Weekly Winners View from the Backyard

When I was twelve years old, I stayed in this château for ten days.
My very first holiday, and the first time I was away from home.

I remember the long walks with girls my age in the surrounding park.
I can even recall some of the conversations we had.

This is how the château looked in my memory.

I can still hear the music coming from this window, as a signal we had to gather in front of the building.

And then we would cross this bridge to go inside.



I think we had to go through this door to the place where they served our meals.


But when I revisited this place, I was truly surprised to discover that this is the real front door.


And this is what you're supposed to see when you visit the château.

The front side.

And the real main entrance!



Find more Weekly Winners at Sarcastic Mom's.

The Interview. My Answers.

There is this new and exciting meme going on in the blogospere.
The idea is to interview one another.
I first saw it at Maggie's blog, where Lou picked it up.
And when Lou answered his questions I asked him to interview me.
If you want to be interviewed by me, tell me in a comment and I'll send you five new questions. Not necessarily the same ones I'm answering here.

Want to be part of it? Follow these instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone

else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.

You have to link back to the original post

(http://maggiesmind.blogspot.com/2009/01/ive-got-answers.html)
and also to Lou's post

(http://louceel.blogspot.com/2009/01/questions-and-answers.html)
and to mine.

So here are the questions Lou sent me.

1-What is your favourite childhood memory?

Now, a lot of my childhood memories are very blurry, they are no more than scraps and fragments, but the most vivid ones are from the holidays I spent with my grandparents.
I adored my grandmother, she was a very sweet person.
They lived from their land and the few animals they had.
My grandmother and I were always together. One day, we made our daily trip to the barn to collect the chicken's eggs. I had my skipping rope with me and when I started jumping, my grandmother said she wanted to try it too. Despite being rather overweight she was also a very playful woman. She started jumping the rope but she had forgotten all about the eggs until they came oozing out of the pockets of her apron. I can still see her face, and how we both cracked up laughing about the omelet in her pockets.
(This should answer the question, but if you're in the mood for more, there's another beautiful story I've written on this blog once about lollipops and candy. It's here if you want to read it.

2-Who is the person you most admire - that is alive today?

There are many people I admire. I have a huge admiration for ballet dancers because of the way they control every muscle of their body. But I could not name one at the moment, and my idol Rudolf Noureev died years ago.
On a very different level, there is this blogger friend of mine who is going through chemotherapy right now. I know there are probably millions of people like that every day, but I don't know if I would have her courage and her strength if I had to go through this the second time around.
She was diagnosed with a totally different type of cancer than the first time. She said it felt like falling off a ladder and having to climb all the way back up again when she first heard the diagnose. But she is climbing. Step by step, day by day. Without ever complaining.
She's the person I most admire this present day.

3. If you could live anywhere, where would that be?

Hmmm, difficult.
To make it my home, I would have to understand and speak the native language.
That rules out countries in Eastern Europe, or Asia.
But there are so many places in this world I would love to go to.
I have friends all over the globe through blogging and I would love to see for real what life in their corner of the world is like. But if I have to choose a permanent place to reside it would have to include blue skies and sun. And warmth. There for Canada and Alaska would be no option. Islands like Hawai and Tasmania, - however beautiful- would be too small after a while I think. Not enough to photograph I'm afraid?
I'm not sure if the States would be an option, it's so different to Europe?
The cultural history, the food ... people's ways ...

On a long term basis I would probably end up missing Europe too much.
I would most likely stay in Europe but move a little bit further South. I love the Provence in France and it already feels like home because of the many holidays we have spent there.
I like the French way of living, especially in the South.
Much more easy going and relaxed. They say "bonjour" and they MEAN it.
Nothing like the commercial song
"hi how are you-but-I-don't-care-shit"
they did in Disney when I was there. Sorry but that's how it felt to me?
So yes, hmmm, France would sound right. Or Italy, if it was not for the language barrier.
But who knows, I might even learn Italian one day? Never say never?

4-What do you like to eat when you're feeling 'down'?

Anything ready to eat that is easily available and hiding in my drawers somewhere.
It has to be crunchy, you know like cookies or crisps. Chocolate is good too, but it has to have some bite to it, you know like that white chocolate with puffed rice in it? Or chocolate cookies?
And I have been known to attack a box of corn flakes when I was in a real desperate mood!
If I'm really unhappy I will eat sweet things first, and then switch to salty or hearty stuff like crackers or crisps ... and then back to the cookies again. Oooooo!

And because I liked this question best when Maggie asked me -

5-What do you like most about being a woman?

I like being a woman, and I would not in any way want to behave or be ( like) a man.
Although I sometimes wonder what a man feels when he makes love to a woman.
Anyway, that's besides the point, I'm just being curious but that's a feminine quality too right?
I'm glad I know what it's like to have life inside of me and give birth, and be a mother
but there are so many women out there who have never experienced this and still they are women.
So, to me being a woman is not just that. And it's not about dressing up and wearing high heels and make up to get men's attention either. (Although I do love attention.)
I enjoy all things feminine, you know, do the cooking and the baking while the man is out hunting? Yep, I love it. Call me old fashioned perhaps?

To my opinion, men and women complete one another. Male strength versus female tenderness and softness. I like being the girl and have a shoulder to cry on or a strong arm around me.

But what I like most about being a woman is that in the end we are a lot tougher than we look.



So there ... I hope you liked my answers. I enjoyed answering them.

Watching the Fireworks ...

New Year's Eve.
The countdown is finished.
Where I live everybody comes out on the street to watch the fireworks.
We've been living here for twelve years now and I missed it only once.
And I remember looking at my watch that night, counting the hours, minutes and seconds till midnight. The feeling of being lost. I felt miserable, I was recovering from the flue and all I wanted was to go home.
We've never gone out again since then.
We happily stay home, watch a variety show on French television,(duh!) and have something nice to eat. We have one more glass of champagne.
We unwrap the gifts we had wrapped the night before.
And watch the fireworks at midnight. (I even thought about making a video this time.)




And then the next day, while I'm doing the dishes, I think of the year that has gone by.
I think of my family, and of my friends.
I count my blessings.
And I'm very happy life is getting back to normal ...
I must be getting old?

Happy New Year everyone!!

Fun Monday , Neighbours from Hell ...

I felt like writing today, but I needed a prompt.
That's why I joined


Host for today is Beyound my Slab

Here is the assignment for the December 1st version of Fun Monday.
Here goes: Tell us about your all-time worst neighbours from Hell.
You know, the family of Irish clog dancers who once lived in the flat/apartment above you?
Mrs. Nextdoor and her banshee-like multiple orgasms?
Mr. and Mrs. Hard-of-Hearing with their television on full blast?
The guys across the street who set off 4th of July fireworks starting in March and didn't stop until the first real snowfall?

Up until now, we have been very lucky.
We've always had very sweet neighbours.
There were never any real annoying stories, only some funny incidents.
But I think they're worth sharing ...

Our first place in Antwerp was this apartment building.



Two of the six floors were offices, and we lived on the third floor.
But it was on one of the busiest streets in Antwerp.
( This picture must have been taken on a traffic free Sunday.)
Every night we had to look for a spot to park the car,
and try to remember where we left it the next day.
One day, we saw a man get in the car in front of ours.
When he shifted his car into gear, he hit us.
My husband stopped him and they had a bit of a discussion.
The guy did not have his wallet to do the necessary paperwork, he said.
He had left it at home so we told him to go and get it.
When he came back, he started to fill in his home address
and that's when we discovered that he was our neighbour from the sixth floor!

A couple of years later we moved to the countryside.
Our only neighbours were ... cows ...

and sheep, and little pony's.
There was a forest across the street, we had huge trees, it was all so peaceful.
As soon as the cows heard me, they'd come up to the fence,
they wanted to drink some fresh water from a bucket.
I guess that tasted better than their own water?
I loved those cows.


One day I had baked a loaf of bread
and I wanted to put it on the windowsill to cool down.
I stepped outside from my back door,
when I saw one of the cows on our patio.
She had jumped over the fence, trying to escape from the vet!

We had some very happy days there, until ...
The land next to us was being sold and the cows disappeared.
So did the pony's and the sheep.
We got annoying road works and huge machines instead.
They turned out to be our neighbours from hell.
Trees were taken out or damaged as roads and houses were being built there.


And paradise turned into hell ...

Wordless Wednesday ... a little romance?

Wordless Wednesday again.
Please visit some of the other players there as well, it's fun!


I think this is the perfect wordless picture for a little bit of Valentine mood?


Since this is a wordless day, I am not really supposed to say anything more.
But I'll answer your questions in tomorrow's post!

Exploring a new world

One of my friends from Nablo, Korie has moved from the States to Belgium to follow her heart. She's a very brave girl I think, moving to another continent and into a new world like that!
I should know, because I did the same, many years ago .... well almost.
You know, I was born in Bruges, and at the age of 23 decided to follow my heart too.
I moved from Bruges to Antwerp, which is not exactly the end of the world, it's merely the other side of the country. But if you live in Belgium, it feels like moving to Mars!
I had no friends or family here. The Antwerp Zoo was the only part of that city I had ever seen!
(By the way, the elephants were not there yet when I moved here
but this picture shows the Zoo entrance on the right.)


Antwerp was completely unknown and foreign territory to me.

Trying to find my way in that new city was something I had to learn one step at a time.
One street at a time.
Korie paints a picture comparing it to a jig-saw puzzle, and I can relate to that,
because that's exactly what it is. (Read her post as well, it's very well written)
We made long walks on Sunday afternoons, my husband would show me the statue of Brabo, the main shopping streets, the river the Schelde, and all those other places tourists visit.
We went to the market on a Sunday morning, using the metro.

And then one day, feeling very brave, I took the metro right in front of our appartement
to travel to the Meir, the major shopping street in Antwerp. I did that all by myself.
If you take the subway in London for instance, you travel under ground all the time.
Not in Antwerp. Most of it is above the ground, so you can more or less see where you're going.
But when you reach the center of the town, the trams go underground.
I had written the name of the subway station on a little piece of paper.
In case I got lost I would be able to ask directions.
Subway station Diamond would be near the station, my husband had told me.
The next station was called Opera, then Meir, next up is Groenplaats ...
I travelled all the way to the station and got of the tram at station Diamond.
Right.
I took a deep breath as I tried to find my bearings, but I was lost.
Moving around in circles for a while, locating some nice shops, yep ... that was it.
I decided to call it a day and I took the subway in the oppposite direction.
When I made it home again, I was feeling just a tiny little bit more confident!
So the next week, on my day off, I went through the same procedure again.
Crossed the Frankrijklei, (which is a big street) to get to the departement store called Inno.
And again the next week, only then I decided to go straight to the Groenplaats.
It's a big square not far from the town hall, and there are some very nice shops there too.
But I had not got a clue how to get there, so I took the subway.
The very last station was Groenplaats, so I knew I could not miss it! Yay, I found it!

It took me at least three months to find out that it was much easier ( and cheaper) to just ... walk! The Meir and the Groenplaats are at walking distance from each other, but I did not know that because I was travelling under ground in the subway all the time!
And whenever I got lost I took the subway and returned home again!
One fine day, while windowshopping I walked much further than I used to do before.
To my own amazement I saw the Cathedral, and I knew I was at the Groenplaats! Gosh!

The days of lollipops and bubble gum ...

Early sixties, in the small rural village of my grandparents.

I was about nine years old, and my grandmother and I went to the village to replenish our supplies at the local grocery shop. The shop was next to the church, at the corner of the street.
The lady at the shop was married to the the caretaker of the church.
She had very red lips, and two irregular thin black streaks above her eyes.
Her black hair was put up, very fashionable back then...
but it looked a bit like a crow's nest to me.
Her name was Jeanne.




You could buy just about anything there, shoe polish, salt, pepper, flower, sugar... soap ...
I can still remember the smell of the sunlight soap,
or the brown soap my grandmother used to clean the floor with.
My grandmother ordered a kilo of flour,
and Jeanne scooped it out of a big container into a brown paper bag.
She put it on the scale on the counter to weigh it,
putting the bag on one side and the brass weights on the other.
I remember watching the needle stop exactly in the middle.
While my grandmother and Jeanne exchanged the latest gossips,
I looked at the glass candy jars on the counter.

My grandmother used to let me choose something, and I was trying to make up my mind.
That was kind of hard, there was so much to choose from.
There were toffees and peppermints, sweet and sour hearts, lollipops in so many different flavours, chewy little wine gums in the shape of little bears or mice, and of course, bubble gum ...
The bubble gum was pink, and inside the wrapper was a free tattoo.
I think it was printed on waxed paper sort of, and you had to lick it and put it onto your skin.
My mother would not let me have them, but my grandmother bought them anyway.
It took me hours and hours of practice to blow a big bubble, as I had seen other kids do.
I can still remember how proud I was, when I managed to do it for the first time.
And I can still feel that bubble collapsing in my face ...

My nickname Jientje

I got a comment from Junebug
asking me how to pronounce my nickname Jientje.
You see, first I'll try to explain what it means, or rather what that name means to me.

It all started in the early eighties, when my husband and I decided to share a life together.
I was his second wife, and my mother-in-law refused to accept her son's choice.
Months passed by before his parents finally came up to the appartement to visit us.
It was the first time I would meet them and I was rather nervous.
The doorbell rang and they came in.
My knees became wobbly, and the palms of my hands were getting clamp.
I wanted to disappear off the face of the earth, .... become very small and invisible,
.... hide in a flowerpot, or in a teacup for that matter, .... whatever,
anything to save me from this moment I dreaded and wanted at the same time.
Of course I wanted to meet them, but I was so scared to be hurt too.

My father-in-law entered the living room with his arms wide open,
welcoming me into them.
As he approached me he nicknamed me ... Jientje.

Sadly enough, a few years later he died, and that name almost died with him.
Nobody called me Jientje anymore.
And then, last year when I started my other blog, I had to choose a nickname.
I decided I would call myself Jientje again.

Maybe I should change it, I don't know, should I?
Using two different nicknames on two different blogs seems soooooo confusing to me?
Anyway, you can all think of me as Jeany, because that would be the right translation.
If it's too difficult, let me know,
but if you ask me,
in my heart I would rather stick to Jientje.

That nickname Jientje is all about being accepted for who I am , and what I am ...