Our summer

Today it happened. Autumn arrived. It was chilly but softly sunlit this morning, and misty and grim by this evening. The temperature thingy on the pharmacy said 19 degrees but I didn't believe it. Time for a bit of looking back...
We had a great summer. It started in June in the drizzle at the wonderful Chateau d'Hassonville near Marche en Famenne in the south of Belgium. Matt took me there as a (re)treat, the first half of 2010 having had me almost stretchered off to the loony bin.
The chateau is delightful, in acres of green grounds. It was first built as a hunting lodge for Louis XIV, bits were added over the years. It's now a hotel and spa, with a good restaurant (perhaps a little underwhelming for the price but redeemed by a fab wine list)

Later that month, our friends Hilary and Leon invited us for a weekend on a boat on the river Meuse, just outside Namur. It was FREEZING that weekend, so we kept ourselves warm by drinking vast quantities of beer. Then we went into the centre of Namur for the Fete de la Musique and ended up watching a gig by the hilarious Vedettes, a pop-punk band fronted by a dozen slightly washed-up looking majorettes. Some extracts from their repertoire: "Je Hais Les Adolescents (encore plus que les enfants)" - I hate adolescents (even more than children), and "Papa est Mort" with lyrics such as "who cares, he was a fascist anyway...but we didn't kill him".
Namur is cool. I even enjoyed the end of the night, being locked out of the car park in the pouring rain.

In late June we sang in a concert with our choir, the Brussels Choral Society. We sang some Boulanger, and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms to a rather small audience at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven. Next bash is 25th of November in the Bozar. See you there!

All of a sudden, July arrived and it went from mild to boiling, with weeks of 30+ temperatures and blazing sunshine. I love the heat so it was bliss for me, even though our apartment does a good impression of a greenhouse in such weather (30C outside, 32C inside!).
We spent a few days in Mouzaive, a tiny village on the Semois river near the French border. A lovely weekend with some good friends, in a renovated cottage. We swam in the river which was a bit like swimming in a tepid but muddy bath, and barbecued under the hot rain. It was gorgeous.

The National Day celebrations seemed to pass without a hitch, we did our bit to support our funny fragile country by attending the Bal National, but took no pics. Drank lots of beer though. Another encounter with the Vedettes too (do we now count as groupies?).

In August we spent a week in Scotland, here are a few pics of that:

Then returned home to this:

We rounded off the month of august with a whirlwind trip down to Burgundy to see mother-in-law's newest acquisition, a beautiful french townhouse with it's own courtyard AND TURRET. Matt really likes the turrets that Belgian architects seem to enjoy putting on all sorts of houses, he's very keen on having one ourselves one day.

 Place Colignon in Schaerbeek - turrets!

La Maison en Bourgogne

Burgundy is gorgeous. I lived there for a while when I was a student, in Dijon, and I'm looking forward to going back again soon to reacquaint myself with the area.

And now, it's back to work, back to weekly choir practice, back to the treadmill (ugh), ooh! But also back to a packed Autumn full of heritage visits, garden festivals, live music, cookery courses, cultural events, opera, and anything else we can cram in.