Tues 10 Nov

Today I went to a Commune and registered as an ‘alien.’ I think the walking boots and brolly showed that I was definitely not Belgian. At some point in the future a police officer or two will pop round and check that I am who I say I am. All part of the process of getting a Belgian ID card which is meant to take several months. C has had all this done for her at work yesterday. No waiting for her then.

Bought my third baguette in as many days. Integration, innit.

Had a very pleasurable lunch of cheese and tomato (their tomatoes from both supermarket and street market are far tastier and less bitter than ours) on a baguette with some paprika flavoured crisps. Yup, they don’t do salt ‘n’ vinegar or cheese and onion round these parts. Nearly all their crisps are paprika flavoured. Already making a mental note of things to stock up on when I go back home. And this was all accompanied by listening to ‘You and Yours’ on Radio 4. Yes, we can get Radio 4 on longwave which is fantastic and the World Service is on there somewhere too. I am pining for 5 Live though. We hope to have the internet set up on Friday and all my friends tell me I should be able to listen to most BBC stations online. We’ll see.

Thank god I still have my stereo which can pick up LW and MW. This was given to me when I was about 11 I think by my uncle. Still works perfectly well. And unlike a digital radio, you don’t need to position it on a flat surface or move it about until you actually get the crystal clear sound you’re supposed to. And that’s meant to be progress eh?

Spent a good few minutes in the supermarket (my second home) trying to work out the differences in their types of flour. Firstly, I forgot to bring my French dictionary out with me so it was only by picking up and squeezing several bags of the stuff that I could be certain it was actually flour. Luckily, a couple had a split which made the job of finding plain white flour all that much easier.

15.16 (Belgian time) and we have blue sky and sunshine. I repeat, we have blue sky. The incessant heavy cloud and drizzle has abated for now.
C has an incredible 26 Mosquito bites. She’s starting to look like she’s got chicken pox.