HOME SWEET HOME

I realise how much I miss home, when I return. It’s not so much the big things, but the little things in life, that certainly make a difference.

My pillow

My bath

My couch

My kitchen. I especially miss my kitchen!

I have spent all week eating mostly bread and chips, or frites as the Belgians call them. I am feeling incredibly bloated and I have missed my own – Toilet!!

After 8 and a half hours on the coach we arrived from Namur in Belgium yesterday afternoon at 5.40pm, two hours later than we should have. The traffic jams on the M25 were horrendous and the London traffic was no better – why are there so many cars on the roads??

We returned on two coaches, which included:

92 Children

10 Staff

2 Coach drivers

I hope we will never take so many away again, the logistics for moving this amount of students everyday was a nightmare!

We stayed in a youth hostel, situated next to the River Meuse in Namur. It took nearly two hours to sort out who would be sleeping in which room. It was really too small for the amount of people and some of the students had to sleep on mattresses in very cramped rooms. The dining room was too small for all of us, so we had to have two sittings for every meal, which was a nightmare, since we had to do all the serving, washing-up and making-up of daily packed lunches – something I knew nothing about in advance. The nights were very noisy – the first night students were still running up and down the corridors at 4 in the morning!! God I needed my sleep!!!

On a positive note, we did visit some very interesting places, such as some Limestone caves, in Han-sur-Lesse.

We also had a day visit to the European Space Centre, where we were able to try out some of the equipment the Astronauts use to train for space –

A Gyroscope, a bouncing chair, which demonstrates how you would walk on the Moon and a spinning chair (I can’t remember what this one was for). We also made our own mini rockets and launched them at the end of the day – most of them shot up around 300 metres into the sky – there were a couple of dud ones though.

We had a day visit into Brussels, where we saw many things including the Mannequin Pis, the Grand Place and the Atomium.

I took a picture of our group of kids by the Atomium – as you can see the sky was very blue and it was 35 degrees Centigrade(95 Fahrenheit)!!

Back at home now; I am sitting here with shockingly swollen ankles and at least five very itchy mosquito bites. I have put back on some the weight, which I lost, but I am sure with my healthy eating regime I will lose the pounds again.

I have finished my book ‘The five people you meet in Heaven’ by Mitch Albom. It’s not a long book, but a good read nonetheless - very philosophical and it shows well how every action has a consequence, which can sometimes tragically alter someone’s life.



I have just started on ‘Beloved’ by Toni Morrison, which I am really enjoying. It’s almost like reading poetry, but not enough like poetry to put off the poetry haters amongst you. I’ll let you know how I get on with it.

Time for me to get on with stuff at home, my home.

Comfortably yours Jo xx