le petit Julien

7 August 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
On our way to this little sculpture I was wondering about all this focus on a little boy urinating in signs all over the place - including this shop, photographed over the top of Frank's head. The official website link from Wikipedia has an interesting introduction and there is another link giving a 360 degree scan of the site.

Mysterious little something with a big reputation

7 August 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
Whilst in Brussels that first day, after getting off the train from Amsterdam and meeting Frank and Sue Fesche, we were taken to a mystery location that had a big reputation. Well we were warned, you almost couldn't see it for all the visitors lining up to get their photographs taken in front of this little sculpture.

Grand-Place of Brussels

7 August 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
Across the square from the previous photograph, with the shadow of that building falling on this one.

Grand-Place of Brussels

7 August 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
With attention focused on the Grand-Place of Brussels with the photos sent of the Floral Carpet event of 2008, had me looking again at my photos of the square and the detail in the buildings. As Frank Fesche pointed out, even the high up stone carvings are intricately detailed, although it is unlikely that the person at the street level would be able to see those carvings. Each column has its own story and there are some quite macarbe scenes.

Grand-Place of Brussels

7 August 2008 in Brussels, Belgium
From that aerial view of the Grand-Place of Brussels, in the top right corner was where we were with Frank and Sue on Thursday 7 August, after we had traveled by train from Amsterdam. This was our chance to visit with Frank and Sue when they both had rostered time off. Could we organise ourselves to be there in 2010 to avoid comments from various people who commented along the lines, "wow that is pretty, a shame you guys missed it"
We were also impressed with the effort made to 'screen decoratively' the scaffolding for renovations - see top picture.

Brussels In Bloom

I was sent this email with various photos of Brussels in bloom with the comment, "Wish my garden was this colourful - with my green fingers the ones right in the middle would die before I finished the outside.!!
I IMAGINE THAT THEY WOULD BE PRAYING FOR NO WIND"
I realised we had been there with Frank and Sue Fesche, just the week before. I can vaguely recall Sue telling us about this great event. As Sue later said, "Frank and I missed 2000 and 2008 but have seen 2002, 2004, and 2006. Sue". Sue also pointed us to the relevant website
Sadly this link no longer works

Bike ride in the country

Friday 5 September 2008 in Massey, Auckland
Out riding my bike in the country around Kumeu (in the rain) I stopped for this mother duck taking her brood across the road. There were so many little ones I couldn't count the moving mass, maybe 10 ducklings. Mother Duck turned to me with a serious "leave my fluffy ducklings alone" look - which reminded me of this duck chasing away other ducks from her sleeping brood on the bank at Bosepark in Tempelhof, Berlin.
For other Blog postings since we returned, see the associated Blog Ray and Barb in New Zealand