Home Sweet Home

 This postcard dates from the 1920′s. It shows the little village of Holsbeek, Belgium. Marked with a red circle is the house I currently call my home. Amazing how much history got packed together in this one picture. In the middle you see the church of St. Maurus. The church was destroyed on December 28, 1944 (during World War II) by a German V1 flying bomb, but was soon after rebuilt. The five cent stamp shows a picture of King Albert I (1875-1934) who died in a climbing accident in Marche-les-Dames, Belgium (Ardennes region). The hilly terrain you see appearing in the distance, as well as the hill the photographer was standing on when he took this picture, are in fact the remains of a series of sandbanks left here by a prehistoric sea arond five million years ago. In between lies the Winge valley, known for its Early Mesolithic sites dating from about 9500 BP. The house you see in front, the one with the little dormer, used to be a corn mill. The mill also produced electricity for street lighting. The house I’m living in used to be a pigsty… and honestly, from time to time it still looks like one.