Belgian Beer Beckons Bald Bonsai Bad Boys

It is that time of year when the great and good of bonsai head to Belgium for the prestigious Noelanders Troffee, well this year the great and good were joined by the majority of the Shiten Collective, although some people thought that Frogboy had slipped in under the radar, there were a couple of sightings of someone with similar taste in clothing to Mr Suteki. The day started bright and early, well early anyway as it was still dark when Shiten Sam and two Shiten wannabes arrived at Shiten Towers to collect the Shiten Senior. 

We set off for Dover to catch ferry to Dunkirk then the onward drive to Genk although Sam being dyslexic wanted us to stop at Gent as is was a similar spelling and a shorter journey. However he was persuaded by the pretentious Mr A to carry on. I call Mr A pretentious because he hosts a site called Mai Bonsai, other less pretentious people would spelling it My Bonsai, I think he is considering branching out a setting up a site called Other People's Bonsai, but I digress. 

We arrived at venue to be greeted by the best welcoming party I have ever seen at a bonsai event, hundreds of people were out on the streets in fancy dress on floats to greet the Shiten Massive, we were even more massive after fries and mayonnaise, beers and steaks later in the day. I was disappointed to find out they were not there for our benefit but it was the annual Carneval. 

The new venue is a lot bigger that previous and caused some distress to Shiten Senior as he is not as mobile as he used to be. Anyway when we arrived Shiten Sam went into arse licking overdrive trying to ingratiate himself with the Bonsai Glitterati, every time you looked around he was bowing and scraping to another Bonsai NAME, even at breakfast the next morning he was crawling to a renowned American artist using a young baby as an excuse to approach him. When challenged about his behaviour he pleaded ignorance saying " I didn't know it was Ryan" but this defence was flawed as the first question Shiten Sam asked was "did you have a good flight over from America with the baby" at this stage no one had spoken unless you count the baby laughing in what must have been an American accent! 

Shiten Sam has a number of qualities that endear you to him, his ability so speak Shiten to anyone and everyone without worrying about language barriers, his ability to drive at 100 miles an hour while gesticulating with both hands and ignoring the nice lady on the sat nav trying to attract his attention. He also likes to disregard the rules of the road deciding on some occasions to drive on the left had side of the road despite the rest of Belgium driving on the right. He also has the ability to look like an illegal immigrant as seen from this photo. You cannot imagine the effort it took to persuade UK Border Agency to let him back into the country.

Anyway the show was even better than before, Shiten Senior was able to move around the venue without tripping over bloody photographers and their tripods. Space between rows was excellent although I did fall over the usual inordinate numbers of British bonsai buffs including a number from the Wirral which must have been worrying for the security staff and the traders. Talking of traders Shiten Monkey was the basking in the glory of some little award he won, he even had a sign in Japanese on the stand, which when translated said, "due to my recent success at an bonsai event in Japan I have increased my prices by 50%". Even Shiten's Frogboy had a presence at the event where Shiten Monkey was selling some of Frogboys recent wares.

Fortunately at the show there were trees to admire and it was good to see that the lessons we gave at Willowbog to Bill G from the Wirral an Mark and Ritta paid dividends as they both stepped up and put on good displays of trees keeping up the British tradition of going on to the continent and showing them how it is done. The first day over and it was on to the hotel bar where Shiten Sam continued his campaign to annoy as many Bonsai Glitterati as he could although he did fail in his effort with a Germanic bonsaist much to Sams dismay. 

Food beckoned so we ventured out looking for sustenance. The organiser of Noelanders failed to take in to account that on the same day as the show it was also Valentines Day and also the Carneval in Genk so many of the hostelries were full so we were turned away from a number of restaurants and had to trudge around begging for somewhere to eat. We did eventually find a venue where because we had Shiten Sam with us we were not allowed indoors and had to sit outside in minus 50 degrees centigrade eating what turned out to be an excellent meal. Surprisingly even more Belgian beer was consumed. Then back to the hotel for more beer.

 

Day two, breakfast at the hotel, Sam crawling to another Glitteratii then off to the show for a final look around before heading off to have look at Mr poll mans garden where Sam was in his element, more Glitterati, and where our other Shiten wannabe, Mr W left with someone else's pot, he side the excuse that it was a mistake but we are doubtful. We made it to the ferry where Shitten Sam in his desperate bid to find a cigarette paper got locked in the car deck after the ship had sailed. All in all it was a great weekend with great company!!!! Well most of the time. Looking forward to the next one 

This blog has been sponsored by Duvel Belgian Beer (other beers are available)