This is about last weekend in Antwerp, but to get there we have to go back to February in London. This was when Hanan had the idea of doing a charity screening of The World Unseen. She set a date at the end of March, emailed 1000 of her closest friends, then realised everyone was away for Easter and changed it to May. In the meantime, our friends Catalina and Chantal from Belgium (don't hold it against them, there is nothing boring about Belgium and I was there for 12 hours) had already BOOKED their flights and hotels, along with 2 friends. Naturally, completely mortified, we had them over to dinner that March night, where at the end of the main course and quite a lot of wine, Catalina announced that she had an 'indecent proposal' for us. Oh no, I remember thinking. Why does everyone think that lesbians swing from chandeliers? My idea of an indecent proposal is Hanan asking if I'd like to stop work at 10pm instead of midnight...Anyway, the proposal was that they had won a night in a movie theatre in Antwerp at a charity auction, and they wanted to screen The World Unseen. We were overwhelmed by their generosity, and so relieved that there would be no attempted swapping of wives over dinner, that we accepted.
Cut to June, St Pancras Station. Remember when I felt sure I was going to be healthy? That I would be a lean, mean writing machine? Well, that lasted all the way up to the Eurostar terminal where we were meeting Leonie Casanova to get to Antwerp. My resolve weakened badly as I failed to pass by a foot-long sandwich at a French bakers, got even worse when an amazing fan, Annick, showered us with armfuls of Belgian chocolates and biscuits, and it died completely on an Antwerp street at 2 am with a beer in one hand and frites slathered in mayonnaise in the other. We staggered back to the hotel rooms that Catalina and Chantal had so generously arranged for us and lay on the very comfy bed to try and let some of the fat drain out of our arteries. I felt bad for about 5 minutes, then I remembered with relief that I was not put on this earth to make a health video. However, surviving C&C and their amazing hospitality is another challenge altogether…Leonie sang ‘Broken’ and ‘Little Feeling’ live, our charming hosts gave us a 10 minute tour of the city early on Saturday morning before our train home, and we got to see The World Unseen on a big screen again. When we got home we found that I Can’t Think Straight had won two more awards for Best Feature, one from Mallorca and the other from Calgary. That’s what I call international appeal. In honour of which I invented a new recipe of Spanish tortilla with maple syrup. Don’t. It can’t be worse than it sounds. Can it?