Suburban life in the spring!

A magnificent Magnolia tree

Another sunny, lovely, spring day, so I decided to go for a bike ride. It is always good to combine 'work' with pleasure, so I decided to bike over to Wezembeek Oppem to buy tennis socks for my son. Our sport shop closed last year, and nothing new has popped up. Went through our lovely forest down to Tervuren, past the African museum and on to Wezembeek. 10 km later I spot the shop and... ouch! I had forgotten that it has turned into a fitness centre. Nothing to do but turn around.

Once back in Tervuren, I pass a bike shop, where I stop to see if they have any nice biking clothes for the summer. They did not! Anyway, asked them if there is a sport shop around. Yes, in Stockel, another suburb around 4-5 km from where I am. All right, no problem for me. On my bike I go again, turn it around and head towards Stockel.


Once there I spot the sport shop around the square, where a market took place today. Walking in to this multi sport shop, thinking there might be both socks and biking clothes, but what do I find? Nothing! Such a disappointment. A variety of 'sport' clothes but nothing really useful. Just to turn around again and head for home.

A very nice biking tour of 27 km, loverly weather, somewhat too windy, but still...spring is in the air. At least I got a look around the suburbs of Brussels. They are quite nice, and each of them is like a village in itself. The surrounding areas are quite rural. And... these days many more biking roads, which makes it more pleasant to go around.

Home Sweet Home

Back home, I was rather tired, had a quick lunch and took possession of my favourite sofa to finish my book De kallas snapphanar by Kim Hazelius. It is a non-fiction history book on the times when the southern provinces of Sweden was then Danish, and how the Swedes conquered them again. During these troubled times there were rebels or lawless people who were called 'Snapphanar'. With the times snapphanar has been given a somewhat romantic notion, a little bit like Robin Hood and others. However, there was nothing romantic about these times at all. Quite hard both for farmers and snapphanar. For many years they lived under the yoke to provide for themselves, the kings, the nobility, the soldiers and the wars. This was during the 17th century.