FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

On Monday 9 of us went to the Abbey of Villers la Ville. I thought it was an opportunity to make a little tour with my car and eat an ice cream a very nice one somewhere. I left after lunch, stopped in a shop to buy some Nail polish.The moment I arrived, the store went dark; the power had gone out. No one knew how long it would last, and since the cash registers weren't working either, I just kept driving and drove through Waterloo Center in search of ice cream.

The ones I know, didn't exist anymore there was another shop in it. Probably a result from the Covid time. With another one it was the same, and finally I found ice in the "Lunch Garden" of the Carrefour supermarket. It was not at all what I was looking for as, 

Impossible to sit outside street works are going on in the center. I wanted to sit outside on the terrace looking at people and  and enjoy my ice cream. Instead, I sat inside and hurried home and sat on the terrace. The weather was too nice to stay inside. 

When I arrived a few were sitting there, hanging in their chairs, sleeping or stared into space. One sat in a corner and cried. I tried to cheer them up which fortunately went well, I just told them about my hunt for ice cream and the changes in Waterloo. I asked the poor crying girl why she was so sad, but she didn't know it herself. I asked her to sit with the others, which she did, and we talked about all sorts of things. Then it was time for dinner.

The next day we had a meeting with the management. Everyone was supposed to say what they had to complain about and what needed to be improved. We all sat around the round tables, and the manager asked if we had anything to complain. Nobody moved everyone just looked at me. So I took the microphone for the hard of hearing and said what needed to be improved. I personally had not much to complain, but the others ! I had made a list, because the poor manager couldn't know all these details if nobody says something. 

Most of these old ladies believe that they are in a sort of boarding school and don't dare to complain. Nobody had anything to say about the staff, they are all very friendly and very helpful, but as it is everywhere they only have two hands and there is a lack of personal. 

It continued to be very warm and as the monthly birthdays were celebrated, we decided to escape and buy a fan for Jeanine. The birthday celebrations were nice last year, because we had little shows. The first birthday I saw was with a group of country music dancers and that was very nice. Then we also had a magician and other things and then suddenly singers appeared who scratched on a guitar or banged on a badly tuned piano and sang ancient songs that would have been more suited to our grandmothers. Somehow the person who organizes the birthdays forgot that we came from the generation of Elvis Presley, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Tom Jones etc. I managed to make it through a birthday party twice but not anymore. Lots of people feel the same way. When we got back from our shopping, I asked the others "How was it ?" and got the answer "terrible" most people were asleep! Not exactly a compliment for the poor singer.

We instead, after having bought the fan were looking again for ice cream we longed for but Waterloo had changed so much, the shops had changed, impossible to find ice cream. Finally  we ended up at the Mont St. Jean Farm, which had been a military hospital for English soldiers during Napoleon's time. There we finally ate our ice cream a Dame Blanche that tasted excellent. We felt like we were on vacation. Jeanine was happy to be going out for the first time since her husband died!

It had changed very much, not the outside but the inside and was now also a lot bigger. 

 Here Jeanine enjoyed her "Dame Blanche".  We spent an excellent day.

The next day I woke up and thought I was dreaming, I heard kid's laughter and they were quite noisy. I was wondering what they were doing here in our park, but then I saw them dancing and most of our residents were sitting around them and watched. After the dances, they were running in the park. 

Around noon they lined up and went away. We were two parties, one loved the children's screaming and developed their grandmother feelings while the others had enough of children's noise and went back to their rooms and closed the windows.

When the children were gone, we sat on the terrace and waited for our lunch. I stood on Pauline's balcony and took this picture.

Hopefully the nice summer weather continues also next week ! 

 

 

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.