Weekly Winners, One Year in Review

This Weekly Winners is special.
This is why today I'm adding my voice and you'll be able
to hear me speak for the very first time.
Just click on the white arrow and let me talk to you.




Hi!! I'm Jientje.
You see, today is my blogaversary.
This heaveninbelgium adventure began one year ago today.
I had almost finished Nablopomo, and by God, I did not want to loose
the friends that I had met there.
I remember clicking the submit button and stare at that screen that said
Heaveninbelgium was now a real blog. Heehee, oops!
Blogging in a different language than your own is quite a challenge.
Blogging every day is an even bigger one.
But I managed to do them both and meet a whole bunch
of very nice friends along the way.
Those friends and their comments make blogging special
and I want to thank you all for visiting here!

Now, I'm cheating today, hee hee, yeah!
Today is not about my favourite pictures from last week.
Today is about my favourite pictures from last year.
One for each month .
December through to November ....
I hope you'll enjoy them .


(Click to enlarge any one of them)

Autumn leaves in a puddle. Early December 2007.
I saw them on my way to the supermarket.

The pond of the Chateau de Renesse.
We did a photoshoot there in February.

This one was serendipity.
I saw the mistletoe in the bare tree tops, and asked my husband to turn the car around.

March 2007. This is Antwerp train station.
My sister came to Antwerp, we took a walk in the city,
went for coffee, and then it started to rain!
We sheltered inside the station for a while and that's when I took this picture.


April 2007.
My father's birthday is in April.
I remember discovering my zoom lens and the macro function
of my camera that very day.
From then on I was able to shoot pretty close ups like this one.

May. A short break in Normandy.
This is the famous Normandy Bridge.
We ignored a no trespassing sign to take this picture.

June.
Yeah ... I love to cook.
And I want it to look pretty on the plate, so ...

July. We had just returned from our holiday in the south of France.
Each year we spend two weeks in La Provence, a photo hunting feast!
This one was in Saint Rémy, just around the corner
from where the picture of my header was taken.

August. Three days in London with my two sisters.
If I had to pick a favourite, it just had to be this one.

September.
A Farmer's market near Lissabon.

October. This picture was taken earlier this year,
but I published it in Sepia Scenes in the month of October.
It's my nephew playing in front of an old school.
Sadly enough, the school was demolished this summer ...


And this one was taken a couple of weeks ago,
when my friend Nana and I went photo hunting.
We had to hold on to one another to get back on our feet again.
But that only made us giggle more!



Look for more Weekly Winners here.

Photo Hunt "Metal"

This week's theme for Photo Hunt is "metal".
I saw this wrought iron frame in Crestet,
a lovely little village in the south of France.
My husband and I were taking pictures
when the owner of this house arrived and started a conversation.
He even invited us in to show us the breathtaking view from his patio.
When we came out again, I took this picture.
You see, behind that metal frame, there is a mirror glass panel
which hides their swimming pool.
They can look right through the glass from inside the pool,
while on the outside -which is near the street-
all you can see is a reflection of this beautiful view.

I have a slide show with pictures of Crestet on my computer as a screen saver.
I had almost forgotten about this picture until I saw it appear on my screen.

Click here to view other Photo Hunt pictures.

Favorite Ingredients Friday Pumpkin Pancakes

What you need:
300 g of diced pumpkin
2 eggs
125g of flour
250 ml of milk
1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder
herbes de Provence
salt, pepper olive oil
some Parmesan flakes
a couple of small tomatoes and some green salad
wild mushrooms




Cook the diced pumpkin until very tender. ( I steamed it for approx. half an hour) Purée it in a blender, until very smooth.
Make the pancake batter with the flour, egg,baking powder and milk, and mix together well. Add the puréed pumpkin and flavour with the herbs, the gingerpowder salt and pepper.
Heat some olive oil in a non stick pan, and bake the pancakes.
Keep warm while you bake the wild mushrooms.
Serve with a little green salad on the side, and some Parmesan cheese flakes.

Snowy Sepia Scenes

The last couple of years, it has barely snowed here in Belgium.
If it does, it only lasts a couple of days, and then it's gone ...
So last year we got none until the month of April,
when we got a white Easter instead of a white Christmas!
And now, winter has only just begun and it has snowed already.
For our country that's very VERY early in the season.
Anyway, weather has been behaving strangely all over the globe I gather, so ...




I took this picture last Sunday in my sister's garden.
She has a tiny but very pretty little garden
and I just had to take a couple of pictures there.

I thought this one would be perfect for a Sepia Scenes.

I used PhotoScape this time to turn it into sepia.
This free software program has all kinds of
interesting features to frame your pictures,
so I tried some stuff until I found what I liked.


Click here to see more Sepia Scenes pictures

Wordless Wednesday Fun

Just one word: FUN!!

Visit the other Wordless Wednesday players here.

Ruby Tuesday, Coeur de Boeuf Tomato

This is not just any tomato.
It's a Coeur de Boeuf.
My favourite kind of tomato, I always buy them when I'm in France.
They are huge, one tomato can easily weigh half a kilo.
I love the firm texture of the flesh and they taste absolutely delicious.
Just slice thinly, drizzle a little bit of olive oil over it
and a sprinkle of sea salt, that's all it needs really.
Don't worry if they are still a little bit green on the outside,
they ripen from inside out. Just leave them
at room temperature for a couple of days to get this rich red colour.

I was so happy I found one last week
(they are very hard to get here in Belgium)
that I just had to make it my Ruby for this week.






Visit Mary the teach at work of the poet for more Ruby Tuesday pictures.

Macro Monday

I already said it before, I love Lisa's Macro Monday meme.
I love to try stuff with my camera.

I had finished doing the dishes when I saw this ...


I thought it was great to try something a little bit different ...





Visit the other players at Lisa's Chaos.
Or join us, it's fun!

Weekly Winners Middelheim Park in Antwerp

For this week's Weekly Winners,
I'm taking you to the Middelheim open air museum.



It's an open air museum for modern sculpture.
I'll just let the sculptures do the talking today ....












For more Weekly Winners, click on the banners,
or visit Lotus, AKA Sarcastic Mom.
Loads and loads of gorgeous pictures are to be discovered there each and every week.