A group of school children - they must be after-school clubbing - is playing playground games.
They wear high visibility jackets and kick up clouds of dust as they run, in rings, holding hands, round and round.
They tug and pull each other and then two form a pair, link hands aloft, forming an arch and the others  form a chain running underneath. Isn't that 'oranges and lemon's?
They have hoops, they have batons and they have beanbags. Of course they do. They look like Tumble Tots. How many ways can you carry a beanbag Thomas?
Always something.
But this is how it is.


group of tourists trudge after an umbrella, almost two by-two. Cameras around their necks, bags of mementos.
Their chocolate will be melting.
The sparrows are bold as brass.
They hop about, just inches away, squabbling, pecking, and having dust baths, pock-marking the sandy path with their little bodies, rubbing, scratching.
Brussels its on its lunch break and the park is full, tourists mix with families mixing with workers escaping air conditioned offices. Again we bake, and the plash of spumy water in the fountains only serves to intensify the arid, hot air.
People don't know how to dress for this - it's unexpected, to locals and tourists. There are shorts, jeans, sweaty, crumpled suits, loosened collars. There are silly, floppy hats on plump ladies, there are old men in baseball caps. There are tights and bare legs, there is pasty, there is tanned, there is burnt, there is roasted. There are miniskirts, sandals, wedges, flipflops.  There is gorgeous, ridiculous and everything in between.
They crowd on shady benches eating sandwiches. A few brave the full sun, but
The water in the fountain is green, but it runs clear...as water dribbles at the edges, in the nooks of the walls, the sparrows flock to take tiny sips.

A man sits next to me with his sandwich and takes a bite. The sparrows notice and hop closer. He notices too and throws them crumbs which they fight, bricker over. The victor hops away with his spoils.
Ludicrously there is a big screen showing the Mannekin Pis playing electric guitar.
This city.