How to put on a tile roof

 

Down the street an older house has been under renovation for a few months now, and is looking, from the outside at least, very good. They are putting on a new roof, tiled as is one local custom. and I took this photograph at that moment when you can see the finished version, as well as what's underneath.

Metal rails are extended across the roof for each row of tiles, and then the tiles are hung on the rails, and otherwise attached. Watching these four guys put the roof up, though, there was only one person 'supplying' the tiles, and custom cutting them. The three 'tile-hangers' up on the roof, only one was busy and the others were waiting for tiles, I suppose.

Cat

 
I can't confess to an overwhelming love for cats. I have mainly been a dog person, but I ave had cats before. This is Scarlet, our family cat. She is quiet, lives mainly on the second floor, takes no crap from Oscar our Korean dog, and is quietly friendly to me. Seeing her cat bottom in our bread basket, has nearly put me our freshed baked baguettes.

Clubbing...

These days the only bar I ever see
Has got lettuce and tomatoes
John Hiatt

Well, it''s not a bar, but a club, and the four of us went last night to work out. (http://www.sports-valley.be/) And it felt good, better than a drink. And I didn't listen to John Hiatt, but I did listen to Lightnin' Hopkins, Come Go With Me. It was great, and kicked off my exercise with a bang.

License Plates - If anybody cared...

For the last week or so, we haven't been able to use one of our cars (which has not been that much of a pain) because we needed to get the license plate renewed - in practical terms, that meant getting a new sticker on the plate. However, becaue we were so late getting it done, we had to get new plates. So this morning I was going to put the new plates on the car. Because the car is an American car, the holes are in the wrong places for the Belgian plates. As I tried to attach things I realized that the old plate which I still had had extra holes drilled in it. Hmmm. I have recently purchased a drill, but it was a used drill, and I've been waiting to go to Carrefour to buy new drill bits, waiting until I had the new plates so the car will be legal, or driving the car will be legal.

Now, I had been driving the car for 6 weeks with the old out of date plates on it - so I wasn't too worried about whether this was illegal or not. But once it was made an issue, I didn't want to drive the car - after all it would be illegal. Hmm. I made some compromises and with one old plate on the front of the car, and one new plate on the back of the car, I drove to Carrefour, and bought a new drill set. In the parking lot of Carrefour, I drilled holes in one plate (portable drill). I started drilling the holes in the other plate, but then I ran out of power in the drill. Urgh. Nasty words. So I drove home with the plates the same as they had been before, only one of the new plates was fully attached in the right spot. None of the Politie cars stopped me, although one appeared in my neighborhood as I was returning, and I thought, well, I can explain this, and point to the plates which I had in the car. Although I am sure it's as illegal as hell to drill holes in the plates in the first place. If anybody cared.

Entrepreneur bonus

A couple of the speakers.

Seminar "How to start your own business in Belgium?"

A few weeks ago I attended this seminar given by ING and expats.com and here's a link:
http://www.ing.be/independent.

It was interesting, useful and friendly, filled with 'foreigners' like myself, part of a government initiative to increase invest in the country, or at least it allowed for that.

There also seeemed to be a lot of support for starting up or incubating a business.

 
OK, so I published the same picture two days in a row. Not a sign of CRS. Just loved the picture so much.

This is my brother Fred and his lovely wife Kay who came for a visit two weeks ago. One midday, we went to Leuven and wandered around the church, and I grabbed this photo of the two of them in front of the beautiful City Hall. A thing of beauty in and of itself, and a wonder that it is still standing hundreds of years later. Was the appropriation of building things for a thousand years by Hitler a cue for architects to work in temporary modes, or maybe just the 20th centuries fascination with the new. New materials, new modes, new everything. Then again, Newe York as the city without history - knock down the old to put up the new. Again and again and again.

anyway, we had a nice visit, going downtown during a beer festival and the day without cars, going to Tervuren, on a very quiet Monday. Didn't get enough pictures. Kept forgetting my camera.

A Day in London

 

I was in London the other, and took a picture from someone's office of the city's sky and some rooftops.