August 15th

For all catholics, August 15th is a feast day. It remembers the death and going to heaven of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Here in Flanders it is also Mother's Day in certain parts of the country (mostly the province of Antwerp - for all others Mother's Day is in May).

And here in Heist, they remember those who were killed at sea on this day, and the fishing fleet gets a blessing. We can watch most of the ceremony from our terrace. First there's a open air mass attented by practically all inhabitants of Heist (which is in itself a rather small village, in the earlier days a fishing village) and around noon all the fishing vessels whose owners and skippers  are from Heist sail to a spot near the beach from where they are blessed by the priest.

The number of fishermen died at sea grows larger year by year. Don't forget, fishing is a risky business.

When we were kids, we used to rent part of a house from a fisherman. Frans and his wife Marie shared with us their love for the sea and that's mainly the reason why we like it here so much. We also learned to eat fish from early on! Frans always brought home the last of the catch and he willingly shared it with us. So we were treated to salmon, shrimps, lobster, cod, hallibut and plaice, just name it. We still like to eat fish, and do this regularly. We don't eat meat very much, about once a week.

When the weather doesn't worsen (it's cloudy right now) we are going to walk to Zeebrugge where there are also festivities for today. There'll be a possibility to taste morsels of fish preparations and you'll be able to go on board of a fishing trawler.