Himself and His Women and the Flowers ...

This morning, we were first up and active here in the big old house in the country ... as is mostly the case but I decided I would try releasing the hens and their rooster.

It's a process.  You find all the scraps from the previous day, add some dry bread, find the big stick and then venture forth.  You walk the course to their water trough, and drop the bulk of the food there, then wander back to the big door and prepare yourself ... not unlike the prep required for an Olympic 100m dash.

I threw the door open and took off ... sprinkling bread as I ran.  Laughing because, for-goodness-sake, they're just little creatures.

I looked behind me, the little brown hen, nicknamed Curious Chicken, was right there on my heels but the others were nicely distracted by all kinds of things.  I may have thrown the food container aside as I sprinted.  They recognised it.

Gert and Momo, the dog who protects all his humans, stood up near the outdoor dining table ... I believe they were both laughing too.

Mission accomplished, I returned to the table and we sat there a while to watch them ... as you do.

I noticed a little black hen climb into the sweetpeas. She didn't come out.  I pointed it out, suggesting we might have solved the mystery of the rest of the missing eggs.  We waited until she came out then found the big stick, called Momo ... was distracted an attack of the giggles as he played sillymomodog around my feet ... then set out.

Hot on the heels of Sabine discovering 7 missing eggs at the base of the Livingstone Daisy last night, we struck paydirt again this morning.  ELEVEN eggs had been laid at the base of my beloved Sweetpeas.

I must say, the hens have good taste.  The Livingstones and the Sweetpeas would have to be two of my favourite flowers.

In the space of 12 hours we have gone from the bizarre situation of hens and no eggs to hens and 18 eggs, just in time for the big happy family returning from France.

Anyway, meet Himself and his Women.

 

The Waterloo Market, Belgium

Gert and I have twice enjoyed one of the Europe's top 10 markets ... the Waterloo Market, in recent days.  We first heard of it via BBC's Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is and loved the idea that we could rummage around, with the possibility of finding both genuine antiques and quirky collectables there.  As a New Zealander, from a country young in collectable material history, I loved the age of everything ... and the European flavour too.

The market is held every Sunday, in the carpark of the Carrefour supermarket in Waterloo.  There are so many small stalls that it took us 3 hours walking to explore them all today.   Last weekend, unprepared for the heat and having left the house without breakfast, we gave up our exploration as heat exhaustion set in.

This Sunday we were ready.  A good breakfast, sunhats, a bottle of water, comfortable shoes ... no worries, mate.  We were off and wandering with relaxed intent.

And I came home with a few small treasures.  I couldn't afford the beautiful 19th century travel writing desk at 40euro, nor could I justify the darling old 1960s opera binocular glasses 10euro, or the exquisitely-shaped whisky hip flask but ... I did buy a pipe-rack for 7 euro.  The quote on it will make a pipe-collector of me.  And I picked up my first, a clay-pipe, for 3euro.

But it was the little blue leather coin purse pictured below, by Neiman Marcus, that I loved best.  The woman gave it to me for 1euro when she saw I only had a 20euro note.  I wasn't even haggling because she had only wanted 3euro total. 

It works like a pelican's beak perhaps.  The silk-lined leather pouch expands as you fill it with coins.  I love it.

Parking isn't usually a problem, there are clean toilets in the Carrefour complex, and there is a range of places to eat.  The market itself is laid out in an easy to explore grid too - so we backtracked to a couple of retailers, just in case the traveling writing desk became justifiable  ... 

Highly recommended.

 

1,100kms, a fire and a trans-Tasman Meeting

Last night, I realised that I had driven to Frankfurt in Germany and back without any form of ID on me.  The German police would not have been impressed had they checked ...

You can go to jail for 12 hours in Belgium, if you're caught like that here, although they let me off the one time that was discovered.

Anyway, this was how that massive day ended ... 3 Aussies, a kiwi and a Belgian, sitting round a big old outside fire, chatting. 

A post about why I shouldn't impulsively cook for vegetarians ...

Tonight, laughing some, my Rwandan friend and I decided to try and cook dinner for the vegetarians sharing this big old house with us ...

You need to know that she had been studying and I had been working all day long ... that we're not vegetarians, that we have a ton of zucchinis and eggs that need eaten and well ... yes, these are disclaimers.

So I found a recipe that seemed like a rather delightful zucchini patty, using eggs too... as a bonus.  The hens are all laying.  There is this constant egg avalanche going down here. 

We didn't take the excessive watery nature of the zucchini into account and ... the recipe didn't mention it either.  So we grated zucchini, broke eggs, realised we were going have to take a hit because we didn't have baking powder in the house, chopped onions, smushed garlic, added chilli (to their batch) and cumin. 

And I whipped up the little cherry tomato and feta cheese salad thingy that appears, quite oddly, in the middle of the recipe. 

I can't even think of tonight's zucchini fritters without giggling.  The excess of water made it seem like we'd added cheese AND as I cooked them, I had another of those 'recovered memories' of cooking in a previous life ... in a previous marriage ... in another country.  I remembered that I used to squeeze the excess liquid out of the potatoes when making potato fritters, or pre-cook them ... never mind.

The vegetarians, the charming Aussie bloke from Melbourne and the lovely woman from Long Island, soldiered on and took second helpings. 

I quickly wandered off and made a 'ohmygodi'msorryhere'sapavlova' dessert and all is good, here in this Wallonian world, that region where we completely lost touch with anything resembling summer.  Tonight the house smells of woodsmoke and food.  We had to bow to the weather gods and light the fire.

But last night's dinner ... now that is worth posting a photograph.  This is what happens when a vegetarian cooks vegetarian food.  It was stunningly  good.

The Belgian Summer ...

It's not happening this year ...the rain keeps returning, the grey skies reappear again and again.

We've had glimpses of a glorious summer but no, it disappears and is replaced by weather so foul that you forget that you had those warm and promising days.

On the bright side, the garden continues to thrive. The rhubarb, back home, has been prolific.  Here in Wallonia, the zucchinis are going crazy too.  We fight our way through a reasonably abundant supply of fresh tomatoes and beans.  The hens are all laying, so we 4 are dreaming up things to cook with those eggs. 

Peach clafoutis and pavlova are at the top of the list, quiche too.

I  have set up a work station at the dining room table, here in the light-filled kitchen, keeping company/kept company by the lovely Rwandan woman studying for her examinations.  I think we have given up on summer.  She mistook this morning's drizzle for snow. That it didn't seem impossible probably tells you how we feel about summer these days.

Anyway, here's a glimpse of the house where I'm staying ... just a corner for now.  I have to work out how to photograph it, in all its hugeness, and I need to learn the story of it more precisely.  There is a Nobel prize winner involved in its history ...