Getting ready to leave

Last night it was fireworks at the British School of Brussels, out in the forest of Tervuren. It was great, and as Endeaneans know well from our street fireworks shows in Toronto, I like it when stuff gets "blowed up real good". It was a lot of fun, food and music, and we were a little late getting home, and slept in a little bit in the morning.

We continued with a later breakfast, and then had a mid-afternoon dinner of wild duck breast and bok choi with noodles, and a side dish of spicy garlic shrimp... maybe these gave me a little extra oomph for my last coaching with Peter before I leave for Canada as it was a good one. We worked quite a bit on the Brahms and the Bach again today, so I'm feeling very good about these pieces and am looking forward to see what the conductors think about them.

Tomorrow is a day of packing, plus a visit with Duncan's teacher at lunchtime to discuss his report card, which was uniformly excellent. The only thing that lagged a bit since the week off was his comportment, but it's not so bad and I'm sure it will come back up to "status Green" this coming week. Malcolm also got a good report card, and Maggie will attend his teacher meeting next week to ensure that we are on top of any potential problem areas.

Tuesday morning I have to get up pretty early to get to Antwerp on time to get my train to Amsterdam. Travelers be forewarned: KLM/Air France misrepresents their service; on their web site it says that you can buy a ticket from Brussels to Toronto, and do the Brussels-Amsterdam leg of that trip by train instead of airplane, but by "Brussels" they actually mean that you have to board the train at Antwerp! That's 60 Kilometers away! It's not even in the same province. That means leaving the house at 6h45 to get to Antwerp by 8h25, and then leave two hours to pass customs. Crazy. Next time I'm going direct Brussels to Toronto with Jet Airways.

That's it. The boys are in bed and we're going to have an early night. Let's hope each of you is having a good weekend!