AND FINALLY ....

Portrait by Kim Ayres, August 2009

Congratulations. You've found the pot of gold at the end of the Wayne-Bough. Leave me a comment. You're not the first one here - that dubious character won a box of chocolates - but you're very welcome.

My name is Barbara, known to some as Babs, to Polish friends as Basia, and in parts of south London as Dave. Born in the Lanesborough Hotel (really!) in the middle of the last century, I was a "Diplomatic Spouse" for 12 years. Although as you can imagine I was far from diplomatic. I'm not really a widow, but a happy divorcee. I just "killed off" my husband for the fun of it.

I turned my back on the tax-free champagne-guzzling lifestyle of a foreign envoy in 2005 and have been in Brussels ever since. Before that I was (in reverse order) in Ghana, the UK, Poland, the UK again, Nigeria, and 14 years in Paris, where I worked for an American law firm and then the British Embassy, and sadly was never a dancer at the Folies Bergere! I probably danced on a few tables now and then, but never for money. I now work for a non-governmental organisation in Brussels which is involved in helping to shape European labour law (references to Millicent Tendency will strike a chord here).

Daphne was conceived on a train in Poland, as a way of killing the boredom of diplomatic spousitude, and Harold was invented to stop me killing my then spouse. Daphne initially wrote restaurant reviews for the in-house magazine, but went off at tangents so often that her views on life, marriage and table manners became required reading in diplomatic circles. You can read the pieces she wrote in Poland at "Wayne-Boughs' World".

After a number of years in semi-retirement, Daphne has found a new lease of life in Brussels thanks to the joys of blogging. Characters such as Vi Hornblower, Vera Slapp, Bette Noire, Scrumpy and Bert are all fictional but loosely based on one or more real acquaintances. These people all know who they are. Except Bert.

I spend my weekends home-making, cooking, reading, lying on the sofa, watching TV and movies, messing about on Facebook and of course blogging. I enjoy eating out, well eating anywhere to tell you the truth. And the occasional drink - after all those years in Paris I am an amateur of fine wines, but am not averse to a good Belgian beer either, or even the odd gin and tonic or three after a hard week at the office.

I have to travel occasionally with my job, organizing small conferences here and there, which I blog about under cover of touring with the Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band, or KNOB. So far I have been to Slovenia, Czech Republic, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria with my organisation. For holidays I prefer the UK or France or exploring my new home Belgium. I have many miles on the clock and am not really interested in long-haul travel any more. Travel broadens the mind, certainly, but also hardens the arteries.

I have been Brussels for over eight years now, the spiritual home I should have headed for 30 years ago. Speaking several languages (French, German, Polish) I love the multilingual nature of this town. People will find ways to communicate across the language barrier, and if that way is called "English", so much the better. But it is great to hear Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, English, French, Dutch, and many other languages spoken on a daily basis, sometimes in the same sentence. My colleagues are almost all multilingual, and it is not uncommon for a conversation to start in English, finish in French, pass through one or two other languages on the way and even stop off for a beer somewhere en route.

My long-term plan was to work in Brussels until retirement, then buy a property somewhere in a warm bit of France, where I (or Daphne) would finally write that novel I have been thinking about for the past thirty years. However, the banks have conspired against me and I may never be allowed to retire. If and when I do, I am now thinking more in terms of a return to Blighty, somewhere like Eastbourne or Worthing, where a lady of a certain age in a flowery dress may sit unmolested on the promenade eating her chips.

In December 2006 I invited a scruffy eco-warrior to Christmas lunch. He is still here. Gorbals McChe (for it is he) is my part-time butler, tech guru and lodger, not my life partner. Although the way things are going, I suspect I will be stuck with him for life. He is not much more fragrant than when I first took him in, but it's handy to have someone to send down to Mr Patel's for that third bottle of wine on a Saturday night.