When In Brussels

I have been here three weeks today.  It has rained every day.  Fortunately this is my kind of weather so that's ok.  It makes everything shiny.  Tonight I was wandering across the empty Place du Jeu de Balle, because I was early for a meeting, and every single cobblestone was like patent leather.  Last time I was there was with A, who we don't talk about, walking in the crowds around the Sunday morning brocante while he walked sullenly ahead of me in a beany, but we don't talk about that.

Something I realised pretty quickly is that the Bruxellois do not, on the whole, use umbrellas.  It's almost as if they consider them a bit wet.  Even in proper heavy rain they just walk purposefully and ignore it.  I bound my head in a scarf and hoped for the best but in the end gave in and bought a rainhat.  Not one of those foldy, under-the-chin ones beloved of old dears when they've been for a shampoo and set.  This is a sort of bucket.  And as many of you may know, I do not have a hat face.  But sod it.  When pushing two children in a buggy in varying kinds of precipitation, there is no way to hold an umbrella.  So here we are.