Summer of Elsewhere

We were at a party last week and everyone was complaining about what lousy summer weather we had, and I was contradicting people, saying it wasn't that bad. Everyone thought I was delusional, and I was defending myself like crazy when it occrred to me that I thought the weather was decent because we were only rarely in Brussels.

The Hor-Tecs had a busy summer, no doot aboot it. In May we went to Bermuda and Canada. In June we came back from Canada and went to Ireland. Then we hit London and Iceland in July and went to Wales in August. We capped the whole glorious time off with a few days in Croatia in September. I have to say, my life is pretty darn sweet!

Here are some pretty random pics from the summer of elsewhere.

Here's a pic of Andyroo in Regent's Park in London, which we had to walk through every day from our hotel to get to the British Library. It was very pretty. We saw Spamalot in the West End one night. I was quite sneery at all of the Monty Python nerds eagerly singining along to the songs and reciting the "unladen swallow" bit word for word, right along with the actors. That is - cough - until the next day when Andy and I went and saw the Mamma Mia movie, and I nearly leapt out of my seat with joy when Meryl Streep led those large Greek ladies in a rousing chorus of Dancing Queen. Obviously Abba (not to mention Sound of Music, Anne of Green Gables, Dirty Dancing, North of Sixty, early Degrassi and Judging Amy -- last three are not musicals, I know, but trust me, they are embarrassing) lovers should not throw stones -- or "la vache" in this case.

We didn't spend all of our time travelling, though, and we were in Brussels for a lot of summer weekends. One day we went downtownish to celebrate the reopening of Place Flagey, which is a key traffic square in central Brussels, which has been under construction, I am not making this up, for over five years. How do Bruxellois celebrate finally having unimpeded access to a square that has made traffic a giant snarly mess for half a decade? Why they close the square to vehicles of course and have a party!

This is the square in question. Not a car to be seen. I love that modernist (Art Deco?) building behind Andy... It's designed to look like a ship and it does.

One of the bands celebrating the square's reopening. I took this picture because I was very impressed with how cool the accordionist was. Not an easy thing to look funky and interesting while wailing away on one of those puppies, but she manages. Also, the tuba dude has a definite Lenny Kravitz vibe.

We also entertained occasionally... Although, really, I'm such a poor housewife that the dinner party this night was catered exclusively by the chicken truck (chicken, ribs, potatos, green beans) and grocery store booze. I did make a salad -- a bag of lettuce, some halved cherry tomatos, a cucumber (which I PEELED, thank you very much) and some oil and vinegar.

We also went to Wales to see our friends Bruce and Sue. They were having renovations done to their house, so we went to Bruce's parents place. They live in a teeny little village, down adorable hedgerow lanes on a little farm filled with sheep. It's all too perfect and wonderful for words.

see?

Sheep!


The best part was that Bruce's parents INSISTED on doing all of the cooking, so we were presented with delicious feast after delicious feast. That fruit is from their garden , yo.

We also went and saw historical things, like this house.

...Where for once I made Andrew pose in the stupid fashion:

Bruce and Sue have two highly adorable kids, but I have manfully (womanfully) refrained from posting any pics of them up here, because I figured you'd much prefer seeing middle-agedish people instead... Ha ha.