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.