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.

My working week became a little bit brighter with a gift from my Secret Santa from the intertubes. Even though my Secret Santa posted this box to me in November from Canada, it only just arrived on my doorstep. It was lovely to find all these tokens from Quebec, especially as Montreal it was a candidate for our new home back in 2008. The package contained many regional bookmarks, a lovely card from Santa, as well as The Shadow of the Wind, Flashman, and a local cookbook with lots of interesting family recipes. Furthermore, some delicious maple sugar, coffee candy, and hot chocolate mix to keep me company when I am curled up with these new novels.

I started Flashman on my metro trip to work this morning, and by 29 pages in I agree with his self-assessment that he is “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady.” I am looking forward to learning about military history from a very interesting perspective, as well as introducing some French-Canadian influences into my Australian-Belgian cooking repertoire.

Thank-you Santa, for sending me some exceptional literary and culinary delights.