Frosty weekend in Belgium; firewood delivery; eclipse; Duncan on the mend

last of the old firewood sawn up

  

bright and clear and frosty for the ball throw game

cats liking the woodstove

(the boy is not visible but he's lying behind the stove for maximum heat)

Duncan was home sick on Wednesday afternoon, with fever and chills, and so he pretty much stayed in bed until Sunday.  His fever broke late on Friday/early Saturday, and today he's well enough to bundle up and attend class.  I'll make sure there is something warm and nourishing for him to eat tonight.  So far we are lucky in that no one else has caught it, but the handwashing protocol remains in effect, and we are hoping that the rest of us will dodge the bullet.

On Friday night we met Bryan and Kiana at Lawrence and Tiffany's place to meet their new dog.  Westley is a Keeshond, which is a dutch breed used historically as a guard dog on barges in the Netherlands.

little Westley

He is only a couple of months old and so is still quite wee, but is quite calm and attentive.  He probably will grow to maybe 15-20 kg.  I think Yoshi is probably around 18kg, or 40 pounds or so, so they might end up to be around the same size.

After meeting Westley we piled into the Hammer's van and went to a nice dinner out at La Damison, a restaurant in Piètrain not far from the Edwards' house.  It was quite unusual for all six of us to go out to a fine restaurant; frequently when we dine together we are at one or another's home, and there is lots of cooking involved, so while I am not so much a fan of restaurants it was really quite nice to just sit and have a conversation and not have to worry about the menu or the cooking or the cleanup.

After dinner we drove back to the Edwards' house and played a few hands of Chameleon.  This is a really simple game, but one that is a lot of fun, with elements of wordplay, deception, bluffing, and voting.

If you've ever played the games like Fictionary, Balderdash, or SlangTeasers, you'll know that in these games a word is chosen, and then the the players write their understanding of the dictionary definition of that word.  One person writes down the actual definition from the dictionary, and then there are votes to choose the right definition.  There is sometimes an element of bluffing as well.

In Chameleon, a topic card is chosen - for example "Fictional Characters" as shown above.  This card has a grid with sixteen different characters.  Then each player but one is dealt an identical code card, so that all the legitimate players know which of the sixteen squares on that grid players will hold the specific word for the round.  The one standout player is not dealt a code card, however; they get the chameleon card.

The dice are rolled to choose the topic word; for example if using our "Fictional Characters" topic card, the word might be "Mary Poppins".  Everyone in the game except the chameleon has a code card, so they know the specific word, but the chameleon only knows that it's one of the sixteen characters on the card.  The point of the game is for each person to come up with a word that signifies "Mary Poppins"; it should be clear, but not so clear that it gives away the word to the chameleon.  The chameleon tries to come up with a word that sounds plausible but they have very little to go on, and have to try to pick a word that follows the general trend of the others.  Then everyone votes on who they think the chameleon is, and there is a lot of back and forth discussion.  In this way it's a lot like the card game Where-wolf, where the chief pleasure is in the arguing about who is or isn't the wherewolf.  We had a great time playing Chameleon together, and I would highly recommend the game.

Early on Saturday morning we were awakened by the wood delivery guy, who was over an hour early.  I wish that I had had the presence of mind to take a photo of the huge truck with a probably 20m3 dumping container on it, but as he dumped the load of wood on the sidewalk and partially on the roadway in front of our house and Christophe's, we had to frantically work to get the split logs off the road and to clear a path for pedestrians before the police gave us a ticket for blocking the sidewalk or the road.  It was good that it was a weekend and fairly early too.  We managed to divide the wood into two piles and move the logs into each driveway while the traffic was still pretty light.

In the afternoon Maggie and I moved our five stère or cubic metres of wood into our basement, and then on Sunday afternoon after church we helped Christophe and Isabelle do the same with theirs, with some help from Malcolm.  Now I really think we are well supplied for quite some time.

With the temperatures down well below zero for the first time this winter we are appreciating the wood heat.  Belgium doesn't get the same low temperatures as Canada but it sometimes feels colder than you would expect because the air is damp from the moisture from the sea.  Also I was happy when looking at the roof tiles from the garden; the frost is thicker on our roof than on those of our neighbours, so I think that the insulation job I did is making a difference.  It is still only partially complete, so when I can get the last edges and corners foamed up and sealed that will improve the insulation level even more.

I have been running a little less because it has been so cold, but instead I have been throwing the ball for Yoshi regularly, and I did get out for a run on Saturday, and got in over 6km at a respectably fast 5:47 minutes/km, so I am hopeful that I'll be able to take on some longer distances soon.  I try to alternate between maybe 8km and 15km, and hope as the spring progresses to extend that to the odd 20km run.

The International Bach Festival people wrote me today asking for my passport information for the flight to Gran Canaria in April.  It looks like I'll be there from the 15th to the 19th April.  Since that corresponds with the first week of Easter vacation, I have requested that the hotel accommodation be double occupancy, and am looking into another flight ticket so that Maggie can join me.  I can see flights for around 200 EUR return, so that will be nice, especially since on April 25th I will have to fly again, to Canada.  It won't be hot in the Canary Islands then; the temperature is usually in the 12-18 degree range in mid-April, but it will be a mini-vacation for the two of us.

Early this morning we were up before 6:00 to see the eclipse.  It was visible out the back windows of the house, and was quite dramatic, with the totality peak at around 6:15.  I don't own a telephoto lens, but one of Maggie's colleagues took some photographs from his backyard in Waterloo...