Mr. Waffle decided to check whether there were any activities planned in Dublin for Belgian national day. Don’t laugh, Mr. Waffle and the children got free sweets and some rousing songs in the park on Norwegian national day and they’re not even Norwegian.
Of course, technically, we’re not Belgian either but, since all the children were born there, he thought that it would be nice to stay in touch. He rang the Embassy and the secretary (Flemish sounding) puzzled for a time over his query. Then, having discussed matters with the Ambassador, she came back and said that there would be activities with lots of fun for children also. A couple of days later this arrived in the post:
No it doesn’t say fun for children to me either but I was touched all the same and this evening we dressed ourselves up in our best clothes and pushed off to the Belgian Embassy. All of the excitement was in the back garden of the embassy which was huge and was, prudently, covered in army tents. After some initial unfortunate incidents (I saw the boys running wild on the grass and they nearly knocked over an eminent judge who didn’t look as though he enjoyed indulging young children – in marked contrast to all the other punters who were extraordinarily relaxed and kind) we headed down to the far end of the garden where there were some other families with young children. This was quite pleasant, the sun shone and, finally, after many years of effort, we met some Belgians.
There was beer and cheese but, alas, there were no chips. There were Leonidas chocolates. The children found out where they were coming from and attacked the caterers at source:
I suppose we’ll be back next year. Lucky old Belgians.
