Brussels, Skating and Winter

I've not been posting recently.

I've not been up to much... my social time is spent in the gym, and my onyl travels have been to Brussels and back several times. I've basically had nothing to say. I;ve been working lots and waiting for the sun to arrive so that people can start living again.

I think I've been to Brussels four times already this year..... Usually, I arrive late the night before a meeting and leave late the next day after a meeting, so I get know chance to se anything other than boring concrete European COmmission buildings.

Our plans to visit more abbeys didn;t come to much, as I;ve not had time to do the research required to find out which abbeys are further north than Brussels.

I did get the chance to wander one of the weekends and see the grand place:






I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how ornate it is.

Then I stumbled on the Manniken Pis:



I've seen it a few times, but you always forget how small it is.

One good way of getting through the winter, is to do things that you can't do in the summer..... so me and Family Bulgaria head off to the Jaap Eden outdoor ice rink:





The last time I went Ice skating, I was about 14, and I wasn't any good then. So it was no surprise that I had forgotten everything as soon as I stepped on the ice.

I got led round like a little kid, while the little kid(Obi Wan), is working on his somersaults and tricks...

The problem I appear to have is that the more steps or glides(is that the terminology) you take the faster you go. But it requires confidence in not falling on your ass to take long strides, so I am taking around a 1000 steps a minute and flying round this loop, almost falling down with every step.

I make it round twice with assistance, and then go for a seat. I was going to go to the gym this morning, but it seems that this was a good alternative. You tense every muscle from two to tit cos you are ready to fall all the time, so the sweat is dripping off me.

Now I decide to go off on my own:



This basically involve three moves. Move one, I do very apprehensively, if move two goes right I get get more confident and mess up move three.. I then nearly fall, swear loudly, take lots of little steps(getting faster) until I regain my balance and return to the explorative first step. This results in something like this:

schhhhh, schhhhh, oooops, SHIT, sch shh schh, Schhhhh Schhhhh FUCK!!!!!

And people do this for fun!

I can't steer either, so I am careering round the track, trying to avoid, children and hoping that their english isn't good enough to understand my periodic reflex swearing.

I make it round once, and stupidly decide that since I seem to have developed a rhythm(The swearing is essential), I will continue instead of trying to stop.

This is a mistake... I am still at the stage where every distraction cause me to nearly fall over. If someone speaks to me... I'm gone, if someone touches me, they'd better be ready to catch me... if I see a nice bum. I'm tripping..... Luckily, I only fall once.

The problem is that once I've fallen I have no idea how to get up. I'm like a baby Giraffe... I can get my feet and hand on the ground flat, but I have no idea how to get from there. If I move I'm gonna lose my footing.....

I kind of scrabble about and do a couple of non gracefully jumps, until I;m still again... Then I'm off.... I make it back to the cafe and have a well deserved diet coke.

I check my feet and realise I have blisters the diameter of a golf ball on the inside of each foot......

It was a fun day.....

In general at the moment, I feel like I'm waiting around for the summer to arrive. The seats are outside the bars waiting to be filled, but its too cold for anyone other than a stupid scotsman to sit on them an enjoy a Witbier...... The gym gets me through the boredom..... maybe its my lack of travel beyond benelux for 2 months.... but I can't wait for the adventures to start again. I've managed to make it almost to April without any adventures... a few nice dinners, a few good gollem sessions, but the year is still in front of me. I'm bursting full of energy and I want to expend it!!!!