not to it), and all.

So now I am sharing my kitchen space with a cockroach, who I can't kill even if I was allowed to because it's so damn fast. Before I remembered I wasn't supposed to kill it I did have a go at squishing it, but at the last second I was distracted by it cleaning its whiskers, which albeit gross made me remember that it's a creature rather than just an annoyance and it stayed my hand, as it were, for a moment too long, and it ran back under the oven, where I swear it turned round and looked at me reproachfully.

On a side note I just spoke to my mama back in Blighty who was convinced I had tonsilitus because I've had the snuffles and my tonsils swelled a bit. They've gone down now, but as she is still worried I tried to reassure her:
Amanda: It's alright Mum, they've already gone down.
Mum: But tonsils aren't supposed to do that!
A: Yeah, they are, the swell up now and then if you're ill.
M: But mine don't do that!
A: ... You don't have any. You had them out when you were little.
M: Oh yeah.

I love my mum.

The morning after...

After everything had calmed down and the house was gradually falling back to sleep, I heard Ben snort. (I mean he laughed, not that he was casually doing cocaine at bedtime).

"What?" I asked, anxious to know what he was laughing at because usually it's me.
"They're back," he said, gesturing at a light on the wall flashing from outside.

We jumped out of bed and had a look. The intrusively flashing light was coming from a van parked up on the pavement outside changing the poster on the bus stop. 1am, in Belgium, is apparently prime poster changing hours, as though they don't want people to see them do it, as though they want to imply the posters get changed by magic.

Ben got back into bed grumpily and said "They obviously didn't go to suspicious school," which made me realise just how asleep he had been before being woken up by the light. I think he realised what an odd thing it was to say as well, because he paused a moment and then said thoughtfully, "I don't think anyone goes to suspicious school."

Polizi! Polizi!

One of the questions I get asked frequently by my many, many friends (Alana) is 'what's been going on in Mons?' and the answer is generally 'Oh, not much'. In fact, I didn't want to have to say this, but at times it can be a bit dull.

But tonight was terribly exciting.

At about 11:30pm, Ben glanced out the window after cleaning his teeth and said
"There's a police car outside."

I didn't take much notice as we're not situated in the best area of Mons - although most of Mons isn't the best area of Mons - but he stood there for a while and watched. After a while I too got curious and trotted over, only to be berated for getting too close to the window and make all the policemen look up. Outside was a police van with a desk in the back, and no less than eight policemen milling around. After a while another van came with blacked out windows that reversed into the driveway directly underneath us. Then all the policemen came into our building and stomped up and down the stairs, dragging heavy things with them.

We listened for a while from the comfort of the bed until I got too curious and pushed the duvet to one side.

"I'm going to grumpily open the door and peer out, just to see what's happening." I told Ben imperiously.
"Alright. You are wearing your pyjamas though, and your hair is a bit of a mess."
I got back into bed.

After a time we heard the van with the blacked out windows drive off. We got up for another look. Who should we see out there but MRS BUSYBODY; that woman has her beak in everything. She was wearing some kind of red armband, like a fire marshall would wear for people to know who to follow.

Surely we'd know if there had been a fire, we told each other incredulously.

Then another of our neighbours appeared downstairs, and he seemed to be moving the contents of his room into a car. He too had an armband on, and he seemed to be chatting amiably with the policemen who had come back out again after merrily stomping up and down the stairs all evening.

Then there was some more stomping, and now everything has gone quiet. Mrs Busybody disappeared up the road and to our notice has not returned yet. Ben (who wants me to mention how brave and handsome he was whilst sneaking out to nose) just had a quick look outside and everything is as it was before, ie a bit messy but generally normal for a common or garden apartment block stairwell, except for an empty Coca Cola can by the door that wasn't there before.

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

various confusing hand gestures

Alana (of 'make sure you have more underpants than he does' infamy) agrees with my stance on the horror of village halls, and comments "it’s the smell of the village hall that does it... mainly the smell but also the dreary décor and omnipresent brown flowery curtains. This is what I have concluded."

I particularly love the way she finishes up with her conclusion; you can tell the lass is a scientist.

In jest I told another friend that I have such little social contact with anyone who isn't Ben or my family via Skype that I would be posting today about the young chap who came round to sort out the ongoing cockroach problem. Sadly, what started out as jest has become reality, as I have very little else to actually concern myself with out here. That and the girl at Lidl who insists on rudely looking in my bag every time I shop there - do I look like a thief? Perhaps its the grey and white stripey top I wear combined with my black euroberet - classic burglar chic. But I digress.

I have lifted this almost in its entirety from an email I wrote yesterday to Alana, so I apologise to her as it means reading it twice. I shall change small parts of it and quiz her on them later to see if she's been paying attention.

Basically the cockroach man (I feel bad calling him that as he was very pleasant and made an effort to communicate in English, which none of the others do whenI'm sure they understand me perfectly and are deliberately being difficult) put down cockroach FOOD with which to LURE the cockaroaches to us; a move I am currently unconvinced in regards to the wisdom of, but apparently the food is poisioned (cunning) so then the cockroaches will eat it and die. However, he explained with various confusing hand gestures that the dying cockroaches will probably leave an egg behind in which are THIRTY TO FORTY of the frickin baby things, so they'll all turn up in three weeks, but will hopefully eat the poisoned nomnom before getting it on with the other cockroaches. So fingers crossed that their priorities are food THEN sex, otherwise the whole disgusting cycle willl just keep perpetuating itself.

Gross.

So basically, we are at the moment dealing with the odd one every week or so, but with this new posioned bait we will not only be dealing with quite a few more jumping out at us, in three weeks we will also be dealing with their babies in vast numbers.

I hate Belgium.

Most excitingly a teapot

We returned to Mons after our two week holiday at home for Christmas laden with Tesco branded goodies – namely minced beef (minced beef over here is usually mixed with minced pork – don’t ask me why), chicken (more expensive over here than steak), bacon, fruit and barley squash, bread that won’t go hard overnight, and three packets of digestive / hobnob biscuits. Oh, and a big old block of Cheddar – they just don’t seem to make good cheese over here, it’s all runny and smelly. Ick.

Not only did we make the journey back with groceries, but we had plenty of exciting Christmas presents as well – most excitingly a teapot, which we very much enjoy using (there’s a phrase I never thought I’d utilise), a new camera with which to further document our adventures, and books, dvds and computer games with which we while away the time not spent hunting cockroaches or trying to make sense of Belgium TV.

We joked about returning back to find a cockroach infested room (according to Ben, we would have walked in to find them playing music and watching our dvds “Oh, hey guys! We, uh, didn’t expect you back so soon … we invited some of our friends round, and you know, bred with them, and now there’s loads of us…. Hope that’s cool?”) but there was just one lone, solitary dead cockroach lying on the floor with his legs in the air. I felt sorry for him until another one jumped out of the cupboard and wiggled his antennae at me, and I promptly went back to shrieking and hating them with renewed vigor.

It snowed all day yesterday which was very pretty, although apparently it snowed in England too – what is the point of living in a foreign country if England is doing exactly the same thing? I feel like writing a letter of complaint. Ben got home and insisted we go play in the snow, so we did until my fingers got too cold and I remembered why I prefer to look at the snow from inside and not actually get too close to it.

I also forgot to write a bit about the Christmas Markets over here – we couldn’t decide for the longest time whether to go to the market in Bruges or Liege, and decided on Liege as it is apparently more famous and we’d already seen Bruges. It was a two hour journey away and we managed to miss our stop – an inauspicious start, but it turned out to be a bit more auspicious as the stop we ended up getting off at was actually closer to the market than the one we missed, so hurrah us. We decided to look for a hotel, but if we didn’t find one to just get the train back. Of course, all the hotels were booked up, so we made do with wandering around the fair, which was very pretty and Christmassy, but…

At this point I should explain how susceptible to the power of words I am. When I was home before Christmas my mum said “Ooh, Amanda, we’ve been invited to a hog roast! A HOG ROAST! Would you like to come?” at which point I replied, “A hog roast! Why, how wonderful that sounds! Of course I would like to go!” so I called my sister and said “Sara! A hog roast! How wonderfully Harry Potte- esque does that sound! We’re going to a hog roast!” and she said, very dubiously “Is it at a Christmas Fete - IS IT IN A VILLAGE HALL?”

More explanation needed here, I’m afraid. Sara and I have an inexplicable hatred of all things village hall. We don’t know why – my dad says it’s because when I was a baby they would take me to get my injections done in a village hall, but apparently they were more normal with Sara and took her to an actual doctors, so that doesn’t quite explain it. But village halls absolutely make my skin crawl. Perhaps it’s the lighting in there, or the general dreary atmosphere. Perhaps its because I’ve never lived in a village, and I don’t understand the camaraderie. But I can’t bear them, not one bit.

“Is it at a Christmas Fete, and will we have to sit at plastic tables with people we don’t know?” asked Sara, very sensibly.

“No, I’m sure it isn’t,” I continue blissfully, images of long wooden tables (Harry Potter again, I'm afraid), cosy log fires and mulled wine in tastefully decorated candle lit surroundings parading through my head. “I’m sure it will be lovely. A hog roast, Sara, a hog roast!”

“Alright,” replied Sara, doubtfully. “If you’re sure.”

It turned out to be a dead pig on a stick just outside a village hall. We walked in and everyone turned to stare at us. We were indeed expected to sit at plastic tables with people we didn’t know, and eat bits of pig (aka, ‘pork’) in a bap. It was a far cry from the delightful scenes I had envisioned when my mum first said hog roast to me. So we did what our family always does in such a situation – we hid in the cloakroom to eat our pork baps and made jokes to each other in hushed undertones, and I would like to say that Sara refrained from saying 'I told you so', but instead she made a point of saying it at regular intervals.

My point here is that the words ‘hog roast’ fooled me in a similar way to the words ‘Christmas Market’ did. Again, I expected something involving cosy log fires and tastefully decorated candle lit surroundings, and what we got was a market full of French people. But it was fun, and we went on a Ferris Wheel – unfortunately we weren’t even half way up when I remembered I’m a bit scared of heights, and it went round three times before they let us get off. Then we had a two hour journey home, most of which I slept for and played the odd game of Tetris on Ben’s phone. We arrived back in Mons tired and hungry, only to find a Christmas Market going on in our own Grand Place, and it was amazing. The ground was covered in glitter and there was an ice rink around a massive Christmas tree in the middle, and just off to one side there was a band playing tunes straight out of Narnia. It was incredible. All that way, just to come home and find that Christmas was right on our doorstep.