While Not Working

It would have been remiss of me to visit Belgium without at least paying some attention to Belgian chocolate.  Other than eating it drizzled over waffles, that is. So I booked us afternoon  tickets at the Chocolate Museum and we headed out for separate walks in the morning. Away from the tourist strip the alleys and laneways were quiet as Belgium went about its everyday routine. Cyclists pedalled purposefully through the streets, teachers shepherded crocodiles of students on educational missions, and occasional cars rattled over cobblestones. To my amazement, full sized city buses squeezed through the streets as pedestrians and cyclists flowed around them like water.  I visited the Michelangelo statue at the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk (Our Lady Church). The building was positively stuffed with artworks from Belgian masters both ancient and modern and offered a portal into a museum with more treasures to view.  I didn't enter the portal, not because of a lack of desire: mo...

Our room in Brugge was up in the attic of Le Nid du Prince, a building once owned by Joseph the Grand Prince of Chimay. Joseph, amongst other grand princely activities,  donated the land and  developed the infrastructure to establish the Trappist Abbey of Scourmont.   The Trappist Monks started brewing beer and that was why there were two bottles of gratis Trappist beer in our fridge.  Not being a beer drinker myself, it was left to Roger to drink both of them, a sacrifice he was willing to make. Belgium was quite pedantic about how their beer was drunk: the temperature, the shape of glass, the alignment of the bottle.  Proper glasses were provided lest we (Roger) inadvertently break the rules and cause beer catastrophes. All the beer drinking took place in the evening though, so let me fill you in on the day. Fortified by a breakfast of tea and shortbread biscuits, we sallied forth on foot to explore the old town with our tourist caps firmly on our heads. There...

The announcement came over the PA system as our Elizabeth Line train glided to a halt. "We are sorry for the delay: a swan is causing trouble on the track ahead."  Forget industrial action, all it took was a swan having a hissy fit to grind London's above-ground to a halt. Tuesday was predicted to be the day most affected by strikes and industrial action woes. Londoners very sensibly took the day off, with the result that we got to sit in seats on our painless bus/train ride in to St Pancras, and before you could say "lickety-split" we were technically in France and waiting for the Eurostar to let us board. Our ride. What can I say? The Eurostar was fast and spent a lot of time underground. The seats were mildly uncomfortable and it would not be productive to make comparisons with Japan's high speed rail system. From what I could see as the French countryside zipped past at 300km/hr, the harvest was coming to an end. We had moments of maximum confusion in Br...

Our hotel was at the end of the Heathrow airport runway. Roger was in raptures, glued to Flight Radar and able to watch planes land without having to change out of his pyjamas. He would happily have stayed there all day but alas, we had buses and trains to catch. We were test-driving our route to St Pancras International Railway Station to make sure we would get there in time tomorrow. Transport For London (TfL) proudly declared multiple suspensions of service due to strike action, and cheerfully advised commuters and tourists that they best saddle up shanks' pony if they wanted to get anywhere. All the travellers flying into Heathrow promptly got on the one active line into town, clogging it up with themselve and their baggage and taking forever to get in and out of the carriages. Londoners rolled their eyes and exercised considerable patience. We caught a bus to the train station and joined all the other travellers, except we went sans bags for our practice run. Apart from ...

We left Perth in darkness, the necklace of lights along the beach front giving way to an unseen ocean under a shining full moon. At cruising altitude frost traced delicate silver patterns over the outside windows as the night stretched with us to cover the full 17 hour trip. It's a long way. Roger and I were in separate seats at opposite ends of a chock-a-block 787 Dreamliner. I was surrounded by groups of travellers chatting happily and jealously eyeing the curtains that separated us from the fairytale realms of business class.  My seat buddies and I explored the intricacies of human-rights law and underwater robotic military operations over our cardboard dinners, and then settled into our respective movies.  As the night wore on our teamwork around bladder needs was reminiscent of the three musketeers: when went one went all, thereby minimising the tedious process of everyone having to get up and move when one person needed to use the loo. Back in the trenches of Economy, Ro...