Megan was working on her next fashion line. It would be based around, imaginatively, winter, though at the time the idea was yet to materialize. What would come to her was that the first blast of winter across one’s face is such an affront to one’s senses that there is a coldness, an ‘icy fragility,’ as we wound up calling it.
   It was already evening when I called

Of New Zealand’s designers, Megan Tuffery has become more inter­national than her com­patriots because she is truly immersed in a culture other than her own

and we caught up on our respective news. Park­ing was at a premium in this small town, something not made easier by the fact that the rather size­able flat was in the centre of the city. Nearby were cafés and a bar named for Charles Spencer Chaplin.
   I told her of the notice­able police presence and the stunning Palais du Justice. This land­mark, with its scaffold­ing, is visible from quite a way outside the city and helped me navigate to her street. The police presence was partly because Brussels simply has a lot of cops, but second, because there are street protests. In the case I witnessed, the police had sounded sirens to help refuse collectors make a U-turn. This charming and helpful Belgian manner was alive and well, as it would be again in coming days when locals helped out on those near-impossible tasks of finding parking spaces.
   The Palais du Justice would be a destination for our tour, she said, but the next morning, we would have to make a shopping trip. It was a chance to get more Nestlé Clusters, the odd breakfast vice that she introduced me to and one I indulge in Europe, and see what the shopping experience in the city would be like. What is it like, living the Brussels of Megan Tuffery?

 SUPERMARKET TRIP in Brussels is entertaining principally because of the mixture of buildings en route. We found plenty of empty parking spaces, having arrived at the super­market at 11 a.m. Announcements inside were made solely in French over the PA system, not in Flemish, as we collected the groceries. She might as well have been a native, having resur­rected her school­girl French, getting coins from the checkout for parking. The two of us got quiz­zical, but not mali­cious, looks for speaking English; Belgians are used to foreigners and do not resent their presence for a second.
   The journey was a joy thanks to the architecture but it should be noted that Belgian traffic is not forgiving. In Milano and Paris, I had experience and there are plenty of tales from fellow drivers about how to handle things. Brussels, while not as manic as the Italian cities, follows French practice in most circumstances, except for the trams, whose lanes we used to avoid double-parkers and slower traffic.

CONTINUED
 

TOP OF PAGE: The Maison des Brasseurs, which houses the Brewery Museum, at the Grand’ Place. The Museum offers a look at Belgium’s proud history in beer, possibly its most famous product. TOP: An Asian neighbourhood: looking like Brussels but sounding like the subcontinent. ABOVE: Arriving at the Grand’ Place.