Dear friend,

I wanted to find a way to be more ‘focused on the moment’, especially to fight a tendency to think too much about work in my spare time, so I tried to notice things around me, and document them.
I didn’t have the perseverance of finding a photo for every day, but it was a good exercise.

Here are are some of those pictures. They are not ‘good’ by any definition but good photography was not the intent.
For publication, I had to crop or digitally remove strangers from the pictures for a few of them, and in one case I removed a street address, so there are some weird artefacts here and there.

A strip of tape stuck to the bark of a tree trunk, with the handwritten message 'DAYS OF UNTOUCHED COKE : III' written in black marker.

I found this tree a few blocks away from my place. I wondered, is it part of a common rehab program? Will the person who wrote this update the tape?
But then I didn’t go back and check again.
 

A street-level view in Brussels, just outside the main European Commission building, with decorative EU-flag arches in the foreground and a digital screen displaying 'Europe Day 2026' on the right.

May 9th is “Europe Day”, the anniversary of Robert Schuman’s declaration laying the ground for the European Coal and Steel Community, which later evolved in the European Union. On the first Saturday after May 9th (or on the day itself, if it falls on a Saturday like this year) the main buildings of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council open for visitors, with a number of activities, stands and gadget for them to enjoy, and to feel closer to the institutions.
This picture was taken just outside the Berlaymont building, the headquarters of the European Commission. I have cropped it for privacy reasons, but I originally took it to document the heartwarming view of a very long queue of people waiting to get in on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
 

A small pixel-art mosaic affixed to the corner of a building, depicting a bald figure in a dark coat standing beside a small dog.

I spotted this cute pixel-art mini-mosaic, which I interpret as a depiction of The Smurfs’ (or, better, Les Schtroumpfs) villain Gargamel and his cat Azräel, not far from Le Musée de la Bande Dessinée, the Comic Strip Museum, in central Brussels.
 

A white vinyl sticker on a car's rear window reading 'Little Nightmare On Board', featuring a *The Nightmare Before Christmas*-style baby character.

This baby-Jack Skellington was too cute not to take a picture of, I wondered about the ’little nightmare’’s parents though: clearly loving, probably exhausted too.
 

A faint rainbow arching across an overcast grey sky.

I went out for a walk just after a heavy rain, and this is what I found. Actually I didn’t spot the rainbow myself, but I noticed an elderly main pointing it out to passers-by. The photo is rubbish, and I decided to capture it too late - I should have taken it from a different point where a bigger portion of the arc was visible. Anyway, rainbows are always heartening.
 

Vintage yellow buses parked in front of the Triumphal Arch in Brussels' Cinquantenaire Park, with a rainbow Pride flag hanging through one of the arches

During the Pride weekend, the Parc du Cinquantenaire hosted - for reasons unknown to me - a collection of old buses from different eras, from the fleet of the Brussels Public Transport Company (STIB or MIVB, depending on the language). These are all from long before my time around here, but they reminded me of the old buses in my hometown (which were actually orange).  

An outdoor medieval market set among large trees on a sunny day, with craft stalls, canvas tents, heraldic flags, and wicker baskets of wooden weapons displayed on the grass in the foreground.

Same Parc, a week later, it’s time for the annual ‘Medieval Fair’. I didn’t stop to take a look at the stalls, and honestly the novelty of this wore out for me already on the second year, but it’s the reminder that, it must be almost June!
 

A pocket pack of tissues miraculously stuck on a vertical wall of tiles

An inanimate version of the cat-based ‘Hang in there’ poster, I found this pocket pack of tissues somehow defying gravity at the back entrance of the Maelbeek metro station. It’s alone, it’s blue in a sea of grey, and it seems to have escaped his mucous destiny. Well done!
 

The entrance to a space-themed school fair with a handmade space shuttle model, rocket props, balloons, and market stalls visible along a covered walkway

In a period in which schools are struggling (more on that later), I passed by this wonderful recreation of a space shuttle, at the entrance of a catholic school, introducing parents and children to a space-themed end-of-year fair.
Congratulations to the organisers!
 

A square mosaic tile set into a pavement, depicting the face of a brown spaniel-type dog with dark eyes, made from fragments of coloured ceramic in warm browns, reds, and yellows

Another street mosaic, another rectangle of colour in the grey. Among the tiles of the pavements of eastern Schaerbeek, one of the nineteen municipalities composing the Brussels Capital Region, it’s not uncommon to find colourful mosaic tiles. They are said to identify artists’ houses, but now they seem to be part of a commune-supported initiative.
I don’t remember spotting this spaniel before.
 

A protest poster taped to a street pole using the 'Batman slapping Robin' meme format, with speech bubbles in French reading 'Value teachers' and 'Work more with less money'

Aside from the space school pictured above, all the schools I’ve passed by lately are protesting about a reform targeting the education sector: this variation on the ‘Batman slapping Robin’ meme, where the two characters are replaced by the current Secretary for Education, and a generic teacher asking for more support.
The collective coordinating the protest is called Mars Attacks!, showing for the second time in this post the lasting legacy of Tim Burton’s golden age.