BuckinghamshireBoy

Yes, it may be 'artificial', yes it sometimes has problems getting a working government installed, but it also has excellent beer, awfully good friteries and great people to name just a few things, loads of other good stuff going for it. And so far the weather is 'acceptable'...

Oh yes, almost forgot as a pensioner it's an eminently affordable place to live whereas CH was not.

Annetje

Take it easy Tiger

scot47

It is simply The Spanish Netherlands under a new name, created in 1830.

Annetje

Belgium was / is so desirable that everyone wants a piece of it

GeniB

Belgium my uninitiated friends is one of the best kept 'secrets' in Europe .Many scoff. ( thinking of Jeremy Clarkson here ) but once they discover the chocolate, the best cuisine in the world, the myriad types of beer.the delectable and REAL frites with mayonnaise ,not to forget the mussels. The shopping in the beautiful city of Antwerp.The craftsmanship...Yep I am a little homesick for Antwerp. To dismiss it as 'nothing' place is to miss a real treat.

scot47

I am surprised that the inhabitants of Spain have not laid claim to their former colony.

caretaker

My sister just spent a week there and I haven't even looked at the pictures yet.

BuckinghamshireBoy

And the point of your inane posts is what in this context?

BuckinghamshireBoy

Just spent a hugely fun afternoon/early evening with Team Renovation. They came over for coffee and cake – followed by beer (boys) and rosé (girls). We worked on the plan for fixing the last two niggles – really small stuff – then moved on to the ‘home improvements plan’ for 2019.

How to hang all the curtains, mostly being the ones that we don’t currently have; the ones we brought with us are too short for downstairs big living room, so they’ll get hacked and put upstairs, also in the downstairs bedrooms, all of which have half windows.

How best to avoid having to ask the Gemeente for planning permission for converting a small chunk of lawn into a paved parking spot. Standard Belgian officialdom avoidance stuff, but better executed with someone in the know on board. The Gemeente started it anyway, on street parking is apparently frowned on. Go figure...

Loads of other small things, but TR now have a plan based on our wish list. We also discussed restaurants, we’ll invite them to one of our favourite places, and they’ll take us to one of theirs – which IQ reckons I’ve already visited…

On another practical front, we hope to have the health insurance ‘dispute’ sorted this week, which would be the last obstacle to us finally being granted ID cards.

This would be extemely useful as otherwise we’d be forced to quit Belgium - albeit for just one night - and then start the registration game all over again.

Annetje

Sounds like you're settled in the Belgian way of doing things
I'm not sure the French way of doing things would work in Belgium (Don't ask so they can't say no).
Nice you found a RT you can count on though.
I assume they comunicate in Egnlish with you ?
I am surprized how difficult it is to sort out your health insurance.
I'll it will get sorted very soon now.

In case you wonder about the weather in the South ... it's crap ...
We've had rain for the last 2 weeks, warmish but very wet. I hope something better is on it's way. Golfcourse is 1 big mud pool.

Keep up ''The good life'' and enjoy

BuckinghamshireBoy

Learning quite quickly now...

I fixed that a bit...

Yes, Ms TR speaks English, Mr TR only speaks two languages - Stabroeken and betalen.

Honestly didn't see that one coming, which is why we have had to drop back to Swiss health insurance for a couple of months, but even that is 'not good enough' for the Gemeente.

Hmm, a bit like up here, except we have coldish and very wet. Still loads of people out on our 'local' golf course though, the one on Miksebaan.

Thank you. Forgot to mention that I now have a Flemish language teacher, lessons will start later this week. Should help to reduce the embarrassing incidents like last Saturday when in a restaurant I started a sentence in Dutch/Flemish but somehow switched to German half way through...

BuckinghamshireBoy

This one goes in category classic I feel. Following on from Sunday’s meeting with the house renovation team, the electrician/plumber spent a large chunk of yesterday here sorting out issues with the heating system. It’s underfloor heating downstairs, all the circuits combined run to about 850 metres of pipe, and we also have three backup radiators for winter ‘insurance’. We knew that there was air in the system, so we’d asked for a full purge, also that he narrowed down some other anomalies.

My room has been cold ever since the heating was first turned on, we’d sort of put this down to a combination of air in the system and a long run of pipe. The lounge/diner had been tricky to balance, it’s quite a large L-shaped room, with a high ceiling in part.

Late yesterday afternoon a torrent of bad language erupted from around the master control panel, followed a few minutes later by a somewhat calmer explanation. It turns out that two of the room thermostats had been mis-mapped in the control panel, so raising the temperature on the thermostat in my room had the effect of raising the temperature in the lounge. Obviously dropping the temperature on the lounge thermostat resulted in my room becoming even colder.

Problem fixed within a few minutes, and a few chuckles exchanged over beers.

BEVS

Sounds like MrBEVS the plumber was somehow in your vicinity

Annetje

Thank goodness no mayor works to be done

I've got that here and I L.O.V.E. that system
Mine is electric so I have to anticipate the temperature in an hour time. One gets used to that though.
At this moment I survive with just the fireplace for 1 or 2 hours in the evening but colder weather on the way.

BuckinghamshireBoy

Someone once told me that's it's mandatory in 'Plumbing 101'...