Ducks flocking in from everywhere

The ducks were in hibernation for several months but awoke with a flurry of feathers in August when my eldest sister and niece sent me three ducks for my birthday.  And yes, this is the same sister who gave me Big Duck as a birthday present in 2006, starting this whole wonderful adventure of rubber ducks in my life.  The twins came from my sister and Pop Peace was found and sent by my niece, who also gave me UK (Brit) Duck Christmas 2009.  Some of the ducks that I now have may be put in collection mode - kept in their boxes and rarely coming out - but these ducks given by family and friends will always have that specialness about them of gifts given with love and will always be MY ducks.


There have been 17 newcomers since August - including the birthday three - meaning that their numbers have nearly doubled.  I am not sure what happened but they have decided to invade and have aspirations on taking over my life.  We will see about that!  


They have come from all over the world and Australia - three from the UK, three from Brisbane in Queensland, three from Victoria, three from Wattleup in Western Australia, four from Darwin and one from Wayzata, Minnesota in the USA.  No, I haven't looked up where the hell that is as yet but I will.  I suppose the Wayzata people are wondering where Darwin is.


There is a debate about which ducks will travel to Bali with me on 29 October. I have put my foot down and said that only three can come.  You will hear all about it in due course and see the pictures, of course.  Please don't start taking bets on how many ducks will end up in my luggage. I really am going to be quite firm with them and have definitely placed the limit at three.


Back to more serious things of starting the introductions of the new ducks.


This lovely one has the name of 'Pop Peace' and is a mini duck from Bud by Design Room.  Pop Peace has taken to going into the office where I am doing some contract work and likes sitting under the computer screen.  (Flew in from Queensland)

These cuties I have called the twins and they are only 3 cms tall.  Not the smallest ducks I have but nearly. Came from Queensland with Pop Peace.

And of course these are called the triplets, found at the local Spotlight store while I was shopping for some beads.  They all stand at 4 cms tall.

Okay, that is six out of the 17 newcomers and quite enough for now.

Ducks around Ieper (Ypres)

My previous visits to Europe have been focussed on restaurants and food.  The trip in 2008 was focussed on WWI and WWII battle sites in Belgium.  Okay, there was also great food and restaurants as well as it always is with our family.  


I won't even begin to put history lessons in here.  I will leave that to my son-in-law and that at another time and place.  He, being a history teacher with a passion for war history, was our own remarkable personal tour guide around the battle sites in Belgium, making it interesting and informative.


Below are two links for those who would like to delve further into Diksmuide and trenches in particular as this is where this set of photos were taken.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare
http://www.trabel.com/diksmuide/diksmuide-trench.htm

Yes, the trenches have been recreated in concrete and there is no mud as we were there in July and there are poppies growing everywhere, softening the harshness of the images from WWI.  Yes, it is not an exact re-creation, but would I not have been seriously scarred in my mind to have been exposed to what the soldiers on both sides had to live through in this area of conflict?

The surroundings are flat, flat and flat, giving quite a different outlook on the the importance of a vantage point such as Hill 60 and why it was named as such.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_60_(Western_Front)

After visiting the trenches, we stopped at beautiful Ieper for lunch.  And of course visited the town hall which has an excellent museum, In Flanders Fields.   http://www.inflandersfields.be/  
It is still difficult for me to believe the utter devastation of this area, even seeing the photos, and that the city has been entirely rebuilt to how it looked in 1914. 
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/town-ieper-history.htm

Lunch with the ducks.  After all the rolling of the eyes and groaning when the ducks were brought out of my handbag, the kids played the game with me very well, pointing out picture opportunities and making sure the ducks were fed and watered along with us.


Before going to Europe on this trip, friends were astonished that, firstly, we were going to Belgium and then that we were going to stay for two weeks.  Even the passport person at Brussels airport was amazed when daughter and son-in-law told him how long they were staying in the country.  'What are you going to do to fill in your time?'


I loved our time in Belgium  It was easy to get around, wonderful scenery, great food, wine, beer and chocolate.  Great place to visit.

Ducks in Bruges

This is going to be mainly photos as I have so many of ducks in Bruges - mainly the real ones.  Bruges itself is beautiful.  

A canal in Bruges, most of them are this pretty.

Blue Duck and Little Duck posing on the canal.

The real ducks across the canal hanging out on a landing.

Yes, these are not ducks but what the heck, wouldn't you take photos of them as well?

Looks like a female version of Little Duck except she is a cake of soap.

And chocolate ducks - we are in Belgium after all.

I have cropped this photo as didn't need to show the pearl G-string on the mannequin, I will leave that to people's imagination.  I was very disappointed that they were using a duck in this display for a sex shop!

And lastly, this was a duck we met while we were having late afternoon drinks beside the canal.  He really had attitude, eating the beer snacks that were thrown to him and even stole a cigarette out of my hand when I held it down out of the way of everyone else at the table.  Those were the days when I still smoked.

Long live all ducks - feathered, rubber, soap and chocolate.

Picnic at Versigny

I seem to have had a hiatus for several months.  That's okay.  Life changes for a moment and then it gets back on track.  Since I have last written, the duck collection has grown to 25 ducks and waiting on another five coming from the USA and the UK.   My sister Kerry and my daughter Rosa have been responsible for a good number of these ducks.

Back to the point of this blog.  It was about putting up more photos of the ducks in Europe.  So I will go straight into it.  I have posted the Ducks in Paris and the Ducks in Champagne. Just needed to refresh where I am.

Ahh, picnic in Versigny. Yes.

We found this spot by accident, driving through the French countryside.
We were looking for a picnic spot and really could not get any better than this.  The food consisted of bread, cheese and pastries we had purchased in Reims as we left that beautiful city.

The wine we found in a very local wine merchant's house in the village of Versigny and it cost a whole 2.50 euros.  So we now had food, wine and the perfect picnic spot.  All as we needed was something to open the bottle with (not many screw caps in Europe) and something to drink the wine from that did not involve passing around the bottle, though we have done that before.  I was the only one out of the four who had a bottle opener and of course it was in my suitcase which was jammed in with all the other luggage in the back of the station wagon.  This was produced after not too much of a struggle.  For drinking vessels we used the little red with white polka dot rammikins that Rosa had bought in a kitchenware shop in Reims.  This shop was right next door to the cheese shop which was our excuse for wandering into it and looking around.

All in all, a gorgeous picnic and one of the highlights of our European trip for the spontaneity and fun.

With, of course, the ducks.