Seven Swans A-Swimming

There is an eerie calm here which, to the untrained eye, might be mistaken for a lack of arsedness.

Beneath this thin veneer of calm, swan-feet are churning. 

On my way home from work I stopped for a good few minutes to watch the swans on the lake with their seven beautiful fluffy babies.  They were protective and nonchalant in elegant swan-style, and gently but firmly saw off some curious mallards.  I imagine cygnets have quite a high survival rate because frankly, who is going to mess with a fucking swan?

But I'm not really like that.  I'm more Maria from the Abbey spluttering "SEVEN CHILDREN?"  Mind you she did get to marry Christopher Plummer, which must have eased the horror, somewhat.

Tomorrow, my friend and colleague J (one and the same person) will come to meet my landlord.  Presumably to see if he's suitable and not a serial-killer.  I don't think he's a serial-killer.  He's kept it quiet if he is.  If he passes the serial-killer test, he can have the apartment.  And whatever furniture he wants.  Frankly at this point I would give away all my worldly goods, bar a few items of clothing.

I have a longing to be in England, but I suspect it's an England that doesn't exist any more.  England is mainly the amphibian Nigel Farage at the moment, with a sprinkling of Boris, and a chaser of Rees-Mogg.  Cunts, the lot of them.  Still, I really need to go home.

Catatonic

I've been having a bit of a funny few days.  Re-homing Luna broke me a tiny bit and I went into suspension.  This was unexpected.  Most change is met with, if not resilience, then a sort of vague greyish resignation.  Letting go of a cat I was never particularly fond of has been surprisingly hard.  I have dreamed, maybe hoped, that she would walk back the 8km from Uccle and we could have a syrupy Disney reunion. 

This would actually not be ideal, as I'd then have to work out what to do with her again.  But I really fucking miss her.  She was loud, often a bit psychopathic, but she was my spiky little companion these last four years.  Often she would lay along my side, with her face as close to mine as possible, purring.  We spoke to each other.  I have no idea what she was saying.  "Take me to Uccle, you bitch," possibly.

Her new slave has sent me a photo of her curled up asleep on his lap, so I know she's fine. 

Today I am preparing to get ready for Prom for the first and likely only time in my life.  I have a sort of Grecian goddess dress in cobalt blue which nicely skims over the fat bits, and I'll wear a sparkly necklace.  Talking of dresses, has everyone got much taller suddenly?  I have to cut four inches off the bottom of this frock in order not to go arse over tit while walking.  A bunch of us are going as chaperones to the seniors but, I suspect, we are just going to eat a lot and get riotously pissed.  That's English pissed, not American. 

I will attempt to leave before midnight, not because of the risk of turning back into a scullery-maid, but because some of the late trains terminate at Delta.  Which isn't a sorority house, but a station far too far from which to stagger in evening wear.

Sheer Lunacy

Yesterday, the vet came round to give Luna a long (like 12 years) overdue  immunisation and the idea was to give her a general check-up, prior to her rehoming.  At first Luna did her appealing, slightly-slutty-with-visitors routine and even sat on the vet's lap.  You would think he might know better than to trust this.  When he tried to look at her teeth or examine her, she turned into a large,very sharp eel.

We still had to give her the shot.  I say we.  It was more him really.  After Luna drew blood from the vet (he really should have known better), I volunteered my gardening gloves.  With one glove apiece, and a large towel, we got the squirming muscular mass of claws in a corner and in two attempts, gave her about three-quarters of the shot.  "Well, as you see, she's very strong for her age," I said, after apologising for the bloodshed.

She is currently having her last troll in the garden and I'm washing out her litter tray.  If all goes to plan (all being a rather sinister drugging and then shoving her in the basket), we'll be on the move before 7pm.  As with most things at the moment, I won't believe it till it happens.  She's got about half an hour until I trick her with some cream and a cat tranquiliser.  I have my gardening gloves at the ready.  I'm going to miss her.

Fulcrum

It feels like I'm on the balancing point between doing fuck-all and actually getting something substantial done.  Sure, I've got rid of some chairs, a fridge, a wardrobe, two nesting tables, and other sundry items  But there is nothing about the apartment that says "this woman is leaving" yet.  Apart from the many dresses that have died on the end of my bed because no wardrobe.

This coming week, both my cat and my apartment could be spoken for.  I'm not going to preempt disaster by believing either of these things could actually happen.  But I have someone who seriously wants to take my cat, and someone who seriously wants to take my apartment.  It would be too much to hope that the Universe would grant me both in the same week.  Actually the Universe probably doesn't give a furry fuck.

In every conversation I have at the moment, at some point I fix people with an unholy glare and ask if they need any furniture.  The amount of furniture I still have to dispose of is terrifying.  Whenever anyone comes to buy or take something from me I ask sweetly if they need anything else.  JUST TAKE MY STUFF GODDAMNIT.

I have 73 days.  It's good.  I'm fine.

How do you solve a problem like IKEA?

After removing 22 nails from the back of the wardrobe, the rest was easy.  I say easy - all the bits are still resting in various awkward knitwear poses in my bedroom, waiting to be wiped down and taken to the garage.  22 fucking nails.  That's some kind of Swedish sadism.  I had to crack the heads off them and ease the hardboard back away.  You don't need skill for that, just terrier-like doggedness.  And a big screwdriver.

I may have a home for Luna.  I don't want to be too optimistic in case it goes tits up but by next week she could be in her new home.  I haven't told her yet.  She's a cat, she won't understand.  At some point I may have to drug her into the cat basket.  I'll think about that tomorrow, like Scarlett O'Hara.

I've been thinking about the weird things I'll miss when I no longer live in Belgium.  There are not many. 

1.  Normalement.  This doesn't mean "normally".  It means "hopefully", "probably", "well, that's what you might expect, all things being equal", or "if the Gods are willing".  It's an expression of slightly hesitant optimism rather than an explanation of what usually happens.

2. Describing time by the 24 hour clock, i.e., "I could meet you at 15."  This makes perfect sense to a European.

3. The 13th month payment.  We get two paydays in December.  Happy Christmas!

4.  Days off in the middle of the week for things like Jesus or his mum going to Heaven.

I think that's everything.  Soon, I will be voting for the first time as a Belgian national.  I have no idea what to do, but it's mandatory, so I'd better work it out.  I'll take my screwdriver.

Bearing Down

I have to start taking my wardrobe apart tonight.  That might be the most singularly boring thing I've ever written.  A chap is coming for it on Thursday and I don't trust myself to manage the demounting all in one evening.  It was a fucker to put together and no doubt it will be a reverse fucker to take apart.

I have to find some logical thing to decant my clothes into.  I suspect this will be a sophisticated system of identical cardboard boxes.  Fortunately nothing much requires ironing (even more so as I got rid of the iron).  My usual look is "got dressed in Oxfam at night", so that's OK.

If I were a hibernating bear (or an estivating one, who had got the sleep thing arse about face), or a rich person who had people do everything for her, I could wake up one day to find I was neatly in London.  There will be nothing neat about this transition.  This is going to be a big bundle of fuck.

I am tempted to just make a bonfire in the back yard and burn everything.  This is possibly against local by-laws, but I could claim insanity.  A jury of my peers, etc.

Sadness

It's been a difficult week one way and another, and today we lost a student in very tragic circumstances.  It's not my tragedy, and I feel uncomfortable saying too much about it, but in a small community such as a school, everyone is affected; everyone is drawn together by it.  Fortunately we had two empty offices today so we worked a sort of triage system for the students most in need of support.  I suspect the ripples of this event will continue for some time, and the sadness of a life ended so young will be something we all think about a lot.

I don't have anything very wise to say about it.  It's just a really awful thing, and I feel very much for the girl's family and friends.

Illusion and Delusion

You know when you absolutely pull off a blinder at work, organising single-handedly a massive European universities fair that is deemed to be a triumph, and at the end of a thirteen hour day you think "ooh maybe I am good at this and should stay"?  Well that's an illusion.  Tomorrow it will be back to relentless pooh.  I said to my boss that he could now write me an absolutely fantastic reference.

Having fed about 70 of the 100 university reps and then slung them out, with the elegance and aggression of an East-end pub landlady, I found one standing forlornly in the Chateau car park.  He looked like he might be eaten by wolves so I went over to see if he was okay.  He had already tried my patience earlier by having not asked me to order a taxi in advance and I gave him someone else's, because she had over-ordered and got herself an Uber.  Clearly someone had then nicked his taxi.

He sorted out one for himself and we walked down the dark, leafy hill together so I could let him out the electronic school gates.  We chatted amiably about Brussels.  "You have a lovely..." he began warmly, and in that moment, one felt that anything might happen.  In infinite parallel universes, indeed it might.  "...campus," he said.   Even at my advanced age, we still have the odd delusion.

Continuing Bravely

I've done some daft things in my time, but last night I didn't lock my apartment door.  In theory, it would have been possible for anyone to walk in, divest me of my shabby worldly goods, perhaps divest me personally of whatever they saw fit, and then leave.  There is a street door but that sometimes doesn't shut properly.

I think it's symptomatic of this low-level shriek of panic which accompanies me at all times.  I keep typing completely the wrong words, all the time.  The other day I was trying to remember when I got rid of my clothes-horse because I couldn't remember.  It's down in the garage with my washing drying on it.  I'm either going seriously bonkers or this is just to be expected at the uprooting of an uprooted life and the attempt to re-pot it somewhere unknown.

While I was cleaning something in my garage yesterday, the landlady turned up.  I do myself no favours because my written French isn't bad, therefore she thinks (from my emails) that I'm fluent.  She went on and on, and I interjected the odd thing.  I sort of gave up when she began talking about Churchill and De Gaulle because I have nothing worthy to say about them, in any language.

She was asking what I would be doing and where, after I left in July, and we concluded that it was tous inconnus.  Somehow it sounds a bit more exciting and adventurous in French.  Une aventure. Un nouveau chapitre, I continued bravely.

87 days.

Bean and Going

I emailed the entire school faculty and staff with a winsome picture of my cat, asking if anyone could offer her a home.  It was my very subtle way of telling them all that I'm leaving.  I guess I still have to come at least twenty conversations about why.  One teacher asked me why I was going and I barked BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND WORKING WITH YOU ANY MORE.  I think he knew I was joking.

Another colleague came and asked if I'd had any interest in my pussy yet.  I laughed so hard I think my pelvic floor fell out.

I had my exit interview today with the Director.  He has a good way of putting you at ease so that you spill beans.  I was very guarded with my beans but I dropped one or two.  The beans I spilled did not surprise him.  Which makes me wonder why, if such beans have been bandied about before, why has nothing been done to staunch this steady spillage of haricots. 

I managed to mention the lack of Evacuation Chairs in the High School too.  I didn't mean to.  It just happened.