The Muffinman is free!

Dumpster Divers of all nations, rejoice! The famous Belgian Muffinman has been acquitted of stealing 2 bags of perished muffinds. For those who are not familiar with the concept of dumpster diving, skipping, tatting, bin-diving, D-mart or "recycling" food: this is "the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded by their owners but might be useful to the dumpster diver" (Wikipedia definition). But who is the Muffinman, you might ask? Well, Steven De Geynst is a dumpster diver who received a 6-month sentence for "stealing" 2 bags of perished muffins from a GB supermarket. He appealed and was acquitted. He has been a strong voice in the battle against food waste and the way supermarkets deal with goods that are still perfectly alright.

Building a snowman, flake by flake

Last year Caitlin built her first snowman with her grandfather in Germany. This time I helped her build one here in Belgium. The German one was more beautiful, but I'm sure the quality of the snow played some part in that. In Germany they use the roll-the-snow-till-it-becomes-a-ball, and repeat that three times with balls of smaller sizes. Here in Belgium the snow just doesn't stick, so we use the fill-the-bucket-and-then-push-the-snow-tight. It works like a charm :)

Best wishes for 2012

Dear friends, we would like to wish you all the best for 2012. Peace, happiness and good health to you all, and we hope to meet up soon again.

G4S drops the deal with ISS

As some of you might know, I work for ISS, one of the largest facility service companies in the world. And a couple of weeks ago G4S (Britain's largest security firm) announced that they were starting a £5.2bn bid to buy ISS. Today they announced that they are dropping the bid because some shareholders opposed the deal in the current economic climate. They deemed it "too risky". I can only hope G4S will pay ISS a break fee.

Lagavulin Single Malt

Lagavulin Single Malt is an Islay single malt Scotch whisky produced at Lagavulin on the island of Islay (Scotland). The standard Lagavulin single malt is 16 years old (43%), though they regularly release a 12-year-old cask strength variety.

Ethical Vegetarian Alternative (EVA) wins the Flemish Culture Prize

Good news from Flanders: The organisation EVA (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative) has won the 2011 Flemish Culture Prize for a social-cultural organisation. EVA is awarded this prestigious prize for their "Thursday Veggie Day" campaign. In schools and administrative offices around Ghent children and city employees receive vegetarian meals on Thursdays. A great way to contribute to a healthier life-style and an ideal way to raise awareness about where our food is coming from. Surprisingly, Flemish Farmers organisation "Boerenbond" already criticised the initiative, saying the campaign implies that "eating meat is unhealty". Furthermore they find it incomprehensible that children are not given an alternative option to eat meat on a Thursday. What the Boerenbond fail to mention, is that on the other 4 days of the school week, children are not given an alternative option to eat a vegetarian meal either. What I find the most striking is that an organisation like "Boerenbond", that represents farmers who grow wheat, potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage and many other vegetables, would find it a bad thing to promote vegetables.

First pictures of Ciara

After less than 64 hours Claudia and Ciara were already allowed to go home. Luckily we still had Caitlin's old Takata Bugaboo seat so transporting Ciara was not difficult.



Caitlin is already very proud of her little sister who gets to wear all her old clothes.