Dead but popular

Despite him being dead for over a week now, Michel Daerden is still the second most popular politician in Belgium, only losing about 3,6% compared to the week before, according to a mixture of polls on the rtbf news website.
That should get him re-elected in October, things are looking up for comrade Porsche even after his demise.

What's wrong with this poll?
Well, it's very obvious it's fake, that's what.

Tabula rasa

I found the USB cable. And therefore I am able to present to you the 'before' and 'after' pictures.
For added effect I will only show the most spectacular bits.
The first picture was taken on the drive way looking towards the neighbour who believes in UFO's. I wasn't kidding when I said we were going tabula rasa!

Then for another angle facing the other way. It's a mish-mash of several photo's which I quickly put next to eachother to make them look like a panorama pic.
This front garden will be filled up with several different bits; a wild flower & butterfly garden, an edible garden, bits of grass, a winding path, a seating area in the shade and a petanque court. Yes, you have permission to snigger.



In the third 'before' picture the second layer of concrete was still in place aroudn the house, the 'after' picture has the 2 meter wide gap that will be filled with stone debris and pebbles from the Taunus region. We've already put some planks in place because we cannot fill it up entirely. We still need to re-do the outer walls.


The fourth and final comparison is where the court is going. Some guys are going to put the concrete sides in on Thursday and once those have dried up we can order some trucks with stone rubble and dolomite for the top layer.



So there you have it. I will leave you with a picture of the site surveyor who's been keeping an eye on things, making sure the concrete waste is neatly disposed of, the workmen are have the regulated lunch breaks and little grey noms going squeak are seen to:

They test the missiles here or what?

Right, I wanted to blog a little earlier to keep every one up to speed on the stuff going on around the house. I took loads of pictures, but I can't seem to find the little USB cable I need to download them onto the computer.
We decided to go tabula rasa on the garden. Nearly everything has been pulled out and transported away to be turned into compost.
I apologized to each and every shrubbery and tree before they were plucked out of the ground.
The only things left now are two peony bushes, a cherry tree, two other trees -I don't know what they are- but they give enough shade where needed, two bushes which have white leaves in the spring, a curly hazel and something that brings forth pink flowers twice a year.
I tried to salvage as much bushes as possible, I planted them in the corral for the moment, hoping they will survive.

This weekend Dr Livingstone and I dug up drains and replaced them. What a sacré boulot. We haven't decided yet on where we are going to put the rain water harvest tank. We replaced the old rain water pipes so far, but just to evacuate the rain until we can hook them up to a solid system.
We want to use the water to flush the toilet and use the washing machine, we are now doing everything with tap water which is a) expensive b) selfish & decadent.

All the drains were delivered on Thursday, together with the concrete borders which will be placed around the house and our petanque court before the weekend.

Right now the garden looks like a tornado tore right through it.
Or, it could also be described by those epic words of the guy who gives Tom Hanks a ride home in The Money Pit: 'They test the missiles here or what?'

Goodbye Council Shrubbery

Today, the garden is getting a face lift. Goodbye to a spruce, a fancy looking spar, some bits of birch trunk, some bushes Dr Livingstone keeps referring to as 'council shrubbery', lots of Equisetum arvense (aka the dreaded ponytail) and lots of other brown, green or dead stuff.
The dirty digger is coming and all will be going into the big container in front of the driveway. Earlier this week I ordered some building materials, they are going to be delivered this afternoon.
I still don't know where they are going to put everything. The second container was left in the middle of the drive way...
The guy who is coming later on said he was able to shift it.

Mouser is all excited and wanders around the big containers, looking all puzzled and wondering what the bleep we are up to.

The plan: to get rid of all the stuff in the front garden which is way too much to keep tidy. It is teeming with weeds and it looks awful.
So we decided to go for a 15 x 4 petanque area. That's 60 square meters of non maintenance!
Some 60sm of gravel (well, not exactly gravel but some smooth looking quarts from the Taunus mountain area) is going around the house which will be excellent for getting rid of excess water against the house.
And there is going to be a terrace around the cherry tree.

Well, that's what we've got in mind. Updates will follow (I hope)!

Belgian Olympic medal winners

A very nice picture taken by bronze medallist Evi Van Acker (lazer radial sailing) with judoka Charline Van Snick (bronze) and Lionel Cox (silver medallist rifle 50m).The pic was taken in Inner Temple, converted into Belgium House for the duration of the London Olympics.
For now we are on par with Armenia and Mongolia in the medal race!

Temperature record?

Are we going to break the record today? Temperatures have been climbing. On Wednesday we had 31,1ºC, yesterday the mercury didn't make it past the 31,3ºC mark. Forecast says we might get 33ºC today. We've even had an ozon-alert.
Mouser is staying out all day, lying idle in the shade. Poor thing is shedding like mad. But with Dr Livingstone's lovely present (a nice bristle with pig hair) I can groom teh Kitteh.
I've put down little pots of fresh water everywhere outdoors, but Kitteh refuses to drink from it and prefers the yucky water in the bird bath. I refresh it every day, but the container looks dirty.

I'm indoors, all the windows and doors shut tight, working on my paper.
My professor keeps emailing me if I have already finished it and could I please send the bibliography and table of contents.
I did so and he replied: 'Wel, wel, that's looking pretty good.'
And then he returned the pdf with about ten comments. :/
Is he running low on summer reading or something? Maybe I gave him the impression that this paper is going to be the next best thing and he's got high expectations.

I will really try to finish it this weekend. I want to be ready to start studying for two more exams I have left in the next couple of weeks before I (finally) have my undergrad degree... \o/

Thomas the Unbelievable has a point

I'm currently reading a book I got as a present for my birthday from Dr Livingstone.
It's called: 'De ongelovige Thomas heeft een punt'.
Translated: Thomas the Unbelievable has a point.
It's a 'manual for critical thinking'.
Actually it goes through the very basics and explains logical fallacies, the tricks the brain plays on us like wishful thinking etc and how people use that to trick people.
Examples like the basketball-gorilla thing, a whole chapter on Randi debunking Geller, Houdini vs Conan Doyle etc.
Most of the stuff I already know through the SGU podcast. I haven't been listening for aaaages due to lack of time.
But some interesting things (so far) and some basic stuff I hadn't heard of like the hot hand fallacy.

They put up a website to illustrate some of the bits in the book. It's quite cool, it has all kinds of youtube movies, bits of lectures and so on grouped per chapter.

I've read 1/3 of the book so far. I'm going to the hairdresser in a bit, I hope to read on in there.

Dig it!

From tomorrow 'till 29th of July there is Dig the City @ Manchester. This is a picture from one of the roofs of Manchester Cathedral taken by someone setting up some lighting stuff for the festivities.

Looks like the drains are blocked. Probably the empty gin bottles and other rubbish found there are covering every possible water evacuation hole. I probably do not need to point out that this is detrimental to the building. And health in general.

Headless birds floating in the water.
I spy botulism....

Elio Di Rupo is a fictional character

I knew it all along. Elio Di Rupo, Belgian's Prime Minister, doesn't exist.
He has a flickr-page with pictures of him meeting and greeting people.
But according to his Flickr profile he has not given a real name.

Therefore he is a made-up character.
A figment of the imagination.
A ghost in the machine.
A creation of the media and the internet.

Mihi.

My life: an update

Tons of excuses.
I haz dem.

It's been a wild couple of months. I've been living according to following rhythm:
Sleep - get up - be amazing - sleep

Lot's of things have happened over here.
1) We had a digger in the garden to scrape away the paving around the house that was causing wet patches to emerge on the walls. It looks like a nuclear testing site now. They've not finished and they'll have to come back after their holidays.
We've worked out a scheme to remodel the garden. It will get rid of all the stupid things that have been planted by the people who lived here before and will reduce the maintenance work.
When the big digger was working in another part of the garden I heard little squeaky noises. I managed to trace the source: lo and behold: it was a little nest of mice!
They were entangled in a bush that had been removed. I replanted part of the bush and then covered them with some dry moss to shelter them from sun and Mouser.
Kitteh heard it too, but didn't seem to interested.
In the evening I did see mum or dad roaming around. The day after they were gone. This could mean two things: they were moved or they were eaten. The ground didn't look disturbed so I'm hoping for the former.

Anyway, I haven't been doing any weeding, raking or pruning as I thought they would clear away everything a little earlier.
It is now a complete and utter wilderness. It's very depressing.

2) We managed to find some people thought the intertubes that wanted to pay us to have the hideous electric blinds removed.
They needed to go because we're going to re-do the outer walls. So the ugly things have finally gone and we didn't have to do anything.

3) I finished up some exams in June, all went well, passed with flying colours. I'm still working on my paper. I managed to move the deadline forward. I need to take two exams in August/September because I wasn't able to take them the first time due to lack of time.
Work has been keeping Dr Livingstone and myself überbusy. With no time for fun and games.

4) We did manage to sneak away for two days. We visited the abbey of Himmerod in Germany.
I even bumped into a genuine Cistercian monk in the church, who greeted me on his way to prepare everything for mass.
It was a nice weekend full of Hefeweizenbeer, schnitzels and some very lovely abbey beer.
They're not trappists like the Cistercians here in Belgium, but they've got a trout farm, eco vegatables and honey.

5) The wasps nest in the spy hole in the front door had to be removed, alas. It was all hunky-dry when there was only four wasps there, building their little hive, minding their own business.
But then it was pretty warm for some weeks and I could see every hole was filled up with larvae.
Two weeks ago suddenly there were about twelve or more wasps there and every time I opened up the door they swarmed out protectively. But they were getting nervous and aggressive amongst themselves. So we decided to remove them.

6) We've got some gooseberries in the garden! Hurrah! Dr Livingstone: twenty of them in yoghurt would be very tasty. Alas the stalk is only yielding about ten berries at the moment. But still. The garden had brought forth something. Once the front has been cleared, I'm planting a whole row of the things. I want to walk through the garden and pick fruits of everything.
The cherry tree had some cherries on them, but most of them have been eaten by birds or the ones on them are not ripe yet. They do look a delicious kind of bright red already, but they were as sour as a lemon.

7) Mouser had some dealings with a weasel that it had brought in from god knows where. We managed to set it free two times so it could run away and escape. The darn thing didn't do much escaping. It just hid under a nearby bush and stayed put. We kept Mouser indoors for an hour or two, but once out it headed straight for the bush.

8) Our neighbour (the one who believes in UFO's) had been giving us lots of vegetables from his garden. We've been showered with salad, beetroot, fennel, some kind of cabbage, a couple of kilograms of big potatoes and a weekly box of freshly laid eggs.
We don't really know what to give him in return.

There's loads more, but back to work for now!

I'm not dead yet!

I'm still here my lovelies!
I've been awfully busy with... -erm- life in general.

New posts are in the pipe-line!

Big hugs,Mrs B

Bee hotel update

I promised an update on how the bee hotel bookings fared.
Well, every hotel has currently 1 to 2 holes that are filled up with mud/sand. That's not a lot.
The ones I hung near the stables were however already filled the day after. And those silly bees insisted on making the little mud pies on the stable doors. So we have about 5 of them not residing in the hotel.
My guess is I put the hotels up too late this season. And some of the shrubberies with early flowers died because of the very late frost. All my lovely smelling skimmia froze, I need to take them out.

Also, we've had some guests in the spy-hole in the front door. A threesome of paper wasps have been there for about two months now, steadily building their little paper hive.
They're not agressive, they don't mind us opening and shutting the door. They're not flying into the house by mistake.
We've decided to let them stay for as long as the door remains there, we will be replacing it anyway together with the new windows.

Let's just skip Spring then?

See, I thought we would skip spring this year and go on straight into summer. Yay! I'm loving this sunshine.
Mind you, I am stuck indoors studying for my finals, but just seeing the sunshine makes me ok. Mouser is looking for all the right shady spots to lie in, poor Kitteh is shedding hairs. Wonder if any fur will be left over once the spell of good weather has passed. I've been giving grooming sessions so all the hairs stay outdoors.
I'll leave you with a picture of Mouser -in the shade of a bush that didn't survive the winter- enticing me into another stroking/epilation session.

Remodeled church excursion in Maastricht (4)

Before reaching the next remodelled church, we strolled around the narrow streets. I was straggling because of my poor back condition and paused to stop and enter buildings that looked inviting from outside. I must say, these University buildings, they're very big on covering courtyards with glass.
I stumbled into the ICIS building (International Centre for Integrated assessment and sustainable development). What an agreeable space the court yard is. Even in the Nieuwenhof building the common room had a glazed roof.

Last on the list was the Dominican church, now a bookstore. It is the text book remodeling project that always shows up in glossy magazines, along with the Kruisheren hotel.
We were not disappointed.
Again, a very different atmosphere going from blazing sunlight to the slightly muted atmosphere that still clings to church buildings, even though it is a shop with people bustling in and out and a cafeteria located in the choir.

I've noticed how everyone in the group tended to sink their voices to the level of a murmur. Very strange that a building can have that sort of an impact on behaviour.
I'm sure we're all very good mannered, I know a lot of people can't even be quiet even in a church that is still consecrated.
Again here was opted for the placing of a big boxy thing in the length of the nave.

It's a steel construction holding books, staircases and some little information desks. Again, this construction can be removed if the whole space of the church is needed in future.
From the platforms one can overlook the rest of the church and the murals on the ceiling. It is actually pretty busy, people going in and out all the time. Notice how some grave stones were still in place and the polished concrete floor was placed around it.

In a side chapel, where a cosy corner has been made, the rabbit Nijntje got the place of honour among the children's books.
In the place where the main altar used to be a cross shaped table has been placed. Alas, we didn't have time to get some coffee and cake (oh my how those cheese-cakes looked absolutely delicious!). Again, some lights in the chandelier didn't work and I got all upset again.

Oh, and books on architecture are to be found on the first floor.
Anyway, after this very brief trip to Maastricht, we were all very happy to have seen some examples of remodeling.
I would love to see more of these projects in Belgium, but as things stand, we're lagging behind a good 20 years or so.
There's plenty of stuff to be done here, hundreds of parochial churches are empty as we speak and hundreds more are to follow. Strange how remodeled churches are still some kind of taboo over here.
But things are slightly changing. It will take a while, hopefully not too long, or unused churches will begin to fall down of their own accord.

Remodeled church excursion to Maastricht (3)

Next up on our list was the former Kruisheren church and adjoining monastry. lt was heavily restored around 1912 and had been empty for about 20 years before being turned into a 4 star hotel. The nave and apsis now double as reception, lobby, dining area and wine cellar.

The kitchen is very clumsily located in one of the cloister wings around the inner court, and service has to make its way up all the tiny, steep, tricky steps to get to the top floor of the big boxlike construction in the middle.
Our professor called it a 'design-hotel', I'd rather call it a 'boudoir-hotel', it had that kind of Malmaison feel to it.
Which incidentally, he didn't know at all. Meh, these academics really don't get about.
Or they get really cheap hotels for digs when lecturing abroad.

Anyway, we entered through a glitzy copper funnel, which is supposed to be womb, a the side of the nave. The reception desk is to the right with a towering glass lift giving access to the rooms located on the first and second floors and the restaurant on top of the box construction in the nave.
Sunlight filtered in through the west windows and livened up the space.

We proceded first to take a look at the court yard, which was a huge contrast compared to the dark and serene tone of the interiour of the church. The court yard was (clumsily) paved with white stones and reflected so much sunshine that the eyes had to adapt for quite some time.
It was not a very welcoming or relaxing atmosphere, it could have been a real green garden. Shame. Even the permanent stone furniture lacked something.

We went back to the nave and strolled around the big boxy thing. Underneath is a dining room for private meetings that can be closed off, one wall is the wine cooling installation. In the apsis there is a bar with boudoir-like seating.

Some lights worked into the floor around the bar were broken, also a LED strip to mark the step was defective in one area. It's a force of habit, I can't help but notice these things.

The toilets were also very interesting, with one side of the cubicle in see trough glass. It has a biblical inscription on it to reassure you no one can see you do the business.
"And the eyes of them were both opened. And they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." (Gen 3:7).

To be continued...

Remodeled church excursion to Maastricht (2)

After we were turned out of the Frior Minors church in Maastricht we proceeded along the remnants of the city wall to our second remodelled
chapel at the site of the former Nieuwenhof convent. It is now used as an auditorium and part of the University College of Maastricht.
We were spoken to when we were about to enter the building.
Professor: 'There is a woman behind a counter there, she will probably want to see some legitimation.
Act as if you are students who come here every day.
Don't look at her and just keep going. Then turn right once you're inside. And hide your camera's you all look like tourists.'

We made it to the door of the chapel and then noticed the paper stuck to the door: 'Panel in progress'.
The professor opened the door as silently as possible and gestured we could go in. An inspirational mosaicked doormat said "EERBIED" (deference) as we crossed the threshold.

We had a little wait in the apsis (completed in the year Columbus discovered America; 1492). It has 5 beautiful stained glass windows. I managed to take a few pictures, the sun outside helped to light them just enough.
The nave ceiling is from 1665, which is obvious judging from the shape and style compared to the rest.
Then we heard some applause and students filed out of the building.

We had the room to ourselves and I managed to take some pictures and some of my fellow engineering-architect students commented on the construction materials used.
Then it was time to move on to yet another remodeled church.

To be continued...

Remodeled church excursion to Maastricht (1)

On Monday we visited a couple of remodelled churches in Maastricht.
Me and my five fellow students got into the professor's car and headed toward Maastricht, just across the border.
He just managed to avoid running over three cyclists before we got to the car park.
The first church, the Church of the Brothers Minor currently the provincial archive of Limburg, was closed (as I had told him before we left), but he didn't seem to believe me.

The gate was open however and we got as far as the courtyard before we got turned out.
A lady, who was smoking a cigarette, spread her arms shouting: 'No, no, you can't go in. Were closed on Mondays.'
Professor: 'But we've come all the way from Belgium with some students to visit the former church'.
Lady: 'No, sorry.'
Professor: 'Does so-and-so still work here?'
Lady: 'Yes, he does.'
Professor: 'If I would ask you to fetch him, could we then look at the church.'
Lady: 'No.'

Professor turns his back to her and speaks in loud voice: 'This is so typically Dutch. All these little rules and they sticking by them. If we were in Belgium, they would have let us in just for a quick peak inside.'
Then we proceeded to the front of the building, where they did some post-modern crazy thing. It's to remind us that the old city wall used to be there. If you spun round you could see it. Not sure what the hideous toilet was doing there.
But I suppose if you gotta go, you gotta go.
It was such a lovely day, the view down the alley with the terrasse reminded me of little pretty Aiges Mortes in the Camargue.

To be continued...

Row of food

Kitteh doesn't like the munchies very well, unless I feed them by hand or make it into some kind of game.
Sometimes I just throw them and then Mouser jumps at them as if they were mice or something.
Now I had laid them down in a row through the kitchen toward the kitteh-bowl.
Mouser fell for the old routine.
And then I got that look: 'There. Pleased now, are we?'

No points for guessing what it's supposed to be

Middle and Youngest Teen™ are here to celebrate Dr Livingstone's fiftieth this weekend.
They've finally shied away from their quit selves and turned up with a special comedy frying pan.

Hilarity ensued this morning when the suggestive eggs were on the plates and we started to set the table.
Needless to say the vegetarian Teen was not going to have Cock's Fresh with suggestive sized eggs.
Even if it had two yokes in the right place.

Enchanted with Disenchanted Night

I found a parcel in the letter box today. It was all in one piece and dry!
I had ordered Disenchanted Night. The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century by Wolfgang Schivelbush together with Neumann's Architecture of the Night.
It took quite some time to get here, but fortionatly it did not end up in a ditch somewhere as I thought a rancorous parcel delivery person might have chucked it there.
Anyway, the book is an entertaining read, and has its social contexts set down firmly, which I very much appreciate.
I also chuckled at the dedication: "[...] and with special thanks to Capers Rubin who helped so much in the de-Teutonisation of this book.".

From the Archives: An evening with Luc Tuymans

Last year, around this time I wrote a post on a talk Luc Tuymans gave at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.
Somehow the post never made it to the publishing stage. I found a draft of it, it's short and sweet and clearly indicates what kind of vitriolic mood I was in when I got home.
Here goes:

Title: Luc Tuymans in Bozar

Yesterday evening Luc Tuymans spoke at the Bozar in Brussels. Luc Tuymans speaks all the time. He loves the sound of his own voice.
But I had to fork out 6 euros just for the privilege of the Tuymans gospel.
He was late turning up of course. He probably couldn't get his massive swollen ego out the green room doors.
Anyway. Half of the audience lapped it all up. The maestro speaks. I think the other half was just as annoyed as I was.

In his own words: 'I do not like populists. I'm not a political artist. I'm not a historical painter.'
Me-me-me.

The only great thing about this evening that I was strolling around in my beloved Brussels once again.
I managed to marvel at Poelaert's Palais de Justice and be amazed at how the Royal School of Music still looks like it was bombed just the other day.