a gallimaufry

a late start

Hello and a happy new year!

(Virginia Lee, clay sculpture and drawing; from her blog here)

I suppose I’ve been hibernating, in a way, these past few months. It turns out that December was quite a difficult month for me and by the time we reached the holidays all I wanted to do was hide and read. And then the transition period for Brexit ended, and there we were, me here in Belgium and my fellow countrymen in Britain, and even though I was completely prepared for it and knew what to expect, I suddenly felt excluded and rejected by my own country. Which was irrational, but there we are.

Anyway, after that massive whinge I can assure you I am feeling a lot better now. ‘What’s happening in Belgium?’ I hear you cry. Well, like everyone else we are mainly avoiding other people and most things – museums, galleries, theatres, cafés – are closed. Schools are not, although secondary schools and adult education centres are providing a mixture of online and in-school lessons. Hairdressers have just re-opened! People all across the land fluffed their grey roots and danced for joy. (Not me, as I’m a home-haircut person.) We’ve just had a verrrry cold week, which displeased the hens. We were warned by experts that icicles Can Be Dangerous. I played in the snow and never knowingly wore fewer than three pairs of socks.

(Boris Zvorykin, illustration for Snegurochka, 1925; gouache and ink; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

I’ve read a lot of good books and I will write about some of them here. I might change some things about this blog, I might not. I’ve been practising driving the car (I had about eleventy billion lessons in the summer and autumn, and now I have a special learner’s licence which means I can drive alone without my husband!!!!). The driving part is not so bad and I can now do this without turning into a trembling wreck, but I’m not terribly accurate at parking. Yet.

And I’ve gritted my teeth and got back to work on novel #2. It had been languishing since April last year. I had written a first draft, and then made a proper plan, and got halfway through a second draft when I abandoned it. Blowing the dust off it, I’ve realised that narrating it from two alternating viewpoints wasn’t working so I have been changing and planning some more and pulling out a subplot that was a bit rubbish. (A lot rubbish.) And then the wonderful Golden Egg Academy ran a series of free seminars for aspiring children’s writers over one weekend. The seminars were great: inspiring but also very practical and full of tips you could take away and put to immediate use. Judging by them, Golden Egg’s creative writing courses are extremely good and worth every penny but even so sadly beyond the gallimaufry purse at present (and anyway my writing is still very much a self-indulgence and not really a serious pursuit). So this was truly an opportunity and a boon.

I found a tiny snowdrop in our front garden this morning. That seems as good a sign as any to wriggle out of my nest of dead leaves and moss and emerge blinking into 2021.

Advent 2020

It is the beginning of Advent and, like Hayley, I am contemplating Christmas. For the past four years or so, I have always spent Christmas with my daughter at my parents’ house. (My husband mainly doesn’t care about Christmas, rousing himself occasionally to actual dislike of it, so we’d heartlessly leave him behind to keep the cats and hens and hamsters company.)

Christmas in Belgium is slightly different from Christmas in Britain, slightly – slightly – less commercial. Belgians also put up lights and decorate trees, and their Christmas markets are famous. (Although I was most disappointed by our local market for many years, which was purportedly on a ‘Charles Dickens’ theme. Yes – had Charles Dickens been a cowboy! Unless he’s also famous for novels set in the American Wild West...)

On the 5th December Sinterklaas comes, riding a white horse across the roofs and perhaps accompanied by the controversial figure of Zwarte Piet. They have travelled to Belgium from Spain on a steamboat, and they have presents for all good children. Children put out shoes and among the presents may find pepernoten, oranges and chocolate letters. (No pepernoten in our house though as everyone hates them.)

Then on Christmas Eve, families meet to exchange gifts and eat together. (This spreads out the presents, quite an advantage.) Christmas Day is for going to Mass and having a nice dinner, although there are no traditional foods, you can eat whatever you like!

This year will be different. Belgium, having messed up in the second wave even more perhaps than it messed up in the first wave, remains under tight restrictions (today all the shops have reopened, which is good news for them but also for those of us who haven’t bought any presents yet). There are no Christmas markets, no cafés and no parties. We are allowed one visitor in the house, or a gathering of four adults outdoors, over the festive season.

This means a great deal of freedom and yet also a great deal of restriction in deciding how we will celebrate Christmas this year. I enjoy finding nice presents for people but since many of them live in the UK I have to start in good time or find myself under pressure, which takes away the pleasure. Usually I send a mixture of Christmas cards and Christmas emails to friends and family, but this year I am going to make a special effort to write more cards (also, E designed a Christmas card as part of one of those drives that schools have to raise money for themselves so I have a lot of jolly cards with a Pokémon character on them – nothing says ‘Christmas’ like a Pokémon character after all – and I need to find them homes). We’ll go to Mass and eat salmon and play boardgames.

I also want to do something a little bit special, because I think it would be a shame if we spent the rest of our lives looking back and saying, ‘Do you remember that dreary Christmas in 2020?’ And so we’re going to have fire in the garden on Christmas Eve, and invite a few family members to come and sit around it. My initial plan was a massive bonfire, with possibly some wild dancing around it. But this was not greeted with enthusiasm by the rest of the family, and since our guests will all be either under ten or driving, the bacchanalian possibilities are limited. Instead, we have a rather prim-looking brazier and I am looking for good recipes for hot chocolate. If you never hear from me again, you’ll know we managed to burn the house down anyway.

(The illustrations in this post are all Victorian Christmas cards. I found them here, except for the second and most startling one, which is from here. If you enjoy murderous frogs and children in teapots, you can find more nineteenth-century strangeness at both sites...)

of face masks, cats and magic hens

Excitingly, things are changing here in lovely Belgium. This week my daughter E, clutching her two-months’ pocket money, and I went to actual shops for the first time since everything closed down. This was a careful exercise as each shop had subtly different variations on the theme of safety. How many people were permitted in the shop? Was it obligatory to carry a basket? If obligatory, did you have to disinfect the basket yourself or use one which the staff had already disinfected? Could you pay with cash? (Generally, not.) If you were paying with a card, did you have to use a little ear stick thing to tap in your PIN code?

Furthermore, although we plan to make our own face masks my husband K had bought a box of disposable ones and I had decided that this shopping trip might be a good opportunity to try out wearing one (we have to wear them on public transport and I will at some point before the end of June have to travel on the bus to school). There were instructions on the back but what sort of fool needs instructions to put on a face mask, for goodness’ sake? This sort of fool, obviously. We encountered a former student of mine who is a trained nurse. He helpfully pointed out that not only should I have pinched it over my nose but I was in fact wearing it inside out.

Wearing a face mask was irritating. Perhaps because I had put it on wrongly, it seemed to poke my right eye rather a lot. But it also changed my behaviour, I later realised. I felt surprisingly free of any urge to be friendly or chat. I did what I had to do in each shop with just enough politeness, and left. It is a little bit like when you wear sunglasses and think you’re invisible. Nobody could see the lower part of my face and whether or not I smiled, so I didn’t bother, and then I didn’t bother with much else in terms of sociable behaviour either. I felt disengaged, very separate from everyone except E. I didn’t even feel like talking to my former student, or other acquaintances we saw; there was too much to say and nothing to say and I wanted to go back home. Was it just the mask? Was it also the effect of isolating at home? Will it persist?

Home these days is a bit like a furry version of the set of Kill Bill. Nala (I didn’t choose her name) our cuddly fluffy tortoiseshell pussy-cat, has gone full psycho-killer and every sun rises on fresh corpses strewn around the kitchen. This morning was a record five. We bury the dead rats in the garden but individual graves and funerals are now a thing of the past and there’s a mass grave behind the greenhouse. I know rats are not exactly the most desirable of neighbours although I have a soft spot for them (before you think Dark Thoughts about my housekeeping skillz I should point out that our house is attached to a barn wherein our landlord keeps dozens of hay bales and the food for his chickens and donkeys in uncovered bins, total rat heaven) and if Nala doesn’t keep the numbers down then our landlord puts out poison which is a horrible death, but I can’t help feeling depressed at this wanton slaughter. (She does sometimes eat them, which at least ameliorates it a bit.)

(Nala, on patrol)

More cheerfully, we have some new hen friends. Frosty and Sparkle, the resident ladies (I didn’t choose their names either), had as good as given up laying in March. Sometimes an egg would carelessly drop out as they were strolling round, but like as not they’d tread on it. So a few weeks ago, when it was once more allowed, we acquired two pullets to keep them company: Dorothy Robin and Matilda Misty (no, nor their names). But Dorothy Robin turned out to be Not As Other Hens. Was she magic? Or was she just a supreme escapologist?

(Dorothy Robin and Matilda Misty at home)

As anyone with any chicken experience knows, introducing new hens is a fraught and upsetting time with bullying aplenty. Frosty immediately developed an intense hatred of Dorothy R and actually leapt on her (I’ve never seen that happen before). Then suddenly Dorothy was on the other side of the fence, looking surprised, among the gooseberries. How did that happen? Surely she could not have squeezed through one of the small holes in the fence?

(Frosty asks if you want some of this)

Over the next few days, Dorothy Robin kept appearing in odd places. We found her on top of the shed. We found her strolling through the potato trenches. We found her with next-door’s chickens, pretending not to know who we were. I did feel mean returning her to the run and we did separate the hens for a couple of days. On a few occasions, she took Matilda Misty with her, though Matilda didn’t like straying far from the run and would hang round the gate hoping to be let back in.

And then she just stopped. Perhaps, now that Frosty was being friendly, she felt no need to escape. Perhaps her magic powers wore off. Perhaps our alterations to the run thwarted her. But now she’s everyone’s best friend. And when the forces of evil next mass over Belgium, I think we know which little red hen will be the only one capable of defeating them.

(Dorothy Robin contemplates saving the world)

How are you all getting on? Are you reading, or not reading? Reading something different from usual? Far from getting stuck into all those demanding tomes I’d hoarded for years against some sustained reading time, I am unable to cope with anything more intellectually or emotionally demanding than selected vintage detective novels and children’s books. Worryingly, given that the Reading Week I’m organising is looming, I do not feel up to reading Sylvia Townsend Warner (she is just too disconcerting and too liable to slide a knife between your ribs for me at the moment, love her as I do). I’ve just rollicked my way through Alex Bell’s Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, and am dusting down my elderly copy of Nine Tailors. I don’t seem capable of anything creative and I am still obsessed with reading the news to an unhealthy extent. Poor E has been finding it all very difficult and won’t be going back to school this term. For her, the Harry Potter audio books have been an absolute lifeline. She’s just starting book five but I am already worrying about what else I could find for her when she finishes them. Any suggestions (she’s ten) gratefully received.

in which I don't get round to the point of the post

It’s Day – what? Ten, Eleven, Twelve? And I’ve already lost count – of self-isolation. We have rolled in jam and feathers and are learning William Byrd’s back catalogue.

I seem unable to find an emotional middle ground between inanely thinking ‘For most of us this won’t be too bad and 95 per cent are likely to recover, focus on the positives’ and catastrophising: ‘Everyone who is over sixty, has a health problem or lives in a developing country is going to DIE and I’ll never see my parents again.’

Then I go outside and the weather is so beautiful, bright spring sunshine in a porcelain blue sky and cherry blossom and wallflowers, and to my astonishment my snakeshead fritillary is thriving, and I can’t believe any of this is really happening.

Yet another part of me seems to be observing events as if I am reading a dystopian novel or watching a film. This is the moment just before apocalypse strikes, right? And this is particularly odd because I almost never read those books (Station Eleven being a notable and brilliant exception) or watch those films, yet they have seeped into my consciousness anyway.

How helpful is this? Dystopian literature gives us markers, a little certainty on our way through this increasingly strange world. And we cling to certainty, we need a guide. But perhaps it also betrays our capacity to experience; it filters what’s happening to us through art so that it’s all second-hand. And are we the heroes, who will survive, or the masses, who will succumb?

Perhaps those narratives which feature heroes struggling alone in contrast to the masses are unhelpful narratives. For this is a crisis that requires us above all to think and act for the good of others, and to see ourselves as part of society, not as loners. Let us read Middlemarch and ignore The Day of the Triffids for now.

Hm, this was going to be a post about Frances Hardinge’s fiction, but I think now I’ll save that for another time. I wish all of you continued health, continued happiness.

day 3 of self-isolating

It’s a quiet Friday here in Belgium. Last Friday, at midnight, moderate measures were put in place for social distancing: schools, restaurants and cafes closed, only certain shops to open at weekends, no large gatherings. On Wednesday, more severe measures were introduced: all shops except food shops, pharmacies, post offices and banks are to close and there are special procedures for visiting those that remain open; you can only go into work if you can remain a certain distance from your colleagues; no gatherings at all, so no more visiting friends. We can go out for walks but playgrounds are closed.

It’s Day Three of the Severe Measures. Is there any effect as yet on our household of three humans, two cats and two hens?

The hens are not visibly bothered since as long as the food keeps coming and it doesn’t rain much, they are happy.

The cats are being a bit needy and already we’ve had one illegal wee and one bird slaying.

The humans are coping well and the stockpile of three bottles of wine has hardly been touched. There has however been a noticeable decline in hair-washing and in gestures towards sartorial elegance. We are still all out of our nighties by lunchtime but I foresee the time when we cease to distinguish between day and night clothing. By contrast, the house is clean and we are even tidying – in stages – the hellhole that is my daughter’s bedroom. Perhaps I’ll also tackle the hellhole that is my study. Of course, since we can’t take any of the discarded clothes, toys and other stuff to relatives with smaller children or the charity shop, we are essentially just moving things around.

Over the next few days we’ll be testing what habits we really need and what we like to do with our time. We are extremely fortunate to be living in a time and a society which allow us a window on the world via the internet, the opportunity to contact other people through telephones and skype, entertainment from television and radio, the ability to shop remotely and have our purchases delivered. But still, I suppose that this will be a time when we learn some truths about ourselves, and explore some new habits and pastimes. It will be testing for all of us.

Similarly, the coronavirus is going to test all our societies. It’s going to test us as social beings – how much do we care about each other? – and it’s going to test the structures on which our societies are founded. Poor health services, poor employment safeguards especially for the lower-waged, poor leadership will all determine in what sort of state we emerge from this pandemic. As well as worrying over the elderly and vulnerable in our societies (and especially those I know and love), I worry for refugees, caught out as borders close, for people in developing countries who don’t have access to health-care provisions and – surprisingly – for people in two of the richest nations on earth, Britain and the United States. Take good care of yourselves, everyone! And of those around you.

hello 2020!

Happy New Year (belatedly). I hope that you all had lovely holidays. I did!

I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions because in the past I tended to make a massive list which was a complete overhaul of all my foul habits and terrible personality traits, and then after two days I’d have failed massively and would spend the rest of January, generally my least favourite time of year, feeling depressed and frustrated at what a total LOSER I was. (In addition to all my other terrible personality traits.)

However, 2020 seems rather a special moment, perhaps it’s the pleasing rhythm of the digits. It may be counter-intuitive to be cheerful when the year has begun with climate apocalypse, Australia on fire, Iraq and the US squaring off and authoritarianism on the rise around the world, and yet I am. And in this cheerful mood I have made some Resolutions! My cunning plan: to keep them small and on the vague side.

1. give more attention to a gallimaufry

I am going to find more time for this blog. Writing book reviews is very time consuming and I find mine tend to plod rather, and in any case I like the conversational aspect of blogs. So I might change what I write about a bit. (All right, this is VERY vague but I think it’s something that will evolve rather than be imposed.)

I also intend to run Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week again – watch this space!

2. read more widely

To break out of my fiction addiction I am going to read one non-fiction book, one long poem or one play a month. (At least one – I can read more.) This month I finally opened Alan Clark’s Diaries, which has been sitting shrink-wrapped on my shelves since 1994. (Alan Clark was a Tory MP who served in Mrs Thatcher’s and John Major’s governments, during which time he kept diaries which he subsequently published, I wouldn’t say they were scandalous but they did ruffle a few feathers as I recall.) I intend to post about this.

Loosely associated with this plan is a resolution to go as long as possible without buying any new books! This is actually Chris’s idea, which I have filched. (I had already bought a book when I read his post, so I am starting now BUT I am not sure I shall publicly announce when I do buy my next book because it might just be too shaming. I am a very weak person.)

3. finish my novel

I’m going to finish writing my second book (I started it in the summer holidays but have had so much work to do I’ve been unable to touch it since). Perhaps it will be better than the first one!

4. have more fun

It occurred to me that I am turning into a boring humourless middle-aged git. Oh no! Therefore, I am going to spend less time obsessively reading and ranting about politics and more time having fun. To this end I have already got drunk on fancy beer (the cats were very lucky that I couldn’t find the Marmite when I got home as I intended to smear them with it, one of my friends told me it was a flea-deterrent, though since then I’ve discovered that the cats are supposed to eat it not wear it) and bought some sheet music so I can start playing the piano again. This has got off to a good start.

What about you? Do you ever make New Year’s Resolutions – or are you already perfect? Heheh. If you’ve made any this year, what are they (or the ones you’ll publicly confess to, anyway)?

brexit: crunch time...

Yesterday, I was like this:

(John William Waterhouse, Isabella and the Pot of Basil (1907, oil on canvas); found here; this used to belong to Rod Stewart, should you be interested)

But today, I am like this:

(Marc Chagall, Final model for the wall painting at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York: The Triumph of Music (detail), 1966, tempera, gouache and collage on paper mounted on Korean paper, 109 × 91.5 cm. Private collection)

Thank all the powers that be: the EU has thrown the UK a lifeline over Brexit. Next Friday will not bring the Apocalypse.

The pressure remains on Britain to find an acceptable solution, as is entirely right. But Theresa May’s policy of scaring MPs into voting for her deal however much they disliked it has been de-fanged, the gaming is over and the imminent possibility of No Deal – in which direction I fear May was turning, perhaps I do her a disservice – has been removed.

However, do not throw away your stockpiled tins of beans and loo paper quite yet. It is now up to the British Commons to take advantage of this lifeline. If they reject May’s deal a third time next week, they must take control of the process themselves and seek compromises that are acceptable to a majority of MPs. They must develop a plan, agree to EU elections and negotiate a longer extension to Article 50. Otherwise it is No Deal or revocation – and while I would be overjoyed at revocation it can hardly be characterised as a compromise which would find the support of a majority at the moment.

Therefore, I have written to my MP begging him to support the amendment proposed by Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn, Nick Boles and other MPs, which would make it possible for MPs to take over where the government has clearly failed. This is only the first step out of the impasse but I genuinely fear that without it the future for Britain looks dire.

British readers, I urge you, if you agree with me, to write to your MP too. Here is a list of MPs’ contact details, and here is how you can find out who your MP is, if you’re not sure. Our MPs have a tough job but it’s important they know our views if they are to represent us. Now is the time to encourage them to act and to support the amendment.

the last week of brexit?

Of all the Big Dramatic Weeks we’ve had so far with Brexit, this next one may prove to be the Biggest and Most Dramatic. Although the logical action, since Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, No Deal and a Second Referendum have all been rejected, would be to revoke Article 60 as being the last option left, logic packed up her bags and departed Westminster some time ago along with her good friend common sense.

Instead, it seems almost certain that Theresa May will ask for yet another vote on her WA. Will it pass? Perhaps. Some MPs may choose certainty over further uncertainty, however little they may like the WA. The ERG, who are proving themselves yet again to be not the masterly tacticians they would have us believe, may be realising that this could be their last shot at a ‘hard’ Brexit (hence all that unconvincing waffle about Article 62 of the Vienna Convention). Theresa May is dedicating this weekend to persuading the DUP to back her – who knows what she is promising them, I dread to think. But then again, some MPs may be emboldened by the prospect of a lengthy extension (should the EU grant it) and working towards a cross-party compromise that is more widely palatable to reject the deal again. Then again, if May resigns someone even more inflexible or extreme may replace her. Aaargh! So many games being played...

Whether you are for or against Brexit, it is all pretty stressful, or at least so I find it. The stress is augmented by anger at the cynicism of some MPs, the sheer shoddiness and duplicity. Fellow Brits, how are you coping?

Apart from shouting at screens, I am spending quite a lot of time doing cross-stitch. This is an activity I never would have imagined myself doing. But I am making a cushion cover for my daughter. It is of an owl in the night-time. The design is printed on the canvas and all the wool (enough I hope!) was supplied with the kit, so it’s really so easy that even I can do it. Well, almost, I did absent-mindedly use the wrong colour at one point and have to unpick a lot of it. It seems to hit the same spot as doing a jigsaw puzzle and I find it soothing and addictive.

I am also immersed in an enormous epic fantasy novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. There was a lot of hype about this and it has a nice cover. It is also 800 pages long. When I am faced with the prospect of Nigel Farage or Jacob Rees-Mogg, I run away to another world in which there are dragons and magic and I know that the Nameless One and his cohorts will ultimately be defeated by the forces of good.

I recommend both of these to anyone in the same boat as me. Bon courage, mes amis! How are you getting on?

a Brexit rant

I don’t write about politics, despite increasingly feeling tempted to do so, because really the internet is already packed with ill-informed hot-takes on the subject and there is no overwhelming need for me to add mine to them. And I feel a little wary of writing about British politics anyway – even about the excruciatingly horrible Home Office – since I no longer live in the country. However, yesterday I was hardly able to work because of all the news coming out of London and today I find I am still incensed about the whole thing, so I’ve decided to write my piece and then perhaps I’ll delete it, perhaps I’ll post it.

A little background: as a British person living in Belgium I was always going to be inclined to support remaining in the EU but I do generally try to consider the bigger picture when voting and while I can hardly claim to have become terribly well-informed on the UK’s membership of the EU before June 2016 I did decide that while I am not the EU’s greatest fan it was simply in everyone’s best interests – especially Britain’s – to remain a member. And ideologically I prefer working with other countries to isolationism. I thought both campaigns were appalling: Leave was full of fantasy and shoddy deceptions and Remain, though less misleading, tried to intimidate voters rather than enumerate the advantages of EU membership (admittedly, here they would have had to counter years of both government and some parts of the Press blaming the EU for what were in fact domestic decisions).

When Leave won, I was very upset. Like many people, I acknowledged that, since the promise had been made to carry out the results of the referendum whatever they might be, the vote must be honoured. But also like many people, I have watched the Brexit negotiations with increasing horror. At what point do we admit that the project is a disaster? How do we say that we uphold democratic choice when that choice was clearly going to harm so many people?

I have always disliked Theresa May’s politics and I thought she was an appalling Home Secretary. Brexit was always going to be insanely difficult, but she has made very poor decisions throughout, starting with her foolish triggering of Article 50 (for which the MPs who voted for it must share some blame). Be that as it may, within the constraints she was given and those she gave herself, it’s hard to see what better deal she could have negotiated. For instance, it is not possible to leave the Customs Union and end Freedom of Movement yet still uphold the Good Friday Agreement and maintain the integrity of the Union. There has to be a border somewhere.

Brexit has really tested MPs in a way that few other recent issues have. If you believe that leaving the EU is going to be disastrous for the country but your constituents overwhelmingly voted to do so, do you vote according to your beliefs or do you represent the views of your constituents? (And vice versa, for MPs who believe that remaining would be disastrous.) This is a real dilemma which has not been helped by people bandying about words like ‘traitor’. There are MPs who have genuinely tried to do their best. And there are others who have taken no responsibility for the situation and who have bailed out while failing to offer one single practical alternative. That really sticks in my craw. The slew of resignations yesterday was particularly unedifying. Ministers cannot have been surprised by what was put before them, least of all the Brexit Secretary, and it’s hard to believe that their haste to distance themselves from May was not done without at least one eye on their future careers.

I hope that MPs will read the text carefully and understand that this is it – this is the deal available for leaving the EU. There is no other deal possible, time has run out. ‘No deal’ is unacceptable. Anyone who thinks it is not unacceptable should first go to Dover and note the space prepared for extra customs checks (hint: there is none) and then go to their nearest hospital, look patients in the eye and convince themselves that the death of that person, when medicines are delayed, is a fair price to pay.

MPs should vote on whether they think that this deal is advantageous or not. If it is not passed, then there should be a second referendum: do we leave the EU with this deal or do we remain. That result should be honoured. (Oh and all British residents in Europe, including those who have lived there longer than fifteen years, should be entitled to a vote this time.) Then ministers should actually pay attention to why many people voted to Leave – because their communities are stagnating and need change and development – and enact policies to help them. This is what I think is the best way forward – though of course, if I read that either David Davies or Dominic Raab has been chosen as prime minister in the next few days, I will be forced to conclude that everyone is an idiot after all.

casting my vote

Thanks to Brexit, last year I became a Belgian citizen. I couldn’t really envisage a situation in which I, a Brit, would be separated from my Belgian husband and child, but with the British government even then displaying an unedifying mix of incompetence and hostility I thought it best to mitigate that possibility.

Anyway, as a consequence I am now obliged to vote in Belgian elections. Voting is compulsory here, though there is a ‘blank space’ option on the ballot if you don’t care for any of the candidates. If you don’t vote and don’t have a good reason for it, like being out of the country on holiday, you can be fined. Not that this would be a problem for me, since the older I grow, the more important I realise voting is.

Today were the local and provincial elections. There are many political parties here, and they tend to govern in coalitions (I still can’t really understand why the British get in such a froth about coalition governments), but for the first few years of living here I couldn’t really tell my NVA from my CD&V. Keen to cast an informed vote I have been doing my homework over the past few weeks, avidly reading all of the leaflets dropped in our letterbox and rather hoping a candidate or two might pass by so that I could quiz them about their policies. Alas, none did.

There are 33 seats on our local council and so each party is supposed to field 33 candidates, in the unlikely event that they sweep the board. The candidates most likely to win lots of votes are placed high up on the party’s list; those who are thought to be less popular further down. For the smaller parties, I understand, it can be a bit of a scramble to find 33 candidates and sometimes the last few are people who’ve had their arms twisted by a friend or relative after a few pints one Saturday evening. And because it is a small town, people tend to vote for people they know and like.

Clutching my voting card I trotted off with K and E just before lunch to one of the local schools to vote – and not only was it the first time I cast a Belgian vote but it was the first time I had to use a computer to do so! We were first sent to Area 31, where we handed over our ID cards and voting cards and were given a plastic card and shown to a voting booth which contained a rather fearsome-looking computer. I had to push the card into the computer and then use a touch-screen to cast my votes. It was a tiny bit stressful (because computers!) but pleasing too. (I heard K calling that his computer wasn’t working, how glad I was that it wasn’t mine!) A paper slip was printed out at the end with one of those square codey things on it. I left the booth, flailed around another computer and had to be helped by a nice man who showed me what to do with the plastic card, where to scan my slip of paper and where to drop it afterwards. Then I was given back my ID card and my stamped voting card. Success!

I like to think that E regarded me with admiration but perhaps she did not.

(Sunflowers and crabapples in our front garden, nothing to do with voting but the post looked boring with no pictures)