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Last Wednesday, I was in Lisbon. I hadn’t been there for quite some time, but as I needed to see some existing customers, and a couple of potential prospects as well, I had to go back. Instead of taking the fast train which I usually do, I drove all the way. It’s a three hour drive from where I live, along a wonderful and empty motorway. In between Albufeira and Lisbon, almost nobody uses the motorway, as it is a toll road. So… driving is easy.

Taking the train was no option this time, as I needed to go and pick up a safe in Lisbon, and I had to see an existing customer who lives about 35 kilometers south of Lisbon. At lunchtime, instead of going to a restaurant, I went for a walk in one of the many beautiful parks that exist in the centre of the Portuguese capital. I went to the park at Campo Grande, just opposite of the soccer stadium of Sporting Lisboa, one of the three major soccer clubs in this country. I even met the former Portuguese President Mario Soares, who was also enjoying that sunny day in the park.

Obviously, I couldn’t help but take some pictures…

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A couple of weeks ago, I published my dad’s favorite picture over here. It was a picture I took in 1972 as a young 12-year old kid, of my dad, together with his favorite and greatest cycle racer ever, Eddy Merckx. This picture was published a couple of weeks ago on the website of “Het Nieuwsblad”, a Belgian newspaper that organises the yearly Tour of Flanders for professional cycle racers. Next Sunday, this event is taking place in Belgium, and I will be there, in order to spend the whole afternoon in front of the television, together with some friends and family.

A couple of years later, I started cycle racing as well. I especially loved racing on the track, and during one or the other race meeting in the fall of 1977, Eddy Merckx was racing on the Ghent track (’t Kuipke). I was participating in a couple of races that same afternoon for youngsters, but during warming up, I had especially asked my dad to keep his camera ready, as I wanted a picture of Eddy Merckx himself, together with me next to him. This picture as well was published a couple of days ago on the website of nieuwsblad.be. So here it is…

I also remember one specific morning just before Christmas of 1977. I had finished a pretty serious examination at school, and had to wait a couple of hours in order to catch a train back home. I wanted to spend that time pretty activily, so my idea was to go training on the Ghent track for a couple of hours. I had asked permission to the director of the track, as during morning sessions, only professional cycle racers were allowed on the track. To my big surprise, I was not the only cyclist on the track. Yes indeed, Eddy Merckx had come all the way from Brussels to intensively train as well, together with a friend of his… Jacqui Ickx, the most famous Belgian car racer, and ex Formula 1 driver.

My “racing career” was pretty short though, as I found it more important to be a good student than a good racers. And I also must admit that some of my racing friends like Eddy Planckaert, the late Rudy D’haenens, and other guys like Rudy Matthys or Patrick Versluys (who all became pretty successful professional cyclists later on) were racing a bit too fast for me…

But I still remember how proud I was to have been able to train together with those two great champions, Eddy Merckx and Jacqui Ickx…

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This afternoon, I went to Tavira. It’s the first town I come across to if I drive west, about 13 kilometers from where I live. Tavira is one of the oldest towns in Portugal, very beautiful with a lot of historical churches and chapels (more than 30 of them), and very special houses that have been built on both banks of the Gilão river. Both parts of this town are connected through a very old Roman pedestrian bridge, which has been there for more than 2000 years. Only recently has Tavira become a haven for travelers in search of tranquil beaches, but the town itself has kept its calm. Fortunately, no busloads of tourists (yet).

Typical for this town are the special roofs, in a form of a piramide, with four sides. In Portugese, they are called “telhados de quatro águas”. One possible reason why they have this special shape could be because we can have pretty serious showers over here (in the fall and the spring time). Having lived over here for nearly six years, and having travelled immensively throughout this country, Tavira is the only place I have seen these roofs.

Obviously I took some pictures while I was walking around this ancient town. You can find them over here.

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It was just a perfect day. Too bad I didn’t spend it with you. This first day of the spring of 2009 was indeed a special day for me. I enjoyed every second of it. I woke up at 06.30am, took a shower, had a nice breakfast (last night, I baked a wonderful bread one can’t find in this country), and this morning I went to the “Mercado Municipal” in Huelva, Spain. Huelva is the first “major” city across the Spanish border, and every now and then, especially on Saturdays, I like to go over there to buy some fresh fish and vegetables. Obviously, we do have fresh fish over here in the Algarve as well, but the atmosphere in Spain is pretty different compared to Portugal. That’s why I sometimes cross the boarder.

Apparently, it was the time of the year that very special mushrooms are being sold, as I saw some which I had never seen before in my life. Being a bit of an adventures guy, I bought some, and asked the lady behind the counter how to prepare them. She explained everything to me, and I must say, I cooked them tonight, and they were, by far, the best mushrooms I ever ate. Together with the “corvina” steak, I had a wonderful meal tonight. Sometimes I tend to forget what great a cook I am. And I am NOT bragging!

This afternoon, I went for a very long walk through the wonderful “Parque Natural do Ria Formosa”. I was away for nearly three hours. Enjoying the nature, the amazing sunshine on this first day of spring, the wonderful landscape while taking a couple of pictures you can see if you scroll down (or if you continue reading)…

I didn’t want to think of the truckload of e-mails that are still waiting for a response, the quotes I still have to make for my potential customers. I didn’t want to think too much about the former Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme who gave his first interview to the Belgian press after having resigned from office in December last year. I didn’t want him to ruin my day. I hope he’ll never come back on the political scene. With him being out of the picture, it’s nice to be a Belgian again. No need to be ashamed anymore. With him in the picture, it was pretty hard to be a Belgian. Hey, it was a Saturday today, so I decided to enjoy every second of it. And I did.

I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures below. I took them this afternoon, during my walk…

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I’m back in town. Or shall I say, back in this sunny country. Since my last post on March 7th, which I wrote in a hotel room by the way, I was travelling around. Too many planes, too many trains, too many hotel rooms, too much time without the internet. Or should I say, thank God I didn’t have internet? Sometimes, being without internet, and without a truckload of e-mails, can be welcome as well. The other side of the medal obviously is that, upon the return, there is this truckload of e-mails to respond to… Anyway, I got my first customer in Brasil! Yes!!! The money arrived today on the bank account, and tomorrow the safes will be on their way to South America! Hopefully the first customer of many to come…

Being back home, with all the comfort of the internet, I keep an eye on the world news as well.

In Belgium, a good friend of mine who was the chief of the Ghent police force has been suspended from his job because he made a mistake. One of the most capable police officers I’ve ever met is at risk of losing his job due to a human mistake.

In Austria, a human monster is facing trial for raping his daughter who was prisoned by him in a cellar for more than 24 years. She gave birth to seven of his children of which six survived. Three of them were kept in the same cellar as well.

Last week in Germany, Tim Kretschmer, a young kid murdered thirteen other teenagers and two more people before taking his own life. He said he just loved doing this.

What a world we’re living in. Louis Armstrong must be turning around in his coffin. The wonderful world he once believed in has definitely made some changes.

And yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Cameroon, Africa. He had better stayed in his beautiful palace in Rome, Italy. I really wonder if he realised having landed in Africa. Upon arrival, he declared the following, and I quote: “The aids problem can’t be solved with money, however necessary that is. It can’t be solved by giving out condoms. On the contrary, condoms do make the problem even worse”.

Hello? Is this guy living in the year 2009? Only because he’s not allowed to have sex himself, he thinks he should lie to the world in this way? I am not a very catholic guy (although I was baptised on April 19th, 1960 - I was only three days old, but my mother once told me that I was making a whole lot of noise while the priest was throwing some water over my little head, so I guess I must have been revolting already!), but I believe it’s written somewhere in the Bible that one cannot lie…

For telling a lie like this, he should be suspended. For life! If his boss, the bearded guy who’s sitting on top of a cloud somewhere in heaven, or his son who was crucified in the Middle East some 2000 years ago, would really know the world we’re living in today, they both would immediately send the Pope to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, in order to have him trialled for crimes against humanity!

As a reaction to this, Spain has taken the decision to send one million condoms to Africa. I love Spain. I’m thinking of going to the local pharmacy tomorrow myself, in order to buy their stock of condoms as well. I might send them to Africa. Or should I send them to the Vatican in Rome, with a request to forward them to the black continent?

Or maybe I should run for Pope? According to the rules, every male person, who once got baptised, can be elected. At least, that’s what I read a couple of years ago, when the current guy was elected. I promise, I would change a lot!

And change is needed urgently. Especially within this church!

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Next month, on the 5th of April, the Tour of Flanders for professional cycle racers will be held in my home country. For me, it will be a very special day, as I will be in Belgium again, and will be watching this race on television, together with some friends and family. Forty years ago, in 1969, Eddy Merckx, the greatest champion in the history of professional cycle racing won this race in heroic circumstances. The organizing Belgian newspaper “Het Nieuwsblad” is inviting all fans of Eddy Merckx to send in pictures of him.

The picture below was taken by me, when I was a 12-year-old kid, using my father’s camera. The picture shows my father on the right, at that time aged 38, together with his idol Eddy Merckx. My father will become 75 on the 8th of May of this year, and will be married to my mother for fifty years on the 2nd of April. We’ll celibrate this anniversary on Saturday 4th of April, the reason why I’ll be back in Belgium that weekend.

My youngest brother sent in the old picture I took in 1972 to the newspaper that published it on their website.

I thought my dad would love to see his favorite picture on my website as well. So here it is…

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He says he’s innocent. Paul Schene, an American sheriff’s deputy pleaded not-guilty to fourth-degree assault in a Superior Court somewhere in the United States last week. Nevertheless, a videotape shows him kicking a 15-year-old girl, slamming her to the floor of a jail cell, striking her and pulling her hair in violence. This surveillance video was released by prosecutors in the assault case against Paul Schene, who was accused of using excessive force on the girl. Now, being a Belgian, and being a non-native English speaker (I admit, English is only the second of the six languages I speak), I took the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary which I still have in my office and looked up the word “innocent” in it. This dictionary (fifth edition, 1995) gives four explanations for the word:

1) not guilty of wrongdoing.

2) suffering harm although not directly involved in a crime.

3) harmless; not intended to harm or offend.

4) having little experience of deception, wrongdoing or sexual matters.

Apparently, Shene’s lawyers, probably Americans as well (who mostly speak English as the ONLY language) have other explanations for the word innocent and not-guilty. Watch for yourself in the video report below, where the video shows the attack beginning after the girl enters the cell and kicks one of her shoes toward the deputy.

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Today, Robert Bennett, a 47-year-old British biker got a jail sentence of six months, and has been banned off the roads for a total period of eighteen months. Why? On a grey day some time last year, he had picked up his 14-year-old son at his ex-wife’s place, and because it started to rain, and the kid did not have any protective clothing, he hit the throttle of his bike and drove home in order to avoid his son become wet at a maximum speed of 138 miles per hour. That is 220 kilometers per hour. On small, curvy, wet British roads where everybody drives on the wrong side of the road!

Unfortunately for him, a police officer was following him on another bike, and activated a speed camera in order to tape the ride on a film which lasts at least ten minutes. You can see the kid sitting behind his father, holding the seat with his bare hands without gloves or any other protection.

It always amazes me how stupid some people can be. Now, don’t get me wrong. I honestly believe that everybody has got the right to kill him or herself. But please, do it while you are alone, and please don’t endanger other people’s lives.

Bennett’s barrister, David Sapiecha, said his client had been riding at that incredible high speed for no more than half a mile on the two-lane carriageway. While the film here under takes ten whole minutes.

Sapiecha told the judge Bennett had ridden bikes on- and off-road since he was a young man, but he regretted his actions that day. He is likely to serve half of the six-month sentence, and will have to take an extended driving test at the end of his disqualification.

Judge Wassall told him: “Had you lost control, the motorcycle would have become a missile and it is certain there would have been a serious accident or, highly probably, the death of a least one other road user.

“Added to that fact you had your 14-year-old son on the back, the lack of responsibility is unbelievable. This is so dangerous that the court cannot avoid a custodial sentence to send a message out.”

So he got six months in prison, and will get out after three. How much would he have got at the other side of the pond? Knowing the Americans, chances are that he would have been put away for several years…

It is pretty obvious that this guy knows how to ride a bike though, and I am pretty sure that the police officer that was following him got a hard on as well while driving at these speeds… Why else did he not use his lights or siren to try to stop Bennett for being such a danger on the road?

One thing is clear though: I don’t like these kind of bikes and bikers. Never in my life have I been on one of them, and never in my life will I be on one of them. They make too much noise, and I prefer to have four wheels underneath me while driving at high speeds…

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Another weekend day, another lazy Sunday today. On days like this, with no specific appointments scheduled, I always stay in bed a little longer than normal, I have a nice breakfast, I read some articles online, I walk to the village to buy a (usually Belgian) newspaper and go to read it over a cup of coffee on one of the terraces around the local market place, and I go for a ride on the mountainbike or I go for a long walk.

Today, just like yesterday, I went for a long walk. I was away for nearly three hours, walking through the fields, along small roads in the neighbourhood of Vila Nova de Cacela where I have been living for five and a half years now. I took my small digital camera along with me and fortunately the light was a little better than yesterday, so I took another load of pictures of which I put a couple of them here under.

All of them were taken earlier today. I enjoy most of them, I hope you will like at least one or two of them.

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