Adventure on the Canal

Last Friday we had a friend and his two young sons over for dinner. The riding mower won't start, and since our friend used to work on a nuclear sub, David figured he might be able to help with the mower. (Logical, n'est-ce pas?) While David and Scott examined the bad boy, Grandmother and I took the two little boys down to the canal to see if any barges were going by. There was one tied up at the landing near our house and we saw a man walking on it. As we strolled by, I greeted him and he me in French, and then he looked at the two little boys and asked, in what I initially thought was Dutch, "Do you want to be sailors?" I translated into English for the kids, and then he said to me, in very real German, "I don't speak French." I asked him (in German) if he was German, but it turns out he's from the Czech Republic. We had a friendly little conversation in German about the lack of shopping opportunities in Hautrage and how far it was to the next town (too far to walk). He told me that because he grew up in the Czech Republic, he also speaks Russian. Then he said "I speak a little English." Turns out he understands more than he speaks, as do most of us.

I felt like I should have brought David down there to meet him because the poor guy was obviously bored and lonely, as his colleague was off somewhere with the car. Maybe next time he comes through we'll go knock on his porthole and offer him a beer.

Bleeding for Belgium

Some observations from my first blood donation in Belgium today:

• The place was mobbed. Good for the Belgians.
• I got a special pink sheet because it was my first time. Here. They treated me as a first-timer in other ways too, like propping my feet up.
• Because it's the Red Cross and because it's blood, the questions are pretty much the same as those in the US. Having lived in the UK is still bad.
• I had to do the questionnaire with a special nurse for newbies too. (Language note: They referred to her as the médecin, which in French French means doctor, but I don't think she was.)
• They give you all your tubes in a little plastic basket, and you carry that around until you get to your donor station.
• I saw a lady giving while her 8ish-year-old daughter sat on Mom's belly. When she finished, the first thing Mom had to do, fresh hole in her arm and all, was lift the daughter down from the table.
• The only prep I got was a brief alcohol swab.
• The stick was fast and painless.
• They fill the extra tubes at the beginning, not at the end. For some reason, I found that interesting.
• They don't cover the needle while you're giving, they didn't say anything about clenching your fist, and you don't get that little piece of bicycle handlebar to hold on to.
• When you're done, you get a beer instead of a cup of bad coffee. They were offering Jupiler, blond or brown Leffe, and Grisette, a local fruit-flavored beer that's a spring specialty in these parts.

Did I mention how much I like living here?

What a difference a few decades make

We took my mother to the big Dutch tulip gardens in Keukenhof. In one the exhibition halls they were having a flower arranging competition and for no obvious reason suddenly played "Out on the Weekend" off  Neil Young's Harvest. My mother said, "Isn't that music relaxing?" Well, now that you mention it, yeah, I guess so.

Speaking of not possible

The Dutch are pretty relaxed in a lot of ways. While in Amsterdam, we took the tram several times. They sell tickets on board from a little booth where the conductor sits. If you're getting on with a pass or a transfer, you show it to him or her, and if you need a ticket, they tear a little paper one out of a booklet and validate it right there. One time we got on, and the conductor told us he was out of tickets. But it was okay: we could ride for free. If that had happened in Belgium, the conductor might just as easily have told us we couldn't ride because there were no tickets.

Cultural Differences

Last night in Amsterdam we observed a table of six German ladies of a certain age get their restaurant bill. They rather imperiously called the waiter back and asked - or more like demanded - to pay separately. At first the girl addressed them in English, explaining that she could split the bill six ways. The good Frauen weren't having any of that (and weren't having any of the English either). So eventually the girl had to sit at the table with them and ask each one of them what they had and then figure up their bills separately. And they each insisted on breaking big bills to pay for their portion. After all, that's what they would do in Germany! We thought the whole scene was hilarious. And reflected that in Belgium, paying separately would get the standard, "Oh no, that is impossible" response.

Update to the updates

The cows on the cemetery walking route are back in the field!

No sign of the brown cows from the field along the canal though.

Updates

We need to do a serious blog entry, but in the meantime, so you, our readers, won't be totally disappointed, I'll give you a quick update on animal and plant life around these parts:

- Shortly after the baby goats became agile enough to work their way out of the fence, they disappeared. Although I normally think the worst of such situations, I think these little ones had simply gotten old enough to be sold or given away. Mom and Dad are blissfully unaware the babies are gone. Not knowing anything about the reproductive cycle of a goat, we're wondering how soon before we see another couple baby goats.

- Our horse friends (remember the three horses who always stood so close together?) must have moved to another pasture. We haven't seen them around at all this year. But then we never saw them the first summer we were here, so it's logical to assume they're grazing in another field this year.

- The brown cows on our canal walking route and the dairy cows on our cemetary walking route had still, as of our last walks, not returned to their pastures, which means they must still be in the barns. We're still trying to figure out the magic dates for putting them away and bringing them out. The weather has been mostly gorgeous for two of the last three weeks, so it doesn't seem to be a weather thing.

- Spring is bustin' out all over. My tulips haven't bloomed yet but they're getting close. One of the rhodos in the back, a deep red one, has lots of flowers that we can see from the house. Forsythia is blooming everywhere and daffodils abound. SHAPE has set out its spring flowers in all the beds and it's gorgeous. We'll be heading back to Keukenhof soon and will try to make the amarylis show at the local chateau - in Beloeil, a scant 10 kms away - in early May.

Missed it, but...

How 'bout them Heels?!!!