A few old friends …

Vous me pardonnerai tous, j’en suis sur, le fait d’ecrire ce qui suit en Anglais vu que cela est la langue habituelle de mon blog!

On Saturday, we had a party for my father’s 80th birthday.  He turned 80 in July; he was actually born 2 days before Belgium celebrated its 100th birthday.  So, we are slow, and in Europe, it is impossible to organise a party in July or August as everybody is away on vacation.

We arrived early, of course.  The guest of honor knew there was something going on, for his birthday, but he had no idea who was invited or who was coming.

My sister and Michel arrived at the same time with the table decorations and food! We were going to a restaurant where we had paid dearly to be fed and my sister brings “betjes” (or snacks in local dialect).  It was good she did as we had to wait a while for the food – but that is another story.

The Wood, name of the restaurant where we were, had a late night party the night before, and they were still cleaning up as we arrived, 10 minutes before the start of the party.  You have to know our family – if you invite people for 5PM, they will arrive between 4:55 and 5:05! So we had to be ready, but before that, all we could do was wait…

I like this picture of my parents!

We had close to 60 people there,  most of them of my parent’s generation and a lot of them had know each other for over 50 years!  I had known a  lot for most of my life.  We started with a glass of Champagne and “Betjes” – the party is not sponsored by Corona Beer – that is a left over of the night before!

As usual, at a gathering such as this, you wonder why you did not do it sooner.  Everybody seemed to find some one they had not seen in years and the same is true for me.  I saw people I had met in Italy, when I was 10, and had not seen since.

My father made a wonderful speech – carefully listened to by all.

Here is a close up

Thanks to Philippe for his nice pictures …

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