Grey day

On our beloved late Opa Maarten’s birthday I was hoping to do something special.
Both Rob and Maarten had a day off and the forecast was very promising. Unfortunately our beach outing turned out to be quite disappointing.

The sky was hopeless cloudy and grey as can be and somewhat melancholy. Grey sea indistinguishable from the grey misty skies, grey wet sand, grey...

I generally don't mind bad weather but today I got literally frozen and then! also the veggie sandwich that should have been my consolation was tasteless!

Back at home I heard the dreadful news from Switzerland and I was ashamed complaining about cold weather and dirty sandwich while others are fighting for their lives.

I tend to believe that everything happens for a purpose but this belief falls to pieces at times like these.
What is the purpose of evil?
It just doesn’t make sense.

One ice cold day at the beach

Why does it always have to end like this?
And don't you even think that Maarten was uncomfortable in his completely wet clothes!
We poured water out of his boots and hurried him back to the car despite his consistent protest and effort trying to convice us that he is absolutely fine, that he is rather sweating than cold!

Brugge, Ghent, Bredene-aan-Zee

How sick can people be?
I try to understand that they don’t like the idea of moving to Angola themselves and I do respect their opinion, and OK, they may keep telling me daily how awful, that they would never go, what an horrible idea to do so.
Foist guilt upon me for taking Maarten into such a dangerous country, but please leave him out of your lament!
Why would you even kneel down to him and ask questions such as “Do you enjoy moving to different countries all the time the same way as your mom and dad do? What about your friends you leave behind? Don’t you like your current school?”
Speaking about school, Maarten loves his new teacher! He could use a little more challenge as he used to have back in California. Those two years here in the Flemish preschool were rather a step back as they only started reading and writing again this school year. That’s the difference between the American and Belgian school system and, ooh well, of course because Maarten was attending our amazing Montessori preschool in Dublin.
It's not surprising that he is again enjoying his school work so much. He is eager to read and write all the time instead of playing! Honestly, I didn’t expect him to be that brave at school considering his reckless and fidgety character but again his teacher seems to be very happy to have him in the class.
Luckily, she is joking with Maarten about his moving to Angola all the time; she would lock him in the closet to avoid his departure to protect him from being eaten by the crocodiles. Needless to say, that Maarten and the whole class enjoy the game tremendously.
Maarten, naturally, has a solution for the future. He is going to make a plane out of cardboard boxes and juf Nele and all his school friends will simply come over to visit him in Africa.


Anyway, we are obviously saying good bye to Belgium.
We had such a beautiful warm weather last week, unbelievable how lucky we were particularly because Rob could finally take some days off.
Same way like in California we are trying to catch up visiting places we still haven’t during our Flemish stay. So after 14 years we went back to Bruges and discovered again for us new hidden picturesque and romantic places and ancient streets. Even though it is only 10 minutes drive untill last Thursday we haven’t visited the beautiful historic downtown of Ghent! Shame!


Luckily Maarten had a day off from school on Friday so we could head for the beach. Right, Maarten would swim no matter the temperature but I wish I brought my swimsuit as well! It was so hot! Even the sea water was very agreeable.

Koninginnedag

Today is the Koninginnedag when most Dutch celebrate the birthday of their Queen by dressing orange and partying in the streets. I just realized that Maarten as a Dutch citizen never experienced this crazy day. He will probably never have any orange childhood memories of singing, dancing, playing instruments or reciting on the street and selling his ‘unwanted’ toys at the children’s free market.
Will that create a gap in his Dutch cultural background?
No worries.
To him this Saturday means another splashing day with his Beaver friends.
By train to Plopsaland!

Paaskamp: Isara te Nieuwpoort (9-13 April)

Kom op konijntjes wiebelen. Het is weer zo ver.


Met het grillige weer en eventueel een paar zonneschijnen door de regendruppels heen. Vieren wij op onze manier het begin van de lente.
Om ervoor te zorgen dat het zeker een succes wordt, gelieve het volgende stappenplan rustig door te nemen.

1.Doe scouts uniform aan.
2.Controleer of rood rechts hangt.
3.Doe je botinnen aan.
4.Knoop het ene uiteinde van je schoenveter met het Respectievelijke andere uiteinde.
5.Poets je tanden. Indien al gebeurd, nogmaals tandhygiene is belangrijk.
6.Zet je havik pet op.
7.Neem je rugzak of valies.
8.Zet de ene voet voor de andere en herhaal.
9.Stap op bus.
10.Start met je te amuseren.

Wie gaat er mee? We gaan naar de zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, olé, olé! 5 dagen lang hebben we plezier en wie weet gaan we naar de pier. We keren terug in de tijd, naar de Klassieke Oudheid! Ben jij een Griekse Godin, Romeinse soldaat of een echte Egyptische farao? Kom dan zo, o jo! We starten in perfect uniform, dus wees maar in vorm. Neem Griekse, Romeinse of Egyptische themakledij mee, dan ben je in orde voor een kampje aan zee!















(text en foto's door FOS de Havik)

The Westhoek Nature Reserve

"I must go down to the seas again
For the call of the running tide,
Is a wild call and a clear call
That may not be denied.




And all I ask is a windy day
With the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
And the sea-gulls crying."

~ John Masefield

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain." - Vivian Greene

After unbelievable three weeks of sun the rain and cold has returned to Flanders.
The rain doesn't bother me much, mostly then, even though sometimes it comes at inconvenient times.
Like today we got rained on several different times.
How thoughtful to pack Maarten's raingear!


Despite of the heavy rain that caught us right at the beach Maarten insisted to build a sandcastle. Why would he otherwise carry his bucket and spade all the way?! One is obliged to fulfill his promise, so he built a sandcastle in a record time as we were rushing him away from the grey, windy and very wet beach.

As we all know the Belgian weather is notoriously changeable, therefore a beach-only trip can be a real bummer, especially in this time of the year.

I wasn’t very excited to go to the coast, not only because of the bad weather forecast.
I don't mean to be rude to anyone reading this, but for me I would just skip visiting the Belgian seaside. I wouldn't bother with such un urbanized area with beaches mostly surrounded by ugly high-rise apartment buildings.

Luckily there is some nature left, such as the sand dunes south of De Panne near the French-Belgian border.

In this very south-western part of Belgium, so called Westhoek, you can still enjoy a hike on the peaceful dunes in the nature reserve, and even see some wildlife.




I didn’t have much time to admire the blooming wild hyacinths in the adjacent Calmeynbos as the sky opened up again.
This time we were lucky being just yards from our car.