We May Be Crepey.......

[CointreauVersial]

.....but we are still Stylish (if not Beautiful).

ruby, that sounds fab. wherabouts are you??
just back from three days in Bruges with ds2 (13). It was great fun and he was really good company. Now stuffed full of mussels and chips and chocolate.... unlike Italian idyll it was however INCREDIBLY expensive! Children have been bickering and being generally foul since my return... hey ho.

Mussels, chips and chocolate: the three major food groups

I would like to say that I have read the MrsS Effusion, as have the Inferiorettes, and we all agree it is Most Excellent. I myself am braced for yet another bloody restructure of my Great Unwritten Book, in vain hope of having succinct synopsis to present to agents along with the four chapters that also need a bloody rewrite .

Mmm re Mussels, chips and chocolate!

I am in awe of anyone who could write a whole book

Ooo! Ooo! Oldqueenie - we are off to Bruges in August, just for a couple of days. I'm very troubled to hear that it was expensive. I adore Belgian food and am planning to eat my own bodyweight in mussels.

Any tips for nice places to go? Bear in mind I will be accompanied by three rug-rats with low boredom thresholds, aged 9-12 (and DH, of course, but he goes where he's told).

Oh I am at all this holiday talk, with on/off will we/won't we move we haven't planned a thing, I am flagging crepey's, flagging....

Cremola - easiest thing to do is take a picture with you. I do find, though, that French hairdressers have very fixed ideas about what they are going to do to your hair and may take a bit of persuading! I would go to one of the bigger chains rather than a small independent (this is because I had my worst haircut ever from a small hairdresser). I am a cheapskate and have my hair done at a chain called "Tchip" which is about half the price of anywhere else.

I put in my job application and am now doing another one.

And I am ignoring all the details of Ruby's Lovely Holiday.

CV - if your rugrats get bored in Bruges, you could spend a day in Ostend, which is a short (and cheap) train ride away.

Thanks so much Mrs S. will take a picture with me. sounds a bit strange getting hair done in holiday , but it'll be my birthday and well be going out for a big family meal!

Vv impressed with your job application completion . It's such a bind to do.

Well done MrsS!
I went to Ostend about 30 yrs ago, when I went on a road hol with my French and Belgian friends, but I cant remember much about it. We also went to Chimay to test the beers

Am in Decathlon with DS buying a new rashie for DD. Well Im actually in the cafe while DS tests the road bikes out.

I was in Decathlon at 0900 this morning waiting for them to open, to get swimming caps for the DDs and friend as ours had all gone missing. It was worth it to get them out of the house and actually doing something today.

Must book Eurostar tonight.

Ostend? I thought it was just a ferry port. I did hear about somewhere on the Belgian coast with a tram....not sure where, but we will have our car so will go exploring. Belgium ain't so big.

Cremola - I voted for you in the Olympic name change competition (go crepeys!). I never bothered changing my name, as the only ones I could think of were more than 30 characters and not witty in any way.

Noooo, there is a big beach there! Or if you want fancy-schmancy, head for Knokke. And there is always Plopsaland as well.

I think the tram goes along the coast from resort to resort. Ostend is really quite nice. Less soulless than some of the other places.

Plopsaland sounds like the kind of place the DCs will enjoy very much.

MrsS, I am amazed that you got your DD's out of bed that early - mine are lounging till 11! Well, DD is, DS is up by 10 or even 9 some days!

Where was the vote, CV?

And CV you HAVE to go to Plopsaland Sounds like Smegsville or whatever the IKEA kids play bit is called!

Here you go - Plop

You can play in Willy's or Bumba's Playground.

We lost Joseph in our nativity set and replaced him with Plop. You can hardly tell the difference.

I got DDs and DD2's friend out of the house and at the pool when it opened at 1000. They returned at 1330 when they were hungry.

CV, bruges with 3 dcs those ages will be a breeze.... all the things you want to see are within very small area so very easy to get around and not too exhausting for feeble children
things we did that were good:
boat trip on canals (30 mins) v nice

climb to top of bell tower in main square (366 very steep steps, nearly killed me)

eat large quantities of mussels and frites (available pretty much everywhere)

drag children to two small but perfectly formed art museums (Groening museum and memling) to see beautiful northern renaissance paintings... the first has a fab bosch depicting the day of judgement and is gruesome enough to appeal to small people

play count the chocolate shops... ds2 took a photo of each one he saw and had 43 after 2 days

eat waffles and icecream

visit "choco-story"... the choc museum and the friet museum "from potato to chip" for a laugh

go for a walk away from the main tourist area where there is lovely peace and quiet and admire the beautiful architecture... go to minneswater (a park) which is a green oasis in otherwise very built up city

find a flea market (near canals) and browse...

does that sound enough to keep you occupied?!... or you can always get on a train to ghent....

hope you have fun!

You can also drink enough Beer to make anything bearable . Mr Inferior used to live in Brussels half the week and I remember my shagfest visits fondly (till I got up the duff, he returned to Blighty and all shagfesting visits ceased). In fact he must have lived there at the same time as MrsS, and we could all have drunk Beer together, but it was not to be.

Maybe we were sitting in the same bar at the same time, sucking on a Large Leffe, MI?

or a large glass of fabulously named hoegaarden perhaps??

or a large glass of fabulously named hoegaarden perhaps??

oops... and i haven't even been drinking...

Pronounced in the Flemish way - never was a language so aptly named!

Why can't I play with willies in plop land?
CV than you kindly for your votage. Didn't even know there was a bit TBH
Sometimes I read Belgian waffles blog and there are some interesting ideas( and hilarious descriptions) of possible child related revelry on there
Very much looking forward to my first Moules Frites in France next week.5 more sleeps

Thanks for the Bruges tips. I have actually been before, but on a pre-children romantic break to the Christmas market with DH, so suffice it to say it was a somewhat different kind of holiday.

Thanks for reminding me how much I love Hoegaarden; my BF in the early 1990s had lived in Belgium for a while and introduced me to the delights of an ice-cold Hoegaarden in a frosted glass with a big slice of lemon. Back then you couldn't get it in the UK.

I'm going to keep very quiet about Plopsaland. That website made my teeth itch.