Dressing up

Yesterday we made a return trip to the Japanese garden in Hasselt where they were celebrating Children’s Day. A local Japanophile cosplay organisation took the chance to come along and strut their stuff, dressed up as various characters from manga and anime. Not that I recognised any of them. The young lady in this photo [...]

Spat

I get onto the metro this morning to go into town. In front of me sits a woman wearing a hijab, her back to me. Opposite her sits a young man in an eggshell blue shirt, with chunky silver rings on all his fingers. It’s not clear to me whether or not they know each [...]

Moon

Last night I went into town to see a film and as I had about 45 minutes to spare beforehand and the light was still good I wandered around with my camera. Look, we’re in the centre of Brussels. There’s a handy sign: In this kind of weather there are always plenty of people out [...]

Bonjour Metro

This week the Brussels public transport network is launching a “civility” campaign, encouraging people to be nice, or at least not actively rude, to fellow passengers. As I was standing on the metro platform this morning an announcement informed us that today was “Bonjour Metro” day, and that we should all turn and say “Bonjour” [...]

Abandoned at ballet

As we entered the ballet school with our two daughters, we noticed a small (about 4 years old) girl in the regulation pink dress and tutu, lurking in the hall, crying. Obviously there for the same class as our daughters, we tried to coax her up the stairs to the class, but she refused to [...]

No-vember

The trees are all pretty much completely bare around here now (well, the deciduous ones, obviously), so I’m just in time for the obligatory “Isn’t autumn photogenic?” post. A recent family walk in a nearby park yielded plenty of “Oooh – pretty colours!” moments… as well as one “WTF?” At one point we sat under [...]

Please keep your receipt

Having met friends for lunch at our local Ikea and consumed far too many Swedish meatballs, we tottered back to the car. Baby needed feeding, so as my wife attended to his needs, I let my gaze wander around the carpark. I noticed a man fiddling with the row of trolleys, trying to get something [...]

Face rings a bell

An old lady sits opposite me on the metro. Another lady of similar age comes up to her and says that she’s been looking at her for a while, knowing full well that she knows her, but unable to remember how or from where. The first lady admits that she was thinking the same thing [...]

Spare some change?

For the purposes of this post I’m going to posit that there are three types of people: those who never give to beggars, those who always do when they can, and those who don’t do it automatically, but can be persuaded from time to time. Assuming that you belong to the third category, and I [...]

Unselfconsciousness

A few seats away on the metro sits an elderly lady with a strange fur hat perched on top of her head. She spends the journey chatting to anyone within earshot, smiling, singing, occasionally cackling like a particularly jolly witch. Some people smile back, others seem embarassed and are unsure where to look or how [...]