Lost and Found

Although every Sunday and Tuesday evening, Brussels is treasure chest of random items thrown out for the rubbish men (I have always wondered how people own enough furniture to throw out a chair or bookcase each time they come round) and Brussel's 5-storey Salvation Army store and Marché de Jeu de Balles in the Marolles are havens of the unwanted trinkets of others, the streets and people of Brussels have been kind to me of late.

Here's a little round up of all that I've got for free, à l'oeil, gratis and for nothing

• A smile from a ginger baby (I couldn't take a photo of her, I'm not that would have been ok)

•  x2 cupboard doors, found on the street near to the Prison in Saint Gilles (I don't think they were thrown out by a convict). I hope to find a window one day small enough to use them as shutters.
• x2 chairs, given for us to use to sit on whilst we ate Moroccan mint tea and puff pastry parcels with fetain at the Sunday Market at the Gare du Midi.
• x1 Noddy book, on the floor in the middle of the Place de Jeu de Balles, as they were closing up the market. I can use it to practise my French, though it always embarrassing when you don't understand a word when it's supposed to be for kids. This has to be my favourite page:

 "Did he forget to put his clothes on this morning?" asked one of the dolls mockingly. Poor Noddy.

• x1 spotty jacket
• x1 flowery shirt
• x2 balls of lambswool

 ... all given to me for free by the Rwandan volunteer at the Salvation Army shop till, who enjoyed my British accent. I also received a free talk about how I should become a Christian from another worker, who didn't have very many teeth and was wearing rubber gloves at the time. Even as I told him that I grew up in a Christian family, he pressed literature on what later turned out to be global warming and animal cruelty and encouraged me to "go and seek" if I was looking.

Given my own good fortune, I hope to do in sort and help the person whose UPS delivery note I found on the floor on the way home. If you know a certain Mr/Mrs Wizikorps (I think that's what's written up top), let them know there is a parcel waiting for them.

Ripen (ˈraɪpən) : the process of becoming more mellow.

The Brussels Farmers got busy on May 1 guerilla gardening this year's crop of sunflowers. I guess with all this month's rain, maybe we'll see some sprouting up soon! This is on Rue Les Broussard in les Marolles a few years back but who knows where they planted the seeds this time round....

Here comes the sun [flower].

http://brussels-farmer.blogspot.com/

If I am ever going to have children, I figured that I should practise keeping things alive. It seems to be going well so far: the first tomato has appeared on my tomato plant!

On a dark dark night, down a dark dark street...

If the cartoon Funnybones- based on Janet and Alan Ahlberg's books- taught me any lessons for life, this little skeleton family did not make me aware that it was dangerous to come home at night because you might be given a cat (carried inside a woolen hat, even) by two 16 year old girls.

They apparently hadn't done their market research very well, and 1am on a Sunday morning wasn't prime animal adoption time in the back streets of Brussels. Once I was presented with Luna as her only potential foster parent, I begrudgingly took her home and she had a jolly old evening frolicking in our bathroom. A slightly less jolly time was had in an old orange carton on the way to the shelter the next day. She is now hopefully prowling her way round Belgium.

Say hi from me if you see her.