Blue sky days on the weekend are a bit of a burden in Belgium. After our long cold grey spring, any glimpse of sunshine must be embraced wholeheartedly. The sun rose on Saturday full of warmth and promise, so we were out of the house by nine to explore a little bit more of Belgium. Everyone else in Brussels also seemed to be outdoors, soaking up the light.

We decided to visit Tournai, one of the oldest cities in Belgium. It has an excellent Belfry and is the only city here ever to be ruled by England. An hour on the train took us to the heart of this new city. As we walked towards the cathedral, we spotted a market with a great deal of activity.

Along with fresh produce, there were also birds and goats for sale. The vendors had arranged them according to cuteness. We began with old-looking geese, and as we walked along we finally reached the chicks and ducklings. Excited looking children were choosing their new pets, and the vendors popped them into cardboard boxes and tied them up with string. The children distractedly carried the boxes in one had, and we could see anxious-looking beaks poking out of the holes.

We discovered a little duckling sitting in a box by himself, occasionally bounding up to poke his beak over the edge. Adrian called him Jumpling and we were very tempted to take him home and keep him in the bath. However, we decided that Peppermint might not be so welcoming.

The belfry was constructed separately from the cathedral, and we slowly climbed up the winding staircase to the top of the tower. The top was decorated with a gilded dragon, and golden gargoyles looked over our shoulders out at the view.

We finished up with a lunch in the main square, underneath the ferris wheel and between the market stalls, and then meandered home again. A bright spring morning sucessfully celebrated.

When we first moved to Belgium, I was told that we would have to wait five weeks to have our internet installed by Telenet or Belgacom. This was simply not an option, especially as I was not working at the time. So we settled on Clearwire, because they used a wireless modem that would work instantly and that we could easily take with us when we moved. However, this has meant that for the past year we have had to put up with speeds of:

Our 12 month contract expired in January, so it was time to search for a faster internet providor. Strangely enough, the cheapest option turned out to be Belgacom, as they were offering an introductory 10 euro/month deal with a free modem. Now we have a much faster connection – a tv show from iTunes now takes 3 minutes to download, rather than 3 hours.

This has been a welcome improvement.

July 2007:
Got married to Adrian in Canada.

Nov 2007:
Adrian claims UK citizenship by descent, thus I become married to an EU citizen.

Sept 2008:
Decide to move to Belgium.

Dec 2008:
Submit our Canadian marriage certificate to the Canadian High Commission in Australia for legalisation.

Feb 2009:
Present ourselves to the Leuven Town Hall.
Discover that the marriage certificate actually needs to be certified by the Belgian Embassy in Canada.
A friend retrieves the certificate from Canberra and posts it to Canada.

March 2009:
Receive my legalised marriage certificate.

Bring my legalised marriage certificate, passport, and rental contract to the Leuven Town hall to initiate my request for residency.
The police verify my address.

April 2009:
I am granted a five-month temporary residency and work permit until August.

July 2009:
We move house, and present ourselves to the Saint Gilles Town Hall. The police will have to verify our address before they can acknowledge our residency.

September 2009:
The police come to our apartment and go through our wardrobe to ensure our marriage is legitimate. Apparently this is quite normal in Brussels.

October 2009:
I receive an appointment at the Saint Gilles Town Hall. I present proof that we are living in Saint-Gilles. They take my temporary work permit, and tell me I will receive the codes to activate my 5-year permit in 15-21 days.

November 2009:
I go to the Town Hall to inform them the codes have not arrived in the post, and request new codes.

January 2010:
We inform the Town Hall that the codes have still not arrived.

February 2009:
I receive a letter from the Town Hall informing me that my codes have arrived.

I go to the Town Hall, and I am given a ticket to return the next morning at 8am.
I return the next morning, and I am told to return the following morning at 8am.
I return the next morning, and I am presented with my very own “carte de sejour de membre de la famille d’un citoyen d l’Union”.

October 2014:
I become eligible for Belgian citizenship if I demonstrate sufficiency in one of their official languages.

Last week I had my first Intermediate French test. It was very difficult – we were tested future and past tenses, negations, propositions, and the use of him/her/them/there/it/… (le/la/les/y/lui/leur/en). So many of the conjugations are irregular, and my vocabulary is very small. I only got 59% on the test, but I am actually quite proud that I passed it at all.

My ear is starting to really improve, I can pick out words that I recognise more easily, and now I can have a basic conversation with someone – as long as it is about kittens, food, or travel. I move onto Intermediate 2B next week, and I really need to lift my game. In order to keep up with the pace of the class, I need to learn new words every single day.

Unlike the organic English language, French language has a group of Les Immortels at the Académie française to determine the correct name and gender of all new words, and to regulate the usage of old ones. Over the years, these have been some of their rulings:

Je céderai (I will give up) will now be spelled Je cèderai
Elle considérerait (She would consider) will now be spelled Elle considèrerait
Ils interpréteront (They will interpret) will now be spelled Ils interprèteront
Crémerie (Cheese shop) will now be spelled Crèmerie
Pedigree will now be spelled Pédigrée
Revolver will now be spelled Révolver

They are even changing the spelling of August, in their war on d’accent circonflexe, and thus août will now be spelled aout. Furthermore,
bûcher (stake) will now be spelled bucher
Elle connaît (She knows) will now be spelled Elle connait

Even the beloved Île de la Cité and the Île St-Louis in Paris should properly be known as IIe de la Cité and the Ile St-Louis.

C’est la vie.