The Purple Penguin

Or why Joe hates Brussels parks.

Well, we did a lot of walking this weekend. And I do mean a lot of walking. We walked nearly everywhere. Except out to the Atomium but then we did quite a lot of walking around that. Including the park which is nearby. Well we thought we were walking in the park nearby. Turns out we were walking in some of the park nearby, which didn’t link up with the park that we wanted to walk in. In fact, there is apparently very few ways into this little park we found ourselves in and we aren’t entirely sure how we ended up in this park in the first place. We must have found one of those few entrances. Very few entrances. Because we couldn’t find our way out.

What did find however was, well, interesting. There was the bloke in the green grass area who very carefully stripped down to his jockeys. Very small jockeys. Very small blue jockeys. In fact they were very very small and very very blue. We blinked and decided to head the other way. Toward the UFOs. At least they weren’t blue. Or jockeys. They also didn’t do anything. Just sat there. White UFOs. That should have at least turned or something. That was going through the trees and wildlife gardens which then suddenly turned into formal gardens. Very formal gardens with very formal paths. That led, well, no where really. To dead ends. So we wandered around looking for a way out to the other gardens we wanted to see. Nope, no way out but we ended up looking out over a grassy area with a maze cut into it and a mostly naked man wearing nothing but small bright blue jockeys. This man was now lying on his back on a towel and doing, well, hip thrusts. I start sniggering. Then he starts wiggling from side to side (you really had to be there, or maybe not) and I have to bite my lip to stop from laughing and can hear Joe sniggering next to me. Then in a careful official sounding voice Joe says very clearly “just concentrate on the maze” and that was it. I lost it. I had to sit on a bench until I could stop laughing.

So we head for the maze, carefully avoiding the man in the small bright blue jockeys. I’m sure he’s quite nice really. We walk along the maze and see an exit – hooray. We head for the exit only to find the nice green lawn drops off. Really drops off. A two or three metre drop straight down. No warning either. Not sure how we stayed at the top. So we walk along this drop looking for a way down and finally find where there is an area we can scramble down the wall. By this time Joe is muttering about Belgians and being invaded and it not happening again if they can help it. I pointed out that they’d have to lead the invading armies into a Brussels park and Joe said “that would do it! They’d never escape!”

Well, we finally did. And then went into another park today. And the same thing. Loads of paths but they do like to end them at dead ends. Still it was a pretty day and I had fun.