Wendy&Fredrik's adventure at the Belgian Coast

Thursday 12 august

As we could not afford holidays in Italy, or a city trip in London, we decided atleast to go at the sea for one day. The meteo wasn’t so promising, but Thursday was the only day without much rain (as they said), so we couldn’t miss it!
We left the house reasonably early, or well, not too late, with our two Nakamura. We rode fast as we had only 30 min to arrive to the Braine l’Alleud railroad station and get the train for Ostende. Once arrived, we fold our bikes, slip them in our gigantic bags, and sat in the hall, as there was obviously – sunny day during the holidays - not a single seat free.
We arrived at Ostende at 12h. The weather was nice. The city, an old fashioned bath station from the 19th century, was full of life. There was a festival or a party of some kind by the gothik and dark cathedral, and a lot of people in holidays enjoying the harbour, or the commercial street.
We ride fastly to the sea. On the “Albert promenade”, we immediately targeted the shop were we would buy our sandwich and our “crème glacée artisanale”. Yumm Yumm : Pistache-Cookie for Fredrik, Pecan – Nougat –Tiramisu for Wendy. We ate our ice-cream facing the sea. It’s always pleasant to watch the horizon, it appease and open the mind.


It was windy and a bit cloudy, but we didn’t had made all this way to not plunge in the water. So we agreed that despite the too chilly temperature for our taste, it was important to get a bath in the brownish water of the North Sea. It’s then that Wendy noticed that she forgot to take the swimming clothes she had prepared the morning.
We hesitated…If Fredrik boxer could barely be taken for a swimming pant; Wendy’s underwear didn’t allow the confusion at all. It was so silly and so sad to go to the sea and not taste the salty water! After a long moment of hard thoughts, Wendy decided to hide herself in a beach parero she hadn’t forgot, and to swim like that. Fredrik toke one of the two towels and his teeshirt that he let on the shore a little bit further.

Splish splashhhh !!! Water was good, and refreshing. There were a lot of waves and it was so damn fun to swim and jump in the sea. There is a simple joy in this which fill up with happiness. Jumping in the waves together, that’s how life should be!

But then Fredrik realised that the tide was growing and that…Where was his teeshirt and the towel !!!!! This really broke out the fun for the three minute we spend searching the poor clothes in the water. What will we do, with wet underwear, wet parero, only one towel left to dry us and no teeshirt for Fredrik! He finally found it, dropping in the sea, just in time. We spent some time in the sand together, trying to read our book and get dry more by the wind than by the sun, disappearing behind larger and larger clouds.

We ended the day by a little ride on the “Albert Promenade” , and then decide to go back home before the rain finished to wet the last thing dry we had left.

We stand only 4 or 5 hours at the sea, but was definitively worst it. We spent a sweet and cozy evening–night in front of the computer to relax after this day, and we spent the whole morrow reading books in the sunny garden.

Cupcake and Mid night cake

What to do to keep kids busy and entertained along a rainy day? There are not so much pleasant solutions.
You can let them watch television the whole day, or playing diverse video game, including World of Warcraft on your own acoumpt, on your own computer!!! But this is not really healthy, nor very educative…and you do not have access to your computer anymore.
You can also take the time to play with them a game, on table, such as “Le jeu du Loup” (The game of the Wolf - age minimum : 3y), “La pyramide d’animaux” (The animals pyramide – age minimum required 3y) or “Labyrinthe” (age minimum 7y ---ooooh harder that one !!) . But I bet that you would prefer to play World of Warcraft instead, or even farmville on Facebook.
Or you can let them play what they want, let them run and yell, and fight and cry, make mess everywhere and you finish the day with a huge headache.

Let’s share today a super trick that will rejoice the heart of every parents and babysitters. The ideal solution for everyone is …. to cook cupcake! This solution have many advantages : Cupcakes are easy to cook! Cupcakes are funny to make! Cupcakes are cute! And cupcakes are delicious!
Everyone can participate to the preparation of this pastry. Every kid (and older) will enjoy to decorate cupcakes with coloured melted whitechocolate, little smarties, nuts, and sugar forms of all kind. It’s like playing with plasticine, exept that you can eat your creation after!
When cupcake are done, it’s a real pleasure for the eyes. You can expose them proudly in the living room, prepare some tea, rejoice, and …..EAT THEM ALL!!


The problem with cupcakes exposed in the living room is that they are extremely tempting. Especially along a long night spend in diverse night activities. But the cupcakes can not be eaten unless you want hear cries the next morning.
The ideal solution to this problem…is to cook a mid night cake! Mid night cake is easy to cook! Mid night cake is fast to cook! Midnight cake is delicious! No one will know you have cook a mid night cake, you can keep it all for you only!

Ahhh! What a delicious feeling of freedom when you cook and eat a good cake together at 2h the morning when everyone else is sleeping! That's how life should be !