Nijntje – Miffy

WARNING – if you are planning on making a visit to the Dick Bruna exhibition in Mechelen and want to be surprised by what you see there, I suggest you stop reading now! The exhibition is wonderful and I highly recommend it, but I’d hate to spoil it 🙂

Sunday was a beautiful spring day. Richard had just arrived back from a trip to the US so we didn’t have any major plans, but wanted to make the most of the good weather. Unfortunately it was one of those days when every suggestion we made to the girls was met with “I don’t want to do that” and each had very set and very different ideas as to how they’d like to spend the day – just a tad frustrating! We finally settled on a trip to Mini Europe in Brussels, only to discover that it was closed until mid-March – insert exasperated sigh here!

The next agreeable option was a trip to Lier to visit the De Kleine Wereld museum – a very sweet looking dolls and dollhouse museum. We packed everything we needed and as we dashed out the door I grabbed my DK Belgium guide assuming the address would be in there – twas not until we’d been on the road for a good 15 minutes that I discovered my assumption was wrong – this day was really not going well 😦

As Lier is a small place we figured that finding the museum wouldn’t be too difficult – again another bad assumption. When we finally found what we thought was the right building, it looked nothing like a doll house museum. I grabbed a passing policeman who told me that the museum had closed down – despite the fact it still has a very live website promoting all the beautiful things you can see there –  insert choice of swear word here!

After a quick pow wow we hit the road again, this time heading for Mechelen. Our destination was the Dick Bruna exhibition at the Cultuur Centrum. Dick Bruna is the creator of Miffy or Nijntje as she is known in Belgium and The Netherlands.

I’m a big fan of Miffy, and despite a few mumblings from Olive about Miffy being “babyish” we were all pretty happy with the decision to go.

Me, on our arrival in Mechelen, desperately hoping that the day would get better!

Once again we were without a specific address but Nijntje gave us lots of clues as to where the exhibition was...

keep going...you're getting warmer...

and warmer...

over here! Nijntje in the Mechelen Grote Markt...

in a bunch of balloons...

she was even doing a spot of gardening!

Made it!

The exhibition was fantastic. Lots to look at and plenty of hands on activities for the children – it was incredibly difficult to drag the girls away.

Nijntje.

Olive and Edie designing outfits for Nijntje.

There was even a circus.

Olive telling the story of De Koning or The King.

Edie playing with the puppet theatre.

Not really that babyish after all!

We grabbed a late lunch at a nearby cafe then headed across the Grote Markt, back to where we’d parked the car. As we walked we noticed lots of people congregating on the square, many of the children dressed in costumes.

Something was definitely about to happen...

We asked someone what everyone was waiting for and were told that it was Mechelen Carnaval day and the parade was about to start. Perfect timing! And with the Miffy ears that they’d made at the exhibition, Olive and Edie even had their own costumes.

Twee kleine Nijntjes.

Not long after three o’clock the drums sounded and a town crier appeared, welcoming everyone at the top of his voice. The parade was a very odd mix of floats, displays and music – nowhere near the standard of what we experienced in Binche last year – but still lots of fun. Sweets were flung into the crowd from every float and Olive and Edie had a great time scurrying here and there to collect the fallen snoepjes.

The town crier hard at work.

There were some very funny sights.

Even a little bit of Carnaval Rio.

Olive and Edie's favourite float.

So the day that had started off pretty dismally turned out rather well. And Nijntje inspired me to dig out something I started making when I was pregnant with Edie…

must finish before leaving Belgium!

There are many more photos of the exhibition and the carnaval if you click on the Flikr link.

Hope everyone is well and a special Happy Birthday to James! xxx