Waffles

We've had quite an adventure this half term.

A few months ago I was bemoaning how long it had been since I'd last stepped foot on German soil (a not insignificant complaint with my translation resit exam looming in January). My husband, being a man of action, challenged me to do something about it and arrange a trip for the half term holiday. So I did.

We set off at 5 on Sunday - thankfully, due to the clocks changing, it only felt like 6am, which is almost civilised in this house! - and drove through wind and rain to get to the tunnel at Folkestone. The Big Storm was only due to arrive later that day, but the driving was not a huge amount of fun even at that time in the morning. Still, we made it, safely, and were able to get on an earlier crossing than the one we'd booked, and by 10 o'clock European time we were driving through the Belgian sunshine.

When I planned the route I'd worked out that we'd be able to stop "somewhere near Brussels" for lunch, envisaging a motorway service station snack of some sort. Mr G decided that he'd far rather just go to Brussels, so we did. We had a lovely couple of hours wondering around, eating lunch and - of course - sampling waffles. It seemed rude not to.

Later in the week we saw news reports of the wind blowing people backwards along the streets of Brussels on Monday. By then, we were a long way south. Lucky, really.