Some sense

Belgium's a great place. I'me Welsh, so I'm also supposed to be British, but I spent 35 years of my life in Belgium (more than in any of the other three countires in which I have lived, Wales, England and Spain), so I feel as much Belgian as anything else. I left the country for health reasons and miss its tidiness, its completeness, its pastries…

Belgium has had it rough during the last few months, having been shown to be a spawning ground for terrorists and now, just this week, being itself the target of some major terrorist attacks.

Sadly, the growth of terrorism has been matched by a growth of right-wing tendencies, with foolish non-thinkers jumping onto the easy solutions of "keep out the refugees," "down with Islam," and other nonsensical nationalistic propaganda.

Thank goodness, then, for some good old common sense, as demonstrated by Anwar, a young schoolboy, when he was interviewd at his school gates on the day after the attacks in Brussels for VTM News:

Here's a translation:

Reporter: Indeed, the attacks do not represent true Islam, says Anwar.
Anwar: Muslims are not like those that you see; Muslims are people that love peace and not killing.
Reporter: That's an important message.
Anwar: Yes, a very important message. Thank you very much.

Unexpected visit

Field where ashes of Julia Neetens were scattered

So there we were, enjoying the warmth, the dryness, and the sunshine of Guardamar, when Elise's mother, back in Belgium, takes a turn for the worse and we have to make a hasty way north. We thought we'd take a few days to drive the somewhat more than 2000 Km that separates Guardamar from Heusden (Oost Vlaanderen), and our first night was spent in Jaca, in the north of Spain, just before the French border. The next morning, however, we received a message that Elise's mother had suddenly become a lot worse. By the evening we had arrived at about 500 Km from our destination, so we checked again, only to learn that she had died earlier that same day. She was 90 years old.

We arrived at our apartment in Belgium at close to midnight and the next morning started arrangements for the cremation, clearing out the room in the home in which she stayed, and initiating the necessary legal procedures. The cremation was held one week later at the Westlede Crematorium in Lochristi. The next day, my own mother, who had been showing signs of illness for several days, had to be taken into hospital. She remained there for two-and-a-half weeks. She came back a few days ago, but requires help, so we have arranged for assistance in the form of home-nursing and home-help (shopping, ironing, laundry…).

In the interim, we have had a large triangular window in the apartment replaced. Its double-glazing seal had perished and air was getting in between the individual panes of glass, causing condensation and discolouring.

The exercise was carried out by the company De Grom of Erembodegem and it was both spectacular and successful. The team of some eight men worked well together in horrible conditions (it was pouring), removing the old window and placing the new one with hardly any damage to the surrounding structure: only the tiniest piece of plaster was knocked out of the surrounding sloping ceiling and this I was easily able to fill and paint over.  De Grom's achievement is even greater when you realise that the apartment is on the second floor. Here's a series of photos, showing the removal of the old glass and the placing of the new. Look carefully, and in some of the photos you can see the rain (pijpenstelen is how we describe it in Dutch, "pipe stems").

Lorry, crane and suction caps

Old window pushed into apartment, ready for turning and removal. It was here that the small damage was caused by the corner above the chappie's hand to the right of the picture.

Old window-pane pushed right into the apartment and turned, ready for removal.

And down it goes…

New glass brought into apartment ready for turning and placing

Set in place. Well done!

We really would have liked to keep the window free of the two "decorative" wooden bars that can be seen in the photo of the old window, above (very first photo). Unfortunately, however, community regulations regarding the "aesthetics" of the buildings in the complex, insist that the bars be in place, so a few days after the event, when the glass had dried completely, the bars were replaced and a beautiful panoramic view was destroyed. Here's a photo of how it could have been:

Rain? We've been in Belgium for over four weeks now and have seen rain on just about every day. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, as there must have been at least one day on which it remained dry all day long. But, really, dull, grey, cold, wet, that's just about all we've experienced. And when there is a bit of warmth, it immediately becomes humid and close (doef and horrible). No wonder people here say they don't like the heat! Let's hope we shall soon be back in Guardamar…

Do you speak Belgian?

Elise and I come from Belgium.

Well, that's not entirely true, as I was born in Wales, where I lived for the first nine years of my life, after which I lived in England until I moved to Belgium when I was almost twenty-three. However, having then spent the next thirty-five years of my life in Belgium, before moving to Spain, I feel almost entitled to write that I, too, come from Belgium and I'm proud to be able to write it, too.

Anyway, I am amazed at how many people who, upon first meeting us, ask us if we speak Belgian. And then, when we explain that there is no such language, they seem to have great difficulty in accepting that a country called Belgium does not have a language called Belgian, as if Brazil has a language Brazilian, or Canada a language Canadian, or New Zealand perhaps New Zealandian… Admittedly, Americans speak a strange sort of English, but their language remains English, even if their accent and usage is American.

Well, Belgium is rather like that, as far as language is concerned, except that things are rather more complicated, especially for such a very small country. You see, there are three official languages in Belgium: Dutch (spoken by some 60% of the population), French (roughly 38%), and German (some 2%).

Dutch is spoken in the northern part of Belgium, in the area known as Flanders. The sort of Dutch that is spoken there, with its typical accents and usage, is often referred to as Flemish, but it really is Dutch and don't let anyone tell you different.

French is spoken in the southern part of Belgium, in the area known as Wallonia. Wallonian French has, again, its own accents and usages, but it remains French.

German is spoken in a very small part of Belgium, close to the border with Germany. This part of Belgium actually belongs to the political region that corresponds to Wallonia, but don't let this confuse you—Belgian politics, particularly when related to language borders and usage is a minefield that requires an expert in hieroglyphics to decipher and understand.

So, no, we do not speak Belgian. Our first language, at least as far as Belgium is concerned, is Dutch, though we can also get by in French (with hairs on) and German (even hairier).

Indeed, nobody speaks Belgian.

Even people who have some idea of Belgium are often very confused abut its use of language. Many believe it to be a French-speaking country, whereas it is primarily Dutch- speaking, of course. In the early 1960s, one of my Geography masters explained to the class that Belgium was French-speaking, but that some uneducated, illiterate peasants still spoke a dialect called Flemish (it was the same Geography master that threw me out of the class for arguing with him that Monmouthshire was in Wales and not England). Educational nonsense was not confined to the UK side of the Channel, however: my Belgian wife, when at school at about the same time, was taught that Wales was a county in England… So much for schools.

(The photo shows the Belfort (bell tower) in Gent (Ghent) with Sint Baaf's cathedral in the background.)


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