Tag Archives: Mini Traveller

Friday 13th October 2017 – IF EVER I GET …

… my hands on the person who decided that it would be amusing to play his music at full volume at 04:40 this morning, he’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

Having a little party in one’s room at 01:30 was rather disturbing, but this was something else completely.

Mind you, it’s taught me a lesson, which is to make sure that all of the windows in my room are closed in future. The noise wasn’t half as bad once I had done that.

And this was all a shame because my room was quite pleasant and I was very comfortable in my bed. I shall look further into this hotel once I return home.

So wide awake, I attacked some stuff on the internet that needed doing. And found some more stuff about my grandmother Ivy Cooper performing in Winnipeg in January 1923. Hard to believe that just 33 months later, she was back in the UK, remarried and giving birth to my mother.

With not having paid for breakfast, I had bought some raisin buns and orange juice from the supermarket while I was out last night, and they made a very agreeable breakfast.

And so all of that was followed by a nice shower and shave (and it really was a nice shower too) and change of clothes, and then I packed everything up to go.

The owner was on duty at the Hotel Midi-Zuid. He apologised for yesterday too and let me put my suitcase in the cupboard as my room wasn’t ready (so what REALLY happened yesterday?)

I wandered off down to the Gare du Midi to buy my ticket to Leuven. And here I made something of a mistake. It was well before 10:00 when I bought them so I had to pay full price.

But it was a nice day anyway so I went early (falling asleep on the train) and sat on the Square outside the railway station, soaking in the sun and also supping a well-earned coffee.

Later on, despite still aching just about everywhere, I decided to walk right across the city to the hospital. It was market day down the main street so I fought my way through the crowds, stopping to admire the fruit and veg stall with its lovely collection of grapes, which were so irresistible.

The Loving Hut wasn’t open yet but nevertheless I blagged my way in to buy some more vegan cheese, seeing as I had forgotten to bring over any from Canada. And the manager gave me a couple of names of mail-order vegan suppliers who might help me out.

mini traveller leuven belgium september septembre 2017And here’s a thing. it’s been a while since we’ve featured an old car in these pages.

I didn’t really have the time or the inclination to do much around the USA. I need to catch up, and here by the merest chance happens to be an old Mini Traveller.

rare enough in the UK these days so I never expected to see one here in Leuven.

But then again, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a mini van here in Brussels a couple of years ago.

Calling at St Pieter’s Hospital for the usual morning reasons, I continued on my way only to bump into one of my former co_kottiers from the Hostel. He’s now managing the little bistro place that’s attached to the other hostel and he invited me in for a coffee and a chat.

Unfortunately I was obliged to decline, seeing asI had a prior appointment, but I made a note. And then pressed on to the hospital.

We had a new student nurse today, so it was a good job that I knew the routine. And when she told me to “move over to the far side of the bed”, I couldn’t help but reply “that’s the most exciting thing that I’ve had said to me for quite some considerable time”.

The news though isn’t so good. While the protein might be “stable”, whatever he means by that, the blood count not so. That’s dropped from 9.6 last time to 9.2 just now. And he reckons that there’s also a leaky valve in my heart.

None of this is anything that I particularly wanted to hear. Things aren’t sounding quite so good just now, so i’m glad that I took the opportunity to carry out all of the tasks on my “to-do” list when I was able to.

It took the doctor until 17:20 to come to tell me that I could go, and to give me my prescriptions. I have to come back on Thursday 14th December, but to go to a different department, and I don’t like the sound of that.

But now I’m horribly late. I was hoping to be gone from here hours ago. I have to run to the pharmacy to collect the prescriptions and, as usual, they are short of product.

And then run for the bus, which is in no hurry. No chance of going for that coffee now.

Luckily the trains to Brussels are quite regular and I don’t have to wait long. Mevertheless it’s 18:33 when we arrive. I have to run down to the hotel, register (why he wouldn’t let me do that this morning I really don’t know), leave my backpack, and run back to the station. And i’m on the platform southbound with just three minutes to spare.

Since I’vs topped going to see OH Leuven, they have been on an impressive run of form and are up there in 2nd place in the league. On the other hand, AFC Tubize are on a woeful run of form and are well adrift at the foot of the table.

There’s a football match played in each division on a Friday night, and by pure coincidence, tonight is AFC Tubize v OH Leuven. it’s just a handful of stops down the line from here, and I’m at a loose end.

Obviously a home banker then.

But we have a tragedy – i’ll tell you that. They’ve reorganised the times of the trains and the last one back is at 22:12. The 23:12 has been taken off. What that means in real money is that if I don’t want to walk back to Brussels, I’ll miss the last 20 minutes of the game.

But never mind. Grabbing a bag of chips from the fritkot across the road from the station, I set off to the ground.

afc tubize oh leuven belgium september septembre 2017It’s a modern stadium, but they ran out of money after doing just two sides.

And that’s hardly surprising because it’s another one of those places where they announce the crowd changes to the team.

I have a coffee, chat to a couple of people, and take my seat in the stand.

AFC Tubize aren’t all that bad. In fact they can match OH Leuven in most departments but you can immediately see the problem that they are having. Their centre-forward is ploughing a very lonely furrow up front, with no service and no support.

OH Leuven are on the attack from the kick-off and only a brilliant save from their keeper stops them going 1-0 down in the first 5 minutes.

But they are in front after half an hour with a brilliant glancing header from Casagolda from a free kick.

Tubize equalize in the second half and I start to have this rather uncomfortable feeling. But it can’t be helped – I need to be on my way.

Back at the hotel I find my room, and its quite comfortable too. One of the bigger ones. I learn that OH Leuven went on to win the match but it’s bed-time for me. It’s been a long day and it’s going to be another long one tomorrow.

Saturday 15th June 2013 – MY PEAR TART …

… was something of a wash-out, I’m afraid, and quite literally too.

It tasted very nice with its layers of pear slices and nutmeg, with powdered chocolate and soya cream all over the top but unfortunately, for reasons that I haven’t yet understood, it ended up swimming in liquid.

The cooking in the oven didn’t dry it out at all, so the base was far too wet. I have a lot to learn about baking, that’s for sure.

Another disappointment was the Charity Shop. It did indeed sell books, all of about 50 of them, and there was only one that might have been of interest to me – Fly for Your Life: The Story of R.R. Stanford Tuck.

But as fortune would have it, and as you might expect, it’s a book that I already own.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceA third disappointment today was the old castle of the Ile D’Yeu. it’s situated on a large rock about 20 metres off the coast of the island, reached by a sort of suspension bridge.

Not the castle itself, I hasten to add. I’d seen that from a distance the first afternoon that I arrived here and I was quite impressed by it.

I was quite looking forward to seeing it and I certainly wasn’t disappointed on that score.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceThe walk from here out to it is really beautiful and the setting is stunning.

However, due to the considerable amount of coastal erosion that has taken place over the centuries, there is only one way to approach the castle, and only one direction from which to view it.

And again as fortune would have it, in the early evening the sun streams right into the lens of the camera from that particular viewpoint.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceIt’s a late medieval fortification dating to the Hundred Years War, Built on the orders of Olivier IV de Clisson.

He was one of the Lieutenants of the King of France during the first half of the 14th Century but fell into disgrace after being captured by the English in December 1342 at the 4th Siege of Vannes.

The manner of his capture and subsequent release (in a prisoner-exchange) led to allegations of treachery which were believed by King Philippe VI and, being tricked into visiting Paris after his release, he was summarily executed on 2nd August 1343

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceThe castle was captured in 1355 by the English under Robert Knolles, born in Cheshire and one of the most able – and probably the most ruthless – of the English commanders of the period in France.

His reputation for devastation of the territories that he captured is still a subject of considerable discussion today, and the burnt-out shells of French stone houses are often referred to as Knolles’ Mitres.

It was recaptured by the French in 1392 under none other than Olivier V de Clisson, son of the Oilvier IV de Clisson who had ordered its building.

vieux chateau fort ile d'yeu franceIt declined in importance in the 16th Century and the dismantling began towards the end of the 17th Century following an edict by Louis XIV – the Roi Soleil.

He was concerned that it might serve as a strategic base for the enemies who might attack France.

But the castle does have a most unexpected claim to fame. The castle in L’Ile Noire, Hergé’s 7th adventure of Tintin, is said to have been based upon the Vieux Chateau de l’Ile d’Yeu

But it isn’t all doom and gloom (or doom and sunlight).

The guard-rail that I’ve built for Cécile’s mother for the steps from her front door down to the street level seems to have worked fine, and has been admired by all of the neighbours.

I dug out a hole at the side of the steps (pulling up mostly rocks, I have to say) and sank a length of downspout into it.

hen I sealed off the bottom end with cement to stop the water getting into it, and them tamped a load of soil and gravel around the downspout to hold it well into the ground.

After that, I fitted a mounting bracket (in fact a flooring joist bracket) to the wall and with two of the lengths of scrap wood that we picked up at the builder’s yard, I made a mortice joint with the primitive tools that are on offer here.

I assembled the joint, stuck the upright in the tube and cemented it in, and the horizontal sloping rail into the wall bracket and screwed it in, and there you have an ad-hoc handrail.

Like I say, I could have done it better but there aren’t really any tools here to work with.

old cars mini traveller ile d'yeu franceYou may remember me saying when I arrived here something along the lines of isolated islands and old cars.

And so when was the last time that you saw a Mini Traveller? I cant even think when it might have been that I last saw one.

So here’s one for you to reminisce over.

But there’s something that doesn’t look quite right about the way this car looks (and I don’t mean the wide wheels either) if you ask me and I can’t think what it might be.

Anyway, tomorrow is Sunday and so it’s a lie-in (I hope). I might even have a day off if I’m lucky.