Eurodan in English

I've finally got my five-year residence card. My verblijfskaart.

I must admit, I'm a little bit disappointed with it. It's a piece of cardboard, in an ill-fitting plastic wallet, with the information typed approximately into the right places with what must be a World War Two typewriter. My place of birth, "Beverley" is spelt wrongly.

All in all it looks rather like the sort of document that people had to produce to buy groceries when the UK still had rationing, or the sort of ID you might need when the border guard gets on the train at the frontier between East Prussia and Pomerania.

I'd rather set my heart on one of the snazzy, laminated, machine-readable special identity cards which the Belgian authorities give to EU officials, which are convincing enough to travel around Schengen with. They say something rather seductive on them like "Employee of an international institution. Likes his Martini shaken, not stirred".

But as Dad's Army as my residence card is, at least it means that, finally, my "papers" are in order. And, wonder of wonders for a stubbornly Francophone Brussels commune, it's in Dutch.