24 December 2025
In early November 1814, Antoine-Joseph Sax was born in Dinant, Belgium. His parents were both instrument designers, and from an early age, young Adolphe, as his parents preferred to call him, also tried his hand at designing instruments, and at the age of 15, entered his flutes and a clarinet in a competition. He was also a bit accident prone, and as a child, fell from the height of three floors, hitting his head on a rock, and was believed to be dead. At the age of three, he also mistook acidic water for milk, and swallowed a pin. The list goes on. Still – he magically survived all the brushes with death, and became known as the ghost-child of Dinant. At the age of 32, in 1846, Sax patented the Saxophone (you should have seen this coming, surely 🙂 )
I’m sure it is with great pride that Dinant today has many statues of Saxophones scattered around the town. (Or perhaps with great surprise that this ‘ghost-child’ survived so many knocks on the head, and near-death experiences, that he had any braincells left to design such a marvellous instrument!
Today was a resting day. We took a stroll through the town. The temperature this morning was 0 degrees. Nothing. But it felt a lot less than nothing. In fact, it was colder than we had ever experienced during our trip so far. So we stopped at a restaurant for a bit of a lunch and waffles, took a bit of a drive through the town, and then returned back to the warmth of our hotel, spending the rest of the day just relaxing and playing games.
Tomorrow is a big day! Watch this space!
