Well it's been a long time, long time now

Since being informed last night, by my dear, daggy fellow bf (BF standing for something else than best friend, something horrible in Flemish...) that I have been horribly late with updating my blog, I thought I would smear some vegemite on some wholemeal cruskits (how do you spell that?!) and write a quite update while Tom exercises his brain watching some Jimmy Neutron on TV.

Since the 2nd of December... I have ripened to the colour of 27, with many a fantastic gift for this little princess. On my birthday, I was nicely treated by all concerned (but sadly surprised by some friends who had first forgotten, but quickly remembered) - mum and dad calling me at 3am Australian time (when I was born - lucky they still had jetlag from their trip!), and many kisses were given at work! I was welcomed home to an apartment full of balloons and streamers (with a theme of the Belgian equivalent of the Wiggles...) and lovely quotes pasted throughout all the rooms. We then ate at Tom's parents' place where I saw my gift - his sister painted a black and white portrait of the two of us (abstract). Will post a picture of it once I take a photo. VERY impressive gift!

From the 7th until the 10th, we were in the wonderful company of the newly engaged Tim and Tash (he popped the big question the night before we arrived!) so there were many toasts to be made (and being in wine territory, this didn't seem to be a problem!). Now the two of them will leave with interesting last memories of Tom and Ingrid... Tash has a new word added to her vocab - one I am sure will make its way into the english language... Marginal (adj. To be used when referring to yourself or another who does something so 'cheap'. For example, me saying that I cannot afford a €1 bottle of wine, but wishing to stay in classy accomodation is simply marginal. (This did not happen by the way!).

This weekend has also been quite packed - spent the whole day with the extended Mattheus family in East Flanders (belated birthday lunch with Pepe and Rosa) followed by seeing the rest of the family, and a visit to Koen, Stefanie and Willem on the way home. This afternoon, it's bowling with Tom and Nita (Tom's, Natalie's and Tom's mothers' birthdays...) Am looking forward to next weekend already!


View of the pyranees from Perpignon


Playing Silly Buggers on the Mediterranean


Tom on the top of Força Real

Emmanuel

Well, thought I should update after our relatively uneventful weekend. We went to the theatre with my colleagues and their partners on Friday night, to see a show written by another one of my colleagues - a musical with 2 stars. It was actually very good, with well written music and kept the audience gripped for the entire performance - but with one slight set-back: my language skills are still not good enough to understand shows in dialect, and musical performances without subtitles. So, once again, I enjoyed myself by laughing along with the rest of the crowd, and clapping when they did (which is what old people do when they dont understand, I'm sure!). But we went out for a few drinks afterwards and had quite a good time. Thank god I had enough wine to numb my skin to the outside minus temperatures...

Saturday was shopping day (when we rolled out of bed), followed by an uneventful dinner cooking and more red. I decided to stay up and watch a bit of football with Tom, and when the time reached around 11pm, he said - ooooh, you're in for a treat - Emmanuel IV is on tonight. I had absolutely no idea what he was on about, but was about to achieve another european first: Emmanuel movies are known european soft porn 'classy' movies - in French. They are like a classy Mills and Boon for the telly. Well, I can assure you, the wine enabled me to enjoy a full 5 minutes of it before I was snoring - dont remember going to bed, but woke up not so happily to our upstairs neighbour pouring his insides into his toilet - 11 times is where i stopped counting first the tap tap tap, then the hideous coughing sounds. So Tom and I lay awake for around 2-3 hours with this entertainment. Was even considering drinking more wine or taking some pills, but laziness prevails somehow...

Tash's Ski Photos

Well here are some of the preliminary ski-vacation photos - from Tash's camera. There were a few of some lovely bruises and bums but I thought to respect the beauty of these people, they wouldnt go on my site (maybe someone elses tho...)!

Our group of 12 was such a good size - enough so that everyone pretty much knew everyone after a few reds and classy white cheese, yet we still had enough stories to keep us going for the week! As you can see, the view was breathtaking, and it sounds so cliché, but the weather was spectacular, with no hiccups at all. I guess it's finally good karma after having to put up with Belgium and the UK for so long...!

A heart of stone, A smoking gun

Well, here we are, back into the land of indoor-ness - therefore, back on the internet and watching trash on telly! We have just arrived in not-so-sunny Budapest after a pretty full-on week of snowboarding. What a fantastic holiday! We shared a chalet with 10 other people, in the most glorious surroundings of Morzine. Apparently, it's the largest skiing destination in the world. But all seriousness aside, I think most of us spent more of the week laughing rather than skiing/snowboarding! Between the bruises (we all saw Damien Radfords bum covered in shades from light pink, to brown, to purple) to two of our single-campers 'sucking lollies' in the middle of the night, to our quietest camper having a little too much fun on the last night, (while 4 people were in bed), declaring himself as 'wake-up-man' and proudly waking up some not-so-happy people, including our landlords upstairs! But the snowboarding was fun too. I gave myself 2 purple tennisballs where my knees used to be on my first day, while Tom has no damage - bugger him!
Will post some photos when I have them on CD. Until then, I think I will take a long bath in one of the hot bath houses in Budapest. Have to buy some eastern-european togs first tho....