Snow

We had another bit of weather here in Belgium. About 4 inches of wet snow came in over night. Of course this meant that I could not go to work. My garage box (more on that in a moment) is at the back end of a parking area with a reasonably steep incline up to the street. The real issue that this presents is that in order to get to the parking area, you have to thread your car through a small passage in the building. I literally have about 10 inches on either side of my mirrors on the BMW 520. So with the combination of the parking area being an ice skating rink from the snow and the tight opening not allowing anything larger than a car back, I was stuck. Everyone here takes this all pretty much in stride however, so we figured that this was the appropriate reaction. Do as the locals do.

The garage box is an interesting thing. First off, I have a decent walk from my house to the garage box. Not too long, but certainly worth noting when raining. And it does that often. I think garage box is a good term for what it is in that it is not really a garage and pretty close to a box. It has enough room for a small car. My Citroen C3 rental fit in it, barely. The 520 is hopeless. I have to bias to one side so that I can get out of the car and I cannot close the garage because the car is too long by about 18 inches.

By 2:00 lots of digging and copious applications of salt let us get out. We attempted to get snow tires put on the car but unfortunately, the tire place was sold out. The dealer was nice about the whole thing. His comment was, "I do not think you will see snow tires this winter. Maybe next???" Not the most poitive outcome but about what we expected. What Belgium really needs is a tire warehouse.

All was not lost however. There was a carpet place next to the tire shop that She who must be obeyed has been talking about going to. So with the afternoon not being spent on the car, we bought an area rug for our living room. The wife is happy and it covers up some of the 200 years of wear on our floors.

The beverage of the evening was a nice La Chouffe Blonde. At 8% it is a reasonably strong ale, but not out of control. Very nice cloudy amber color with a good balance of hops and yeasty goodness. Quite easy to drink and excellent with a spicy pasta with a pork and beef ragout. 4 Drunk Monks!