Clogwork Orange

After a busy morning of Zumba followed by my French lesson, I decided to go back to Nivelles for the last day of their 3 day carnival. The sun was shining again and it was 9 degrees, so it felt very spring like.

There were so many Gilles today, and a lot of them were wearing these Ostrich plumed hats - apparently they weigh approximately 2 kgs and contain around 300 feathers. I'm not quite sure how it gets decided who wears the big plumes, I assumed it was a hierachy, but today there were children wearing them too, so that's obviously not the reason why.

As it's the last day of the Carnival, the Gilles had their orange throwing procession. They each carry a basket full of oranges, and dance their special dance in their wooden clogs whilst throwing the oranges - hence my title :-)

It's considered an honour if they throw an orange at you, and it's rude to throw it back. I came away with 4 oranges, so I'm feeling very honoured!

Tonight they have a ceremony where they burn the straw filling from their costumes on a big fire, followed by fireworks. I'm sure it would be good to see, but I doubt we'll go back again.