Busy days

Well I seem to be having a lot of life here there and everywhere – certainly can’t complain about being bored!  After a long working week up to last Friday I had an early (4a.m.) start to what turned out to be a really great weekend away with the green job over in Belgium.  We visited Ypres and the surrounding area, and also the Menin Gate memorial, which was quite something, especially the evening memorial service.

One thing I had not expected was the impact of not having our “non smoking policy” in Belgian bars, pubs and cafes.  As an ex smoker and having got used to the smoke-free UK public venues, it really does catch in your throat – and your clothes – Yuck!  We spent the Saturday evening in a pub close to our hotel, partaking of local beer (including a cherry ale… sounds a bit dubious but trust me, very nice) and dominated the dancefloor until the early hours.

Sunday my room mate and I almost didn’t get up and out on time, no thanks to the 7a.m. alarm call from reception which came through at 7.25a.m. (bloomin’ European laid-back attitude, honestly…) so a bit of a rush but we got breakfasted and back on the bus okay.  After more stops including the Tyne Cot cemetery (the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world) we finished our tour at the Lijssenthoek Cemtery, where is buried a Staff Nurse who was killed by mortar fire while working at the dressing station there.  As medics it was good to be able to pay our respects here in particular, and some of you will know the significance of this for our guys today.

Once the tour concluded it was back off to the Chunnel (not as scary as I thought it would be!) via the hypermarché of course, to pick up some cheap wine and smelly cheese 🙂

Elsewhere in life the busy-ness continues, music lessons going well so far – re-covering some basics and improving on things like hand position in order to play more easily,  Only trouble with having lessons again is I find I have to actually schedule in practice times or I will just be too busy to get round to doing any!!!  My tutor is very realistic and forgiving about my random timetable, but I can see it wearing thin somewhat if I turn up 2 lessons in a row having to cough to no practice that week…  better get my as*e in gear.