Celine the Smoker

I just wandered into the bathroom and discovered it smells in there - not the sort of smell you'd usually associate with a bathroom, before you ask, but of cigarettes.

Obviously Celine has been having a bit of a smoko in her down time from bothering me whilst I wash. I have images of her hastily stubbing it out as I approach, clearing her throat in preparation of breaking into glorious song, and then looking annoyed when I leave again after grabbing the nail clippers from the bathroom cabinet.

My Heart Will Go On Part Deux

I just had a shower (see? I do wash) and after a while I became aware of music. Well, 'music'. Namely Celine Dion, and My Heart Will Go On, the theme to everyone's secret favourite film. I wondered vaguely where it was coming from, and then (shower being finished) stepped out into the bathroom and once appropriately towel-clad, into the bedroom (slashkitchenslashstudyslashsittingroomslashguestroomslashdrawingroomslashpantryslashetc).

The music stopped.

I stepped back into the bathroom.

...love can touch us one tiiiiiime, and laaaaast foooooor, a liiiiife-...

Back in to the bedroom (slashkitchen...).

Silence.

Bathroom

...thaaaaat is how I know you, go onnnnnnnn...

There is only one logical conclusion. Celine Dion is haunting our shower cubicle. Which means she saw me nudey! How embarrassing.

I'm watching you...

I noticed this some time ago, but today it's really freaking me out.

Here is the view from our window (I know, attractive)














Here is the window over the road in close up.














Closer...














Behold! Creepy, huh?

On the note of the window we had a man in to fix ours the other day. It's one of those that either has a small crack at the top or the whole thing swings inwards. Of course, ours is broken so that it will only open one way, the rubbish tiny crack at the top way. As the room is currently the temperature of the lower echelons of hell, we hoped he would fix the freaking window.

He didn't, on the basis that if he did, it would present a safety hazard - namely, we might jump out.

He wouldn't fix the window because he seriously thought that if he did, we might consider it a suitable alternative to taking the stairs.

But look at the fuzzzzeeeee!

You might remember, some time ago, a few very excited posts about the black swans in the local park. Together they created an almighty nest of epic proportions and laid six eggs. I was very excited, then one day we went to see them and there were no eggs, and no babies.

At first we hoped that the cygnets were under the parents' wings, but after a few more visits it was clear that it was impossible for six baby swans to be hidden for that long, and we sadly accepted the fact that something had gone wrong and we wouldn't be seeing any baby swans in the near future.

Yesterday we strolled down to the park with some day old baguette, just for something to do. The swans were nowhere to be seen in the main pond, so we wandered round to the secondary pond.

There they were, as elegant and graceful as ever, only there was ... something else.

Something small and grey and fuzzy.

Suspicious and suspiciouser

In England I never shopped in Lidl. Not out of snobbishness, but because the nearest Lidl is far away up a hill in Hawkinge and Sainsburys, Tescos and their ilk are much closer.

But Lidl not only sells 13 kiwis for 0,99 Euros (7p a kiwi, people) it also gives away free extras that you don't expect.

I purchased a bag of spinach earlier today to go in a salad. After slaving away over a cold fridge for the best part of half an hour to create an awesome dinner I slid Ben's plate in front of him. Whilst I was turned away he popped something off the plate into his mouth and then made this noise: "Bleurrgrrrrrhhh!" and scooched his chair back from the table in an attempt to distance himself from whatever had so disgusted him.

"What?" I asked, scanning the plate for un-Ben friendly foods - he'd already reminded me not to put spring onions on his plate, had I forgotten? But no, everything on there was usually to his taste. To check I ate a few bits and pieces off his plate (perhaps more than strictly necessary) but it all tasted a-ok.

"It was lemony," he said, screwing his nose up.

We continued our dinner with no further unexpected flavours until I hit upon something stalky and decidedly un-spinachy.

I am not much of a botanist, but I think it was a nettle.

Bleurgh indeed. But at least we discovered the whereabouts of villainous salad infiltrator, right?

Then Ben nibbled a leaf, pulled a face and said 'It isn't whatever I had in mine."

Which means that we did not recieve one unasked for mysterious extra in our spinach, but two.

The generosity of Lidl knows no bounds.

Eurovision

I meant to post about this when it actually aired on TV, but I was on the sofa and the laptop on the other side of the room and it was just tooooooo farrrrrr away. My memory has been jogged by the discovery of another blog, written by an Aussie currently living in Belge, so here is Ben and my take on it.

I haven't actually watched Eurovision since the year we won, with a horrific song I would rather not name in case it gets stuck in my head... too late, it's there. Damn. Anyway, this year Ben and I managed to catch it on TV whilst flicking through the channels, so we gave it a bit of a watch. When France came on, however, we decided she had too much of a funny face, and Ben went back to channel hopping, a hobby he enjoys and drives me mad. On a channel that shows almost entirely MGM movies we discovered 'Welcome to Woop Woop', a film set in a remote part of Australia that actually makes the Eurovision song contest seem normal in comparison. I do not recommend it; the best bit about it is the title. We watched it anyway, and flicked back over to Eurovision once the titles had rolled, just in time to catch Jade, England's entry. We watched her (and her creepy little hobbit sidekick) on Jonathan Ross and I thought she was quite sweet, so I was rooting for her.

One thing both Ben and I noticed yet has not be remarked upon in the articles I've read reviewing her performance was the fact that whilst walking down the stairs she managed to bop one of the violinists. How has this been glossed over?! She WALKED INTO one of the musicians! Surely that's worth more of a mention than Dita Von Teese's frankly lack lustre and faintly fluttery 'performance' in Germany's entry. Although not as worth a mention as one act that featured 'half naked rockin' out Romans', as Ben eloquantly put it.

Graham Norton was particularly amusing - not so much with his remarks about each entry, but his comment about the segment that played before each act; a strange looking girl with oddly highlighted hair blowing about in a very pop starlet fashion. As she appeared for the 24th time Graham paused halfway through what he was saying and said with some mild irratation, 'I'm getting really bored of her hair.'

That's why I like Graham Norton.

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Germany was not a country I was interested in going to. So when Ben suggested going to Berlin for a few days before going to Hamburg to celebrate his friend Liam's 21st I agreed with no particular enthusiasm.

Then a few days before we left I started to get a bit excited. As I might have mentioned, my interest in history - especially the two world wars - is increasing as I age, and I decided I would like to see the Holocaust Memorial and the Berlin Wall.

So I was in a good mood when we arrived in Germany, and the few days we spent there were fantastic.

Ben got his head round the U-Bahn train stations quickly and we ended up filling our days up to the brim with excursions and adventures.

But I'll try to start from the beginning.

The hotel was really nice - although, like the rest of Berlin, they seemed to have found the look they wanted to go with back in the 70s and decided to stick with it. I recommend it, if you go - the Agon Aldea Hotel - clean and comfy and pleasant.

From there we visited the Potzdamer Platz, where we grabbed some interesting looking pastries for our first breakfast. Ben did ok, but I managed to chose something that appeared to basically be cherry crumble on a doughnut. Awesome? Yes; healthy breakfast? Not so much.

On Liam's recommendation we opted to spend one day taking a bus tour around the city. We though this was a good idea as we could hop on and off, and we chose a rainy day to go so that we wouldn't have to trudge around too much outside.

Unfortunately, like the hotel, the bus we ended up on seemed to have been made in the 70s and not updated since.

We hopped on and attempted to sit downstairs, but the driver stopped us with some expressive yet gutteral grunts and jerked his thumb up the stairs. The meaning was clear; get up to the top deck or I might murder you.

We acquiesed to his request.

Upstairs the canvas roof of the bus that peels back on sunny days was loosely strapped down. The important word in that sentence is loosely, as everytime there was a particularly enthusiastic gust of wind it flapped up, allowing all the rain that had collected on it and the rain still falling to drop squarely on my head. Soon there was a mini tide flowing up and down the aisle and we gave up on trying to hear the recorded guide through the tinny headphones and started concentrating on staying dry.

This is not usually what one expects to concern oneself with on a bus tour.

Luckily we had actually managed to find most of the important things on our own anyway; though my appalling lack of knowledge on certain subjects meant that I didn't quite grasp the historical relevance of the Brandenburg Gate until it was explained to be later, and just thought it was a nice looking monument. Wikipedia tells me pitingly "It is considered one of Europe's most famous landmarks"; thanks Wikipedia, I felt silly enough already. You didn't have to rub it in, you know-it-all online encyclopedia smartass.

The Holocaust Memorial was just round the corner, and at least I knew more about that then the American blog writer my friend Tim just told me about, who refers to it as "some sort of Jewish memorial. You could climb on all the blocks like a giant game of Q-Bert!"

Although Ben did quite enjoy playing hide and seek whilst I was trying to be melancholy and pensive.

We were sad to leave our hotel room but the train ride to Hamburg made up for it - they gave us free muffins, orange juice, and then a little chocolate in a box for no apparent reason.

Liam seemed to get the better deal of this year in industry thing - rather than living in a little room with an interfering busybody upstairs and a drunk man downstairs, he lives in a huge seven bedroom house with one other person, surrounded by beautiful countryside. If that isn't bad enough, they have two washing machines and a dishwasher. I shook my fist at that, I can tell you.

We spent a day in Hamburg, where we accidentally happened upon the celebrations for the 321st anniversary of the harbour. I would have liked to have seen more of Hamburg than we did, but my wishes were granted when Ben and I rocked up to the airport check in on Sunday and were told we'd booked a flight for Monday.

"Do you want to go back to the hotel in Berlin?" Ben asked ruefully. "We could say 'Please let us stay, we used to have a reservation, it was for last week, but can we stay anyway?'"

We never found out if that plan would have worked, as a quick visit to the internet found us an awesome hotel that Ben only picked because they offered free bathrobes and slippers.

"Slippers! Slippers, Amanda, slippers!" he cried gleefully, his little face lighting up.

Who could say no to that?

Kersmash!

I bemoaned the driving standards in Belge back in October and today we were given another example of it.

We were sitting on the sofa; Ben playing some Star Wars game on the Playstation, and me as ever on my beloved laptop. There was a sudden noise outside and Ben, being intrinsically nosy got up to have a look.

"Someone's crashed their car outside!" he told me excitedly.

I got up to look, expecting to see a car with a bit of a ding. Instead we saw a car right up on the pavement with the post for the bus stop embedded in the front of the car.

The bus stop I was talking about last night, in case you were wondering.

Everyone came out of their houses to have a look and a chat, people stopped their cars; it was a real social event for them. The driver got out after a bit, so don't worry about him, in case you were.

We couldn't work out what happened, until one of the people busily milling round pointed out what we assume was the car's trajectory. It seemed to have swerved off the road onto the pavement on the other side of our apartment block and just carried on going until it was car-stopped by a bus-stop. As Ben pointed out, we never heard brakes; just the kersmash. So we really have no idea what happened, but one important detail stands out.

It took out the water pipe.

The water pipe is gone.

We can sleep again.

It was a car sent from Heaven.

GickBling

My friend Laura, knowing my interest* in cockroaches, has let me in on an almost unbelievable fashion accessory - so almost unbelievable that even after checking various sources that back up her claims, I am still oscillating wildly between belief and disbelief like a child asked to choose between its parents.

Cockroach Jewellery

Cockroaches that live on a small chain and are bedecked in various bling. The ultimate accessory? Lord, I hope not.

Behold!


Gick. Sparkly gick, but gick all the same. With extra iiiiii for emphasis. Giiiiiick.

I would like to point out that our cockroaches were about twenty times smaller than the pimped out dude in the picture and in comparison, relatively cute.

*for 'interest', read absolute horror, detestation and occasional pity and remorse derived from impaling one on a fork.


In other news, Ben and I were woken up last night at around 1am by the man changing the posters in the bus stop. He has to do this, apparently, in the dead of night with the orange flashing lights on the van going overdrive.

As though that isn't annoying enough, another van promptly pulled up behind with equally annoying and bright flashing lights, another man got out, and (from what I could gather, peering through our blinds and not understanding French) they had an argument about whose turn it was to replace the poster.













I got back into bed shaking my head at the absurdity as Ben said from his pillow,

"Always the way, isn't it? You wait for ages for them to change the posters in the bus-stop, and then two come along at once."

You can also see, in the bottom left hand corner of the two van picture a long pipe running into a drain.

This pipe is currently the bane of our nights. For some reason, we know not why, this pipe is extracting water from the building site next door. You know, the one that's building over an Ancient Belgian Burial Ground. It used to gush out onto the pavement and flow down to the drain, which whilst loud was actually relatively pleasant; it sounded a bit like we were next to a beach.

This was not good enough for the Belgies, however. They decided that the noise was not quite loud enough to well and truly keep us up, so they installed a second pipe that takes the water from the first pipe directly down the drain. But they had to bend it to get it to do that, so the water now builds up behind the bend and at irregular intervals when there is enough pressure the water whooshes out. It sounds a bit like an elephant taking a drink and then being startled by another elephant who is also taking a drink.

I was much more comfortable drifting off to sleep by imagining myself by the sea than I am with the idea of sleeping my some thirsty pachyderms, I can tell you.

How was Nice? Was it - DON'T SAY IT

I asked Ben what I should blog about tonight, and he did the cheeky monkey mechanic face again and said "have you talked about Nice?"

I haven't yet, I told him. What should I say about it?

"We went there?" he replied helpfully.

Ta, Ben. I bless the day that I picked you to be my muse.

So here goes. We have just (last Friday, actually, but I've only now got round to writing about it. You know how it is, Hotmail to de-junk, Facebook to check, Lolcats to lol at; I'm a busy lady) returned from the South of France. Nice, to be exact, on the French Rivieria, and it was lovely, pleasant, interesting and fun. All the words that your teacher in primary school told you to use when describing something 'not bad' instead of the awful 'n' word. You know what word I mean. Yes, that word. If I had a penny for everyone who has made a Nice joke, I would have... at least a quid. In fact I might go round and demand a penny from everyone who subjected me yet another Nice pun; every little helps, and Nice isn't the cheapest holiday resort on the map.

I wanted [Ben] to buy a souvenir item of clothing, a tradition I picked up in Paris a year or two ago. It's really just an excuse to buy clothes, but I've managed to grab a top in Pisa and one in Mons since. Ok, so Mons isn't that impressive since I actually live here, but still. However, the cheapest pieces in Nice were in the bargain bins full of clothes even a Peacocks aficionado would turn their noses up at, and the price was never lower than 20 euros. 20 euros! For a top I could make with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back!* So with a heavy heart I returned from Nice clothes-less, apart from the clothes I was wearing and those in my bag, which don't count.

Prior to jetting off to Nice we spent a week at home. It was really good to catch up with my friends and fambly; I really miss home when I'm back in Mons, but I'm aware that people only make quite such an effort to see me because at the moment I play a cameo role in their lives, that it won't be quite the same when I'm a series regular.

Once again I just turned to Ben to offer some insight into what events from our brief home visit were worthy of mentioning.

"We had chinese food on Saturday ... and indian food with Dave and Kaylee ... and a roast dinner at Weatherspoons," he recounted thoughtfully.

To say Ben likes his food is a bit of an understatement. If I didn't know how far he has to ride to work and back everyday and if I didn't essentially just sit on the sofa all day I would really resent his slimness.


*This is a slight** mistruth ***for emphasis. I think it worked.

** For 'slight', read 'substantial'.

*** For 'mistruth', read 'lie'.

Petsitting and Ostriches

Last night Ben asked what I would do third if I somehow came into possession of a kazillion dollars (a kazillion is somewhere between a billion and a majillion, we have decided). I thought about it long and hard, and decided that the third thing I would do, after going on a crazy shopping spree and bestowing lavish amounts of cash on my nearest and dearest, would be to build an orphanage in Africa to protect the witch children (children who are villified by religious 'pillars of the community' - ie evil, evil people. It's awful - google it, you'll be horrified). I waxed lyrical about what I would do, sinking wells and setting up schools with massive security fences to keep out the bad guys. After I finished Ben was quiet.

"Why, what would you do?" I asked.

"I'd have a wee," he replied.

"...What?" I asked, wondering if I'd misheard.

"Well, after I ran round going 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and then going and buying loads of stuff, I'd probably need a wee."

Ben is very practical like that.


In other news, it has come to my attention (on this blog I am omnipotent. More or less) that someone stumbled upon this blog via Google, with the search term 'Pet sitting in Mons'. There have been funnier terms that have landed Googlers here, like 'Boobies in Mons' and 'Woosterisms', but I'm mentioning this one because I would very much like to petsit. If you happen to refind this blog, petsittee anonymous, look no further. I will petsit; I have plenty of experience from a small colony of rabbits and guinea pigs we had in the back garden when I was growing up, my demanding, grumpy dog back in Blighty, and from looking after Ben.


Speaking of Ben, I just asked him what else has happened that's worth mentioning. He looked up to the ceilings and blew his cheeks out expressively, looking a cross between a naughty monkey and a mechanic who is about to tell you your car is going to cost more than he originally anticipated.

"We ate ostrich the other day," he pointed out, after some thought.

He's right. We did. Traditional Belgium cuisine, all the way.

Incidently, petsittee anonymous, if your pet is an ostrich, I promise not to eat it.

Whoops

We just scuttled back dripping after stepping outside in bright sunshine. By the time we reached the end of the road it was hailing and blowing up a storm, and once our brolly flipped itself inside out we thought it might be best to turn around and go home. We got in and shook ourselves... and outside the rain stopped and the sun came out.

"It's my fault" I told Ben gloomily.

"Why?" he asked. "We took the brolly; this shouldn't have happened."

He hasn't read my last post yet, but when he does, he'll blame me too. I laughed in the face of Sod and he exacted a revenge most soggy.

Sod and his Law

I'm a great believer in Sod's Law (or Murphy's Law, as my mum insists on calling it and tries to insist on me calling it - sorry Mum, Murphy's Law makes no sense; I mean, who is this Murphy? What kind of a guy is he (or she, of course) to go round trying to spanner the works and what authority does he has over the fickle ways of Fate anyway? At least you know where you are with Sod). My belief thusly caused me to be in two minds about even posting this, but when I mentioned it to Alana she made me laugh, so I thought what the heck.

I went to the laundrette today (yes, another laundrette post. Are you surprised? Mons really is that boring). I went to see the swans on the way - there is no trace of the cygnets whatever. The eggs are gone, but there aren't any fuzzy babies. We thought for a while maybe they were hiding under their parents wings, but today I had a good look and I really don't think they are. Tis very sad. Anyway, as I was leaving it was very bright, and I thought, shall I take my sunglasses? Then I thought, better not, Sod's Law and all that. In fact, I thought to myself, I'll take my brolly and a heavy coat, then it'll be gorgeous weather.

Then of course as I was leaving I forgot both the brolly and the coat, and left with only a jumper on. The weather was pleasant though, and so nice that when I got to the swans I took my jumper off.

Upon arriving at the laundrette the heavens opened - with hail stones, no less! Tch, I thought gloomily. It's my fault, that is, for forgetting my brolly. At least I've got my jumper... where is my jumper?

In the wash, of course.

So I sat and watched as the rain fell outside and people rushed by. My wash finished and I spent all the change I had on dryer tokens. At the end everything was dry - except for one item of clothing.

My jumper.

I sighed heavily, dreading the walk home.

Then as I stepped outside I realised the rain had stopped, and the clouds were dispersing, and the sun was shining. It carried on shining until I stepped through the door of the room, when suddenly it got very dark and started to rain again.

This led me to wonder - had I accidently pleased Sod somewhere along the line; so much so that he had decided to exempt me from his tyrannic Law? If so, what had I done, and could I keep doing it?

I mentioned it in an email to Alana, and she thought about it for a minute before replying wisely.

"Maybe it was just that numbers were working in your favour and he could upset more people by doing it that way round. In which case, its luck you need to be worrying about appeasing."

It will be the first time that numbers have ever worked in my favour, but I am not complaining. Now I just need to work out how I've been appeasing luck.

My Heart Will Go On

No posts recently because I have been roadtripping across the universe (England) with Sara and as might be expected internet access was few and far between.

We arrived at our penultimate destination at our uncle's house in Oakham with Nana in tow and breathed a sigh of relief as we hooked up our laptops to their wireless.

I brought with me a recent purchase - the special edition of Titanic on DVD. I don't much like girlie films; Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Bridget Jones I have no time for, but Titanic is my weakness. I saw it four times at our local sticky floored cinema (12 hours of my life I'll never see again) and I generally start crying half way through, which means I have to have a large glass of water nearby in order to stay hydrated.

This special edition is special as it has an ALTERNATE ENDING - 9 minutes worth, no less. Auntie Di is, like Sara and I, a self confessed Titanic fan, so we fired it up. It was rubbish. Jack still died, the boat still sank; rubbish. They just had a party on the boat in the present day (who watches it for the present day bits, honestly) and had an argument with old Rose when she insists (stupidly) on throwing the diamond into the sea because of some trite faux-philosophical nonsense "The real treasure is our day to day moments, blah blah etc"

But then it went back to the proper ending, where old Rose dies and goes back to the boat. To my horror and embarrassment my eyes welled up in a Pavlovian response, even though we hadn't watched the film itself. Then Auntie Di turned to me with a sheepish expression and shiny eyes, and Sara shouted "You're both crying too!" which made me feel a bit better. Soppiness loves company.

Auntie Di made me giggle, as we grumbled about how our respective other halves probably would push us off the wardrobe door, or at least say "Move up you fat cow, it's freezing in here" (sorry Ben, you know it's true) and she leaned back in her chair to call to Uncle Mark, pottering around the kitchen, tidying away.

"Sweetie? If we were floating around in the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean, would you say 'Don't worry love, I'm toastie warm down here, you stay comfy up there'? Sweetie? What would you say?"

There was a brief pause whilst Uncle Mark considered the implications.

"I always look out for you," he said.

Which was very sweet, but did not actually answer the question.

Have I stumbled into a low budget horror movie?

There is a small child standing outside my window, and I swear, I swear she is calling my name over and over again. Eerily.

I am concerned because they are building something next door and you hear about ghosts turning up if people build on burial grounds- what if Native Belgium Burial Grounds are actually worse than their American counterparts?! It could happen - and the small child ghost outside might just be a bit keen to get things started, so is practising on freaking out me.

I was supposed to be going to the laundrette today, but the ghost child combined with Mrs Busybody enthusiastically cleaning the stairs means another day inside.

Ah well, I'll just sit here and eat some more oreos. Nyem nyem nyem.

And all

Ben just found a link for the trailer of the variety show we watched and posted about a week of two ago - you know, the one with the, erm, hmmm. The you-know-whats... The one with the boobies!

Here it is - boobies and all

Prepare to taste the kiss of vengance!

We have been hesitant to mention the current cockroach situation in case it attracts the attention of that fickle deity known as Fate, but it seems the exterminators we had in a month or two back have actually achieved what they set out to do and exterminated that which they set out to extermine. To wit, we have not seen a single cocky since the one I skewered with a fork.

So for those of you who miss the regular cockroach updates (you know who you are), I present an installation of my new favourite comic, Beaver and Steve.

Behold!



In other news, it is of course pancake day! We made (I made, Ben watched and made 'helpful' comments throughout) a ton of pancakes somehow - the batter just would not run out. Most of them are still int fridge, I suspect we'll be making our way through them for the next few weeks. Do pancakes go off?

And it's Ben's lovely mama's birfdee today, so Happy Birthday Jeanneke! xxx

Swan Watch 2009

We hadn't been to feed the ducks for a while so we thought that we'd have a wander on over there today and see what's what. Heading for the bridge we usually stand on to throw food off (I like standing up there because they feel like my duck-minions) I expressed some concern, as only one of the black swans could be seen, and usually they're always together. The loner swan hurried over to us so we threw it some bread and I asked it where its other half was, but it didn't answer, because it's a swan. They can't talk.

I was really worried that a fox had made off with the other one, but Ben shook his head and said a swan would make short work of a fox, and just because they mate for life, it doesn't mean the other swan sometimes doesn't sometimes just enjoy time on his own; perhaps he was just off having a beer with his mates, they didn't need to be together ALL the time. I think there might have been some subtext there, so its probably a good job I'm going home for three weeks next Saturday.

I fed the poor lonely swan half the bread and we made our way round to the other side of the pond, just to see if the other one was hiding somewhere.

And it was - sat happily on six giant eggs, surrounded by bread crumbs, which we added to. We thought it was the lady swan at first, until the other one swam over to enquire exactly what we were doing quite so close to its next and we saw they were quite different in size.

(That is a freaky statue of what appears to be a drowned woman just to the bottom left of the picture. The Belgians truely are barking - "Alors, we've got this duck pond that will be popular with small children - we can either have a statue of a happy mermaid combing her hair, or we can have this statue of a naked dead woman with a crying child... shall we vote on it?")

The lady swan waddled up to the gentleman swan, who gave her a sort of 'it's about time you got back here' look; the effect of which was lost on her, probably because of the bread crumbs he had round his beak. After about half an hour of drying her tummy they decided to swap, and he began sorting out the nest, picking up bits of leaf from there and putting it over here, and tugging that bit of twig just so, for reasons he declined to let us in on.

Then some geese turned up and looked at us menacingly so we left. Not because of the geese, you understand; it was just a bit cold and we'd run out of bread. We definitely were not intimidated by birds. Ben did not say 'Amanda! Watch out - they're the mean ones!'.

The Mighty Boost

The blog has been bereft of updates for a while because we have been Mons bound and not much really happens in Mons.

Apart from Ben got sick with some sort of evil flu-ey thing that failed to infect me (I begin to suspect I am immortal as Ben has as yet caught everything going and I remain untouched TOUCHWOODTOUCHWOODTOUCHWOOD) last week and we had to call a doctor out. He was part man part tortoise, and I wanted to keep him and feed him lettuce. But Ben wouldn't let me - he never lets me do ANYTHING I want to do.

He's better now, by the way, in case you were worried. He still has a cough but I think its for attention more than anything.

We had a jolly nice Valentine's Day; my sister sent me some knickers in the post (pants post is ossum post) and Ben made sushi for me. It was awesome, but there was a lot of it. A lot. I had sushi every day for lunch until Monday, after which I just couldn't stomach any more raw tuna. There comes a time where raw tuna stops being novel and starts being suspiciously squishy and I discovered that time just before the tuna discovered the binbag (sac poubelle).

On the subject of sac poubelle I got a brilliant letter and gift from my friend Rach. She sent me a Boost; it got battered but it survived - until I ate it, obviously. Curiously the letter was already opened, possibly by our nosy postman. If I had been him I woulda stolen the Boost as they are a most wonderful confectionary but he clearly didn't know what it was and put it back. They just don't have decent chocolate bars here. Belgium, land of chocolate - pish. Rach also sent a great letter where she recommended a phrase to use next time Mrs Busybody tried to push a bin bag onto me: 'Tu sais où tu peux te le mettre!' which means something rude. I memorised it just in case, but I don't think I'll ever have the guts to say it. Maybe when we move out, though she probably won't be proferring bin bags and the sentiment will be lost.

I'm not going to lie to you. This post is mostly about boobies.

My posts are like buses. You wait for ages, blah blah blah, you know the metaphor.

I had to post again on the heels of the dog post for two reasons. 1) The dog post was a bit lame, and 2) Ben put the TV on and turned to a random channel.

This is not usually a newsworthy turn of events as Ben does that a lot. But he managed to find a show that promises to be awesome. It's called LE PLUS GRAND CABARET DU MONDE.

As Ben turned away I saw something that I didn't see much of on British television screens, but see more and more over here.

Boobies.

"Ben! Look!" I cried, pointing at the television. "Boobies!"

From what we can guess it seems to be a French talent show. Only the cabaret dancers have their boobies out. Casually, as though it's no big deal. We can't work out why they should be so clothingly challenged, as most of the audience is made up of middle aged, middle class women. So either they're there for the few men, or they just don't have the same attitude as we do to boobies. And good for them! Although there are little children in the audience. That's a bit weird.

So, if we were to forget the boobies for a moment - is the show something like 'Britain's Got Talent'?

No. No, it isn't. If any one of these acts rocked up in front of the Britain's Got 'Talent' judges, they would just cancel the whole competition there and then, and bring them on every Saturday night instead. And the ratings would go through the roof.

First off was a trampoline act.

"This show ticks both my boxes for good TV!" Ben crowed happily. "Trampolines and boobies!"

It was awesome. The only youtube vid I could find is a bit grainy, but impressive nonetheless (no boobies here, I'm afraid).

The next was a cheeky magician from whose fingers cascaded card after card after card after card after card - he ended up standing on a little mound of cards, and still produced more. Ben said "I bet the guy who sweeps the stage gets annoyed". I think he (the magician, not Ben, though sometimes I wonder) must have been some kind of X-Men mutant, as it just defied all laws of God and man to be able to conceal that many cards up his normal sized sleeves.

Then a girl who seemed to be a human slinky.

A small group who catapulted themselves off a seesaw - whilst wearing stilts.

A Japanese couple performed a beautiful, romantic, elegant dance. On unicycles.

Male acrobats with rippling muscles who performed to We Will Rock You by Queen. Ben was not as impressed with this as he had been by the boobies. Although that might have been because their amazing feats of strength were offset by girly little dances complete with flourishes and little head wiggles. "I doubt anyone calls them gay though," Ben mused. "Not to their faces."

A woman who danced in what appeared to be a cuboid sprinkler system. Ben perked up here.

I could go on.

Britain apparently doesn't have talent because France has it all. Will we ever have a show like this en Angleterre?

Probably not. As Ben said, "We have stricter policies on boobies before nine. And after nine as well."