How it feels when the heart of the city you love is broken #BrusselsAttacks

The location of home is a movable feast. For some it is a cosy image of a childhood house where their heights through the years are pencilled on the wall. For others their minds will forever return to those formative university years. For some it is an adoptive city where they finally found their place in life. For me, I left my heart in Brussels. I only lived in the city for seven years, but it is where I had my first kiss, first heard the words ‘I love you’, first had my heart broken and first learned that life goes on despite this. 

Brussels is not just any city to me, but my city. I awoke on Tuesday to the radio blaring that it was under attack, that bombs had ripped through Zaventem airport, smashing and pulverising travellers just like me. Perhaps on their way home to see beloved grandparents as I had been so many times, or simply harried commuters who were glued to the email on their phones seconds before that life was destroyed. I could feel the howling pain of a city so small that any attack would touch someone, somewhere, you knew. 

When a second explosion blew out the doors of a silver metro train, vapourising dozens of lives in its foul wake, it was at a station that I had travelled through daily on the way to and from school. It was a station whose name flashed past my eyes on my commute as I yawned away the morning, as I wondered if I had done all my homework, as I excitedly anticipated seeing my boyfriend. Maalbeek was part of the wallpaper of my morning journey. 

As smoke belched out bloodied commuters on to the street, I felt the tears begin to flow. Why? I hardly know anyone who lives in the city anymore, and those that I did know were not likely to have been travelling in the morning rush hour. But while I could weep for every family crushed and shattered by death and loss, the familiarity of this tragedy made it hit home much harder. 

Brussels is a like a familiar teddy to me, a well worn comforter that makes me feel at home. Walking across the cobbled Grand Place, its soaring gothic confections surrounding me is like a hug from my childhood. The antiques market of the Sablon, a babble of the monied denizens of Uccle poring over heavy oil paintings and glitzy ornaments, was what drifted through my window as I tried to enjoy that teenage privilege of sleeping until 2pm. 

The Midi station was the unsavoury starting place for trips home to London, the Bourse, where now candles flicker to remind us of the dead and injured, was where I would grab a post drinks McDonald’s burger. The trams and metro were my network of freedom, taking me to parties and nightclubs, to assignations and break ups, to gossip with friends and to get to school. 

I cannot compute the comfortably bourgeois city of women in fur coats and children in preppy chinos, of chocolate shops displaying their sweet wares like precious jewels, of the salty, greasy joy of chips and mayonnaise, of waffles crisp and vanilla sweet, with this city of dust, destruction, twisted shrapnel and nails of hate flying and piercing it to the core. 

I suppose I shouldn’t care about the mayhem unleased in Brussels more than anywhere else in the world, but I do. Having lived in London for the past couple of decades since leaving Brussels, the concept of bombs, horror, terrorism and innocent blood shed is hardly alien. There have been attacks on the tubes, beheadings in the streets and the treat of a spewed outpouring of bile and bombs is never far away. 

But Brussels is different; it is cosy, sedate, perhaps even smug and pompous, but for it to become a hot bed of terror is inconceivable. Though I, and many contemporaries, will admit perhaps it should’t have come as quite such a surprise. Disenfranchisement is the currency of Brussels. As French speakers squabble with Flemish, and tie themselves up in the impenetrable tangles of red tape, a whole community of North Africans was left to fester for decades, creating a culture ripe for brainwashing. 

Despite living in a smart square in central Brussels I was often confronted with the spray painted words, ‘Maroc dehors’ (Morrocans Out). There was no sense of integration, instead these dark skinned immigrants were ignored and demonised. 

Racism was a part of everyday life, perhaps because no one who had spent any time on the night time streets of Brussels had avoided a casual mugging or, as a girl, groping from the sullen clusters of North African youths, who longed for the trappings of a comfortable life, but wouldn’t dare to aspire to it in this fragmented society. 

Everyone in Belgium carries a carte d’identité. When I lived there in the early 1980s acquiring one as a foreigner was a humililating and alientating experience. You would arrive early, before the office opened, and queue along the pavement for hours before being greeted with a brusque yes or no as to whether you were someone the Belgians wished to become a part of their country. Belgian civil servants are renowned amongst residents for their surly approach to customer service. 

This was the days before Schengen took effect in 1995, so we Brits queued alongside everyone else. It was not pleasant to feel unwelcome in a country you wanted to call home, but at least we knew that our ID cards would be issued once we reached the head of the queue. I’m sure this wasn’t such a dead cert for those whose colour ensured their faces didn’t fit so easily.

Even once Moroccan immigrants were granted their cards they would need them far more than I. Belgian police are not the friendly bobbys on the beat I knew from my life in England. They tout machine guns and have the right to stop anyone to ask for their papers. 

They would regularly trawl the Rue Neuve, one of the arteries of night life, on a Saturday demanding ID from random revellers. Well I say random: for white teenagers we could wave our slip of green card and be on our way; brown youngsters would be smashed against the side of the police van and frisked. There was no sense that there should be any fairness in stop and search policies. If you were brown you were fair game. 

I would love to say I cared, but at the time this was just life. Moroccans didn’t mix with regular Belgians, even less so with the monied ex-pat crowd I was part of. They preyed on us, stole from us, grabbed at us in the street, made us feel uncomfortable with their dark brown stares. There was no attempt to assimilate them; instead they were hidden in ghettos, fear and loathing keeping them in segregated schools and low paid jobs. 

These were not a section of society that we chose to recognise, but instead sought to ignore. Belgium is not a progressive society. Perhaps that is what I loved so much about it. This is a place where one style of jacket remained in fashion for a full 25 years — from the early 70s to the late 90s. Where bars, restaurants, architecture and shops are prized for traditon and longevity, not innovation or change. 

But this slow pace of change also means the feuds are never settled, and that bureaucracy moves at a snail’s pace. The tradition of closing for lunch, a plethora of bank holidays, keeping the hours that Britain ditched back in the 50s, are all prized above actually solving problems. 

It is also a tiny place, that has, admittedly through some fault of its own, become guardian of the peace in a bloody war between ISIS and everyone who disagrees with them. With a population of just over 170,000 people, the equivalent of a single small London borough, Brussels has now been tasked with acting as the gatekeeper of Islamic terrorism. 

While Belgium may be to blame for not keeping its house in order, when cities like Paris and London cannot keep their populations safe, how on earth could Brussels be expected to? 

This is a tiny and provincial country rife with divides — a country that cannot decide the identity or language of its own people — so it is perhaps no wonder that it failed so spectacularly at assimilating a culture with whom it had nothing in common.

So as my old home rebuilds the devastating damage inflicted by these bombs, my only hope is that by smashing its heart to smithereens, there is some chance to rebuild it free from the racial fault lines that have always threatened to tear it asunder. 

5 things you didn't know about FDMTG

A dear friend of mine, who coincidentally I actually met up with in the flesh last night, to compare notes on the lows and lower lows of being in our 40s (notable points raised included hangovers after drinking just three glasses of wine the night before, the proliferation of women our age suffering from insomnia, putting the sparkle back into a decades old relationship and feeling so very old when forced, through work, to meet with younger career women) is also the author of the fabulous and much more prolific blog than mine From the Valley to the Palai.

Today she has harked back to the old-fashioned style of blogging. She is a veteran of the art, having put finger to keyboard way back in 2008, while I am an upstart who copied her example in 2009.

These were the days when the only real reason to blog was to share in a community who were all trudging through the trenches of new babies and toddlers together. There were no ads, few freebies, but a whole lot of love. Fellow bloggers would dish out handcrafted awards to other bloggers who had touched them with their words.

These were the days before the incredibly talented Clare Mackintosh became a novelist and social media expert, back then she was just the run ragged mum behind the now defunct, More than Just a Mother. She wept, swore and laughed her way through the loss of a child and the challenge of multiple babies, and as I was simultaneously juggling newborn twins I found a lot of solace in her words, as well as being filled with admiration for her.

Even more so now that she is the author of a book I Let You Go, which is a feat I have never achieved, though not for want of half written manuscripts tucked away in the back of my hard drive.

No one really got book deals apart from the superlatively talented and well connected Wife in the North, whose blog about leaving the Big Smoke and moving 'ooop North was hilarious and quite rightly got picked up almost instantly by a savvy publisher.

The rest of us made do with the odd free packet of biscuits or trip to a theme park and thought we were doing pretty well. FDMTG even got nominated for a proper award or two back in the day, though the old girl never actually won.

The problem, even back then, was that to make a blog work you not only had to be super talented, but also dedicated. Linking out to other blogs, getting involved in conferences, endless posting pictures, posts and lists of your likes and dislikes in order to persuade a jaded internet audience that yours was the blog to visit for your daily dose of parental humour.

Now it's even tougher, but the rewards are greater. A modern top blogger can make money, get free holidays, book deals, TV shows and more. That said most deserve it because they work bloody hard at blogging, unlike lazy old FDMTG.

To which end I once again decided to copy my friend's blogging example and indulge in one of the old school blog activities by offering out to my adoring audience of about two readers, five things you don't know about the woman behind FDMTG:

1. I studied Theology. Weird enough fact in itself given that I am, oh another fact coming along, an agnostic with atheistic leanings. I spent three years arguing with people who believed that God had deliberately put fossils into the earth just to test their faith in the almighty. It was actually quite good fun, but was a terrible career move as I am forever dogged by the perception that I must be some kind of loony bible basher. This means I always have to go into minute detail about why I chose to study theology to prove that if I get the job I won't spend my lunchtimes trying to spread the word of the Lord around the office canteen.

2. I grew up in Brussels. Another part of my life that I appear to have to endlessly defend. Everyone believes that Brussels is the most boring city in the world. Not least the deeply unappreciative Mr FDMTG. I, on the other hand, know that it is, or a least was, a bloody amazing city to grow up in. With a mix of all nationalities I was a real international school brat, hanging out with all the other schools populated by the offspring odds and ends swept together by the EU. There was lots of underage drinking and copious opportunities to flirt with a vibrant mix of different young men, from the gorgeous Spaniards who spoke not a word of English, but had the most delicious velvety brown eyes you could drown in, to the strange German boy who wore a trench coat and smoked a pipe at the ripe old age of 18.

3. I think scallops are the devil's food. I know they are beloved of the Master Chef set, and whether paired with black pudding, bacon or pea puree are always a sure fire hit amongst those with a sophisticated palate, but to me they are just a lump of rubbery fishiness. I once went to a press do catered by a famous Michelin-starred chef, who served the most gigantic scallops as a starter. While everyone else tucked in with gusto, I chewed on one repulsively rubbery mouthful and then hid the rest under my napkin. Ditto for oysters, which taste like runny, yet paradoxically chewy, snot to me, even when dived fresh from beneath the ocean.

4. Ever since I gave birth to four boys I have been secretly (well maybe I don't keep it that much of a secret) dreading becoming a mother-in-law. Not because I am convinced that I will hate my daughter-in-law, or that she will hate me (though odds are she will), but because I cannot conceive of sharing my sons with another woman. I know this is ridiculous and my sensible brain understands that the goal of bringing up children is to set them free to wreak their own brand of havoc on the world. But deep down in my swirling pit of a subconscious I fear I will feel as jealous of  my son cuddling up with another woman as I would if my husband did. I am just crossing my fingers very hard that I grow out of this by the time they get their first girlfriends.

5. Although  I am a member of a book club that endlessly attempts to drag my literary choices out of the gutter, I really, truly mostly only like trashy books. Not real pulp like Mills & Boon, I tried it, but all those heaving breasts, dominant men and women whose only aim was to end up in a clinch with a billionaire didn't really do it for me. But JoJo Moyes, Freya North, Jill Mansell and the queen of chick lit, Jilly Cooper, are my real literary heroines. Give me a bit of froth, a romantic misunderstanding played out in a beautiful village, perhaps a horse or two thrown in and a dashing hero in the mold of Rupert Campbell-Black and I am in heaven.