Snow at last!

Granny's house before I shovelled the snow off the path.

Wow! Woke up this morning and it had snowed - heaps! In fact it is still snowing and it's 4.30 in the afternoon. Despite the fact that it's a Monday, I've been at home for the day as there is a general strike in Belgium. Most of the staff at school were on strike, including Daniel and I was told not to go to school.(Technically, I can't be on strike because I'm not paid by the Belgians!) The main thing they're striking about is the raising of the age for retirement - it's 60 here and they're planning to put it up to 63. Teachers and some other government employees can take early retirement at 55 but this will be raised to 60 if the government's plans come to fruition. Something else I learnt is that when teachers retire here they receive a pension of  80% of the average of their last 5 years' income - a whole lot better than in NZ. Teachers are paid less than in NZ but life is a lot less stressful.

The back lawn and garden at Granny's.

Back to the snow - I've taken a few pictures and went out in the snow but didn't stay out long - there was no-one to play with! I did do a little shovelling as Granny had her Bridge group coming over for the afternoon - 10 cm or so of snow wasn't going to put them off.  Granny insisted on inviting me downstairs to be introduced to the bridge group member. There were 7 of them at that stage and Granny was keen for her "timide" (or shy in English) boarder as she described me to make up the 4th member of the 2nd group. Unfortunately, the chemistry teacher at high school failed to interest me in the school bridge club so I had to let Granny down.

Anyone for some snowbathing?

Our Street.

Looking at the forecast, the snow might be around for awhile as the temperature for the next 4 days doesn't go about zero and is predicted to be -17 on Thursday! I will definitely be wearing every piece of thermal and merino clothing that I have when I go to school that day! Unlike Dunedin, Liege certainly doesn't stop for a few centimetres of snow.

Yesterday, I returned to Aywaille (about half an hour by bus south of here in The Ardennes). Veronique, one of the PE teachers had invited me for a walk and lunch in the Christmas break. The walk was great and Veronique and her husband Charles speak clear French to me so it was good for my French and for my health.

Veronique  with a view of Aywaille in the distance.

I was invited back yesterday. Again, we had a good walk through the forest and around the hills of Aywaille, then it was back to V's for lunch. After lunch, V and I went to Durbuy http://www.visitbelgium.com/index.php/our-cities/durbuy - the smallest town in the world - apparently.It was charming but also bitterly cold.

Not my photo as I didn't have my camera with me!

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?
 I had dinner with V, C and their 20-something children Jean-Philippe and Caroline. Jean-Philippe has a Music degree and Caroline is finishing the equivalent of her Master's in translation. She speaks French, English, Dutch, Italian and Russian! For souper, we had a lovely leek soup followed by a traditional Liegoise dish of chicon gratin. Chocolate for dessert -Mmmmmm!

My fellow teachers will be starting another year of educating the young minds of NZ this week. Lots of them have been busy the last couple of weeks getting organised as the hundreds of emails in my inbox from the EnglishList Serv attests. Bon courage as they say here in Belgium. I do hope this year's  going to be a good one.

A pretty tree