Shop!

When you were little, did your mother used to walk into shops and, if there was no-one behind the counter, holler "SHOP!" ?  I think it was an accepted way of enquiring where the blithering heck the shopkeeper was, as Mrs C needs to buy four ounces of your second-best Cheddar, right now.  That or "Oooh-ooh?" over the counter.  It seems shops were mainly left unattended, in my memory, at least.  Except for Mrs Matthias in the pet shop.  She was always there, serving great slabs of fido meat in grey or pink.

So I went back to Inno.  It felt like my eyes were being bludgeoned by an entire floor of almost-extinct summer prints.  Granted, summer is probably the wrong time of year to be trying to buy a black jacket, but I thought these things were available all year like, I don't know, knickers.  Certainly in Marks and Spencer you can pick up workwear any old goddamn time.  I started to feel dizzy. 

Giving up, I went downstairs and narrowly avoided buying a Hello Kitty notebook.  In the end, a sizeable chunk of my carte cadeau went on a very very nice backpack, into which shall go my lunch, possible salsa shoes, potential swimsuit, and definite French homework. 

After that there was a fruitful detour to HEMA, after which the dizziness became quite bad.  I think it was possibly existential angst mixed with hunger.  There were an awful lot of very unhappy children being pushed around the shops, and I can't help but think there might be some nicer place to take them.  Like home.

Still no jacket.

Power On

So, am I ready?  As ever, no.

What I really need, and which is proving as elusive as the Holy Grail, is a decent jacket for work.  I have a carte cadeau for Inno (which was the wonderfully thougthful leaving gift from my workmates in England) with €75 on it.  Yesterday I braved Rue Neuve to go and check that the card was still functioning - you never know with these things.  Didn't have enough time to really look around so I'm going back today with a single purpose.  Which means I'll probably come home with a blender instead.

Currently I'm slumped in my Manpower apron (whilst nannying I was officially employed by Manpower, although under the Titres Services system not officially as a nanny because it doesn't cover childcare, though is often covertly used for it, so I was employed as a cleaning lady, hence the apron, which has never been worn for actual work), which always makes me laugh.  Easily amused.  And oddly, if I wear the apron, I do slightly more domestic stuff. 

So, important things to do today:

1. Take my final statut de la prestation to Manpower.

2.  GET JACKET.   Not blender.

3.  Select subtle but imposing oufit for tomorrow.  Clean shoes.  Perhaps use permanent marker on scuffs.

4.  Read through employer's website so I don't appear to be an ignoramus.

Swansong

The last train to Pooh Central has departed.

Today was like an episode of "This Is Your Life" in microcosm.  The Boy treated me to three sloppy and stinking poohs, and cried pitiful, huge tears as I took him up to be changed.  Rushing from the morning job, I missed my tram and walked to Montgomery in heat so oppressive it was like a gravitational force, pulling my VERY SOUL to the ground.  Ahem.  The escalator at Schuman was out.  68 steps on the hottest day of the year; fine, just watch me.  Only mildly puffed.

Sandwich, crisps, ten minutes, Ambiorix, you know the routine.

H refused to talk to me for about half an hour.  I wondered gently aloud if she was feeling sad (and silently wondered if it was due to my leaving) but she just said "Nah."  Playground.  That see-saw in this heat is like a bad dream where you are pushing something huge through treacle.  I got some lovely pics of the girls on the big slide.

Then the usual frenzy of home, yoghurt, biscuits, waffles, cherries, paddling pool.  At around 6, little C, who had been running round naked in the garden, looked very anxious and announced "ca-ca!".  Before anyone could catch it she went on the grass, amid much congratulation for letting us know first.  And picking up pooh from a lawn was how my day ended.  Well not quite.  I have champagne and fancy chocolates.

Here is a picture of A85, to whom I nodded goodbye this morning.  He didn't say much back.  I think he was choked with emotion.

Mum's The Word

32 in the shade this afternoon.  No idea what it was out of the shade - only the very insane would go there.  I managed to devise a route home with The Girls that was almost entirely in the shade - first time I've been really grateful for those hulking Commission buildings and their hulking shadows.  It took a bit longer, but avoided the Schuman Hellmouth completely, which is always a good thing.

Earlier, having a little sit in Ambiorix, contemplating my leaving in the lurch two families at the end of this week, I tried to remember what my mum did with me in the summer.  Mum worked outside the home since I was about 4, first in cleaning jobs (where she could take me, and park me in a corner and where I most certainly did not get told off for doing handstands up a flock-papered wall; spraying Pledge in my eye; or wandering off with a girl I met in the street without telling my Mum).

When I was 7 she got a job in the first of many pubs.  Memories of this period are a bit patchy, for good reason.  Things became bad at home and what I can remember feels like a bunch of random photos.  There was the distinct feeling that I was now a bit of a nuisance.  Mum took me to one pub, where I was put upstairs in the landlord's living quarters, to play with their mentally disabled 18 year old daughter, who terrified me.  This didn't seem to work out because subsequent to that I was put in what seemed to be a local foster care home, but just on a daily basis.  All I remember is being very hot, the food being very hot and not nice, and the kids being somewhat rough.

This didn't seem to work out either.  I was a bit of a delicate flower.  There is a memory of a playscheme at my school, presumably the year after.  I remember it was very hot, we were in the playground a lot, and I got my stuff nicked by Paula Tindall.  And was then threatened by her big brother.  So that didn't seem to work out.

I have a feeling that I was left with my sister a fair bit (she was pregnant) and my sister-in-law (who might also have been pregnant).  To me they seemed very grown up and always cross with me but they were, in fact, 16 and 18 respectively.

And then I can only presume I looked after myself from about age 9.   But there is no actual memory of it.

What this all shows is that my Mum was absolutely desperate to be out of the house, doing something for herself.  After five kids who could really blame her?  Also, the difficulties of childcare when there is little childcare available and no budget.

This is a photo of us all in 1962.  Before little Bro came along, obviously.

 

Summer (Not) Loving

No, it isn't lovely that it's all hot and sunny.  It really, really fucking isn't.  One tries not to poop the party about this but temperatures around 30 centigrade make me ill.  This afternoon I popped C in the paddling pool with a small parasol over us both creating the only forgiveness in a garden full of bastardy.  Then wrapped a wet pashmina round my arms.  And still I started to feel drugged, headached and sick. 

Pushing the two girls through Schuman this afternoon was as close to purgatory as one might come this side of death.  You think I exaggerate; I do not.  All that concrete and glass is highly reflective. People smiling and being brown in high heels, happy that summer has come, makes it worse because nobody likes being a freak.

If one did not know that August was on its way, there are plenty of helpful hints.  For example, the trams are now on a school holiday timetable, which means they turn up when they like.  And all the shops in Montgomery station are shut for annual jollies.  All.  So I got an overpriced bag of crisps and a warm orange juice (overpriced) from the machine.  Even Gourmet Foods, my last chance before Ambiorix, is shut.  And it was too late for Carrefour because of the tram turning up when it liked.

Sitting partially naked with all (both) the windows open, I feel slightly more human now.  However, full human-ness will not return, and bring with it my usual chortling good humour, until we are back to that lovely grey, cool, wetness which most people truly recognise as Bruxellien.

Under The Rim

You know when people say "never again"?  Well I think I have had the hangover that takes this to new and pristine levels of never again-ness.  It didn't seem like I drank a lot on Saturday.  Perhaps it was the excitement of visiting my friend, a new town, a date and a BIG FAIR.  And then we got locked out.  All this had a background theme of red wine.  A's bathroom is very white.  If you are squeamish, look away now.  When I had ejected two meals, some crisps, chocolate-covered peanuts, and about a bottle and half of red wine it was not quite so white.  It looked like a murder scene.  There is nothing quite as humbling when feeling mortally nauseous, as cleaning your own dark red ricey vomit from under the rim of a toilet.  My body felt very damaged and sicky all day yesterday and today I'm still not too clever.  NEVER. AGAIN.  I think it was the crisps.

The date was ok, but it was lovely to see A.  The locking out was quite comical as I said (jokingly) "Got your keys?" and she said yes and shut the door.  Ah.  Fortunately a spare set live with a very lovely couple on the other side of town and they came over later.

In the meantime there was the Kermis, which sprawled across the centre of town filling any available space with plunging, deathy rides.  Quite spectacular.  One of them seemed to come within about six feet of someone's balcony.  I needed to pee but the loos were shut.  A helpful Dutch lady told me with a smile "You can go in MacDonalds upstairs if you need to pee.  Or shit." .  Local radio played an oompah version of "Sex on Fire", which was brilliant.

Sunday afternoon it was summer for a bit, so we lay in the garden, A in the sun, me in the shade, putting mascara on very, very slowly.

All The Fun

Tonight I went to the Styx cinema again, this time with my friend S.  But first we ate at a little neighbourhood Italian restaurant directly across the street.  It's the kind of tiny place where the food is excellent and you get hauled into conversation with the French/Scottish family on the next table, out celebrating a birthday.  From there it was literally a minute to our seats in the cinema (effectively the upstairs of a house) where we watched When Pigs Have Wings with four other people.

And tomorrow I'm off to the Netherlands for the weekend to visit my friend A.  A date with some bloke has been shoehorned in too - he's driving up from Utrecht so it would be a shame to disappoint him.  A tells me there is a big fair this weekend, about which I'm giddily excited.

In amongst all this there is much French homework, which hopefully will get done on the train.  Hopefully.  Bon weekend, people.