Category Archives: FNAC

Friday 11th March 2022 – I’VE JUST HAD …

… a lovely meal with Alison at the Greenway restaurant.

She finished work today early so she came into Leuven on the bus and we went off for an evening out. A vegan burger followed by a nice coffee in the Grote Markt and then I walked her back to the bus station.

Now that I’m back in my little room I’m writing out my notes and then I’m off to bed for I have an early start in the morning. My train to Brussels is at 06:33.

And if my night was anything last night, I won’t be having much sleep anyway because it was another highly mobile night with tons of stuff on the dictaphone. I started off in the USA last night. I can’t remember whom I was with but it was a guy. We’d gone to this kind-of students’ bar and there had been some kind of incident between me, this guy and the guy who was running the place. It started out as a kind-of light-hearted thing to which no-one took any offence. There were some people getting up some teams for football and we went to join them. We sat around in this room for over an hour and a half waiting for this particular game to start. Just before it was due to start someone came over to us and said that they were sorry that they couldn’t fit us into a team and we’d have to go, which annoyed me intensely for I’d been sitting around here for an hour and a half as had the guy with me and seeing as there were 2 of us they could have fitted us into a team quite easily, one on each side but for some reason they didn’t want us. We went back into another bar and someone from the administration of this club came in and saw us, and made some kind of comment so I made a few comments back. The situation quickly escalated. Some other woman who had the air of being a manager came over to try to give us a lecture I gave her a lecture back instead. She really wasn’t impressed with what I had to say which was hardly a surprise. In the end my friend and I decided that we would leave as we weren’t going to hand around with this kind of people and this woman who was some kind of student said that she was worth $400,000 to which I replied “that’s pretty small beer alongside my $3,000,000, isn’t it?”. That didn’t go down very well. It all finished with her saying that she was going to be taking her A Levels here starting in the summer. I said “let me give you a word of advice. Don’t take them in this place”. We moved outside and the guy asked “what do you mean by your $3,000,000?” so I explained. We passed some kind of marina full of all of these abandoned and burnt-out boats that looked as if they had belonged to a fairground at one time and had all been laid up, derelict and so on

A young boy had been killed and a young girl had gone missing from her school in the USA. They were going to write some kind of letter to this boy’s family and it was an extremely complicated affair and they were having to hunt for envelopes and paper and so on to write this letter. It took an age to do this and before they had even finished it there was a fight between two small children who were something to do with this disappearance. That was broken up but then there was a third fight between two similar children. This was all getting completely out of hand. Then a hurricane came to the area and everyone had to shelter in some kind of hurricane shelter at the school This missing girl turned up, accompanied by a boy called Darcy, someone who had had some kind of issue with his motorbike earlier in the school year and another boy who was there who was the leader of the gang who supposedly this boy and girl were with. Everyone was saying things like “how brave she is to come out of hiding because she’s bound to be questioned about the death of this boy”. It carried on a bit like this, I suppose.

There had been a huge civil engineering disaster and this whole building site had collapsed. There were all kinds of people on this site, not rescuing because no-one had been killed or lost but investigating it. I was involved because I’d been on there doing some kind of work and I had to re-excavate a trench that had collapsed with a pipe in it. It turned out that the person in charge was a young girl whom I knew very well. Basically she’d been surrounded by lots of friends but most of them had been there to ee how much money they could make out of her and out of this particular contract and they had all almost exclusively let her down with this particular work. She was called up before this inquisition/tribunal to investigate what was the final straw on this site. I unfortunately had to give evidence about what I had been doing, which was basically trying to put right a lot of this stuff that had been going wrong. This girl was practically in tears about everyone who had let her down. I was having to tell her the bitter truth about what was going on and about how one or two other people and I had been covering up as best we could to make sure that this project went ahead And even as this tribunal was taking place a cement mixer on another site overturned and on the site somewhere else overturned There were all kinds of incidents like this. Basically all this girl’s friends had come along to offer help to get this building off the ground but they had all taken out of it as much as they could and disappeared one by one until she was on her own to carry the can for the consequences

I was with a few people from school last night but we were probably in our 20s, something like that. One was a girl whom I knew quite well and she had a sister. Her sister (although it wasn’t her sister in real life) was another girl whom I knew from school and whom I’d actually dated at one time and whom I liked very much but her parents hated me. We’d been a group of us doing something and we’d finished it. It had been an extremely emotional thing, something to do with the war and something to do with the military, all this kind of thing and civilians caught up with it and fighting it, very disjointed, and included this woman driving this really old ERF or Foden articulated tanker about. When it finished and it was all over and we were walking back, I caught up with her. She was on her own now. Slowly this group of people reassembled and I managed to get her on her own and told her “I’m going to write a book about all of this”. She asked me what it was going to be called. “Oh I’m carrying a heavy load” I replied, from the song by “Free”. As we walked back to the village where she lived I asked about her sister. I said that I felt like asking her if she wanted to come to the cinema”. The girl said “yes, why don’t you?”. We went into the office where she was working. She was on her own so I said “do you fancy coming to the cinem0 at some time over the weekend?”. She replied that she had to do something on some night but she was free and asked “what did you want to see?”. I mentioned this spy thriller but she pulled a face so I asked “is there anything that you want to see? We’ll go and see that. I’m not bothered”. Just then a crowd of people burst into the office. Her parents, and a couple of people who ran the office where she was working. She was trying to hold a conversation with me. She asked me where I was working but before I could reply she was swept up in all of this commotion. I ended up sitting here talking to a guy about football. He asked if I was watching the football that night. The World Cup was on. I said “no. They never came to see me when I was bad”. I mentioned that if my team were playing in it I would watch it but he couldn’t work out what I was trying to say. He asked “do you watch any football around here?”. I replied “no. I go over the border to Wales to watch it. I go over the border to watch it but he still didn’t twig In the meantime I was trying to work out which car I was going to take. Jackie had asked me what I was doing for work . I told her that I’d sold the taxis but she said that she knew. There was all this commotion going on that no sensible conversation could take place and I felt that this was going to be another one of those occasions where I was going to have victory snatched from my grasp at the last minute.

But the opening part was extremely emotional and powerful about this war thing and I don’t know why this song fitted in but it seemed to be so apt – so appropriate.

After breakfast I made a start on collecting together the music for the next batch of radio programmes.

You will recall from just now that I mentioned a song by “Free” that contained the lyrics “Oh I’m carrying a heavy load”. And GUESS WHICH SONG came round first on the playlist to be featured on my next series of radio programmes?

After lunch I finished off the music and then wandered off to the shops.

As usual, I walked across the Herbert Hooverplein. It’s where the big market is held every Friday morning but being somewhat later today, almost everyone had gone. There was just the one guy here folding up his stall “like the Arabs and as silently steal away”, as Longfellow would have said.

There was nothing of any interest whatever in FNAC yet again. I’m beginning to despair of ever finding anything useful in there these days.

For a change I didn’t go and look in the cheap shops. I headed across town to the Origin’O or whatever it’s called to see if the low stocks that they had yesterday had been replenished.

And the answer to that is “no” – so it looks as if that’s the end of that shop from my point of view too.

Something else that I need is a big bag of cumin. They don’t sell it in the size that I would like in Granville.

And so on my way down to the big “Exotic World” ethnic supermarket I nipped down the Zongang to have a look at the house that I mentioned yesterday.

It’s not actually as dark as I was thinking right now. But it’s mid-afternoon and I imagine that it’s a completely different proposition in the morning and evening when the sun is low in the sky.

Clutching my big bag of cumin (and also a small bag of cumin seeds) I headed back towards town.

Another place that I wanted to see today was the demolition site at the old Sint Pieter’s Hospital.

Although there seems to be a lot of traffic around there just now, nothing much seems to have changed. The old medieval tower is still standing, which is just as well, still sheathed in its protective coat of scaffolding and net.

They have some floodlights there, I notice, which seems to indicate that they work here after dark. I wonder what it is that they do because there isn’t anything evident, even if the pile of rubble on the left seems to be larger than last time.

But the old block of buildings on the right that they started to knock down a few months ago – that’s still standing too.

It looks as if they have demolished all that they intend to demolish of that right now and they are going to leave it at that.

And so, as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if they are going to be building luxury apartments here, they are going to have to improve the view that the people will have from their windows. It’s not what I would call “very inspiring”.

The site at the back of the little velodrome looks quite clear now.

Last month, I mentioned that it’s possible to pass through now into the Oude Lievevrouwstraat and they seem to have done some more tidying up at the back of where they erect the marquee when they have a function here.

That’s progress of a sort anyway.

On the way back to my little room I popped into Delhaize. Now I have more banana drink, vegan garlic mayonnaise and also a few vegan sausages.

But no grated vegan cheese anywhere, so I hope that the cheese that I bought from LIDL the other day will melt over my pizza.

Back here I tidied up the place for a while ready to leave early tomorrow and then wandered off to meet Alison when she told me that she was on her way.

We met as usual at the “Tiger” although as she was early, she came some way in my direction to meet me. We went to the “Greenway” vegan restaurant for a burger, and then for a coffee and a good chat in the Grote Markt.

late in the evening the buses for Alison to return home are quite irregular so she stands more chance of catching a bus at a more convenient time at the bus station.

It’s “sort-of” on my way back home I suppose so I accompanied her. The Diestsestraat was for a change quite deserted but the lights of the shops gave some kind of weird, eerie effect as we walked back.

Only 10 minutes to wait for a bus at the bus station so I hung around with her until it came. And it was just as well that I waited because it was running late.

Had it not turned up, there would have been quite a long wait for the next one and a cold draughty bus station is not the place to be hanging around.

The other day I posted a photo of the shiny new Martelarenplein with most of its fencing removed.

It hasn’t taken long for it to be reoccupied, has it? It must be fairground time right now and all of the attractions have now moved in and occupied the square. That should keep the town busy for a while.

The walk back home was quiet and uneventful. I wrote my notes, finished off the tidying up and crawled into bed.

An early night and an early start tomorrow.

Friday 14th January 2022 – AFTER ALL OF YESTERDAY’S …

… efforts, I ended up in bed at some kind of early time of night. With no need for an alarm tomorrow no appointments, and also no phone either), I was going to make the most of it.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out like that. I don’t sleep as well in the bed here as I do in my bed at home, and then there was the fact that I’d been off on my travels.

There are several different sound files on the dictaphone, and that shows that I had a very disturbed night. At some point I’d just been to fill the kettle that was on the bedside table, put it on its stand and went to switch it on to make a cup of coffee in the middle of the night.

It’s amazing the kind of things that you can do when you are fast asleep, isn’t it?

There was something about submarines last night. It wasn’t a tube as you might expect but it was U-shaped passenger compartment where four people could lie down. It was the only way to be. Two of them were in the higher part in the centre and two were in the lower part, one at each end. The submarine was sent on active service like that. There was no way for any of these people to move once they were on board and it must have been the most uncomfortable and claustrophobic thing ever yet even I had been out in it on active service. On one occasion I was at school watching these kids and the tutor was talking about who’d done what, who’d dome something else, naming these kids. Then on eof the kids mentioned my name. It turned out that one of the kids wanted me to give a talk on these submarines so I gave them a little talk on it. As I say, it’s most surprising because you would never ever get me into a submarine like this, not in a million years. later on when I went to see if I was back again with this submarine there was something to do with lords and ladies, not their names, and some kind of operating manual about this submarine but I can’t remember what this was and what it related to, anything like that

Much as I hate submarines I found myself volunteering for the crew of this to go out and sail in it and that is most unlikely for me. But anyway it looks as if I’ve just stepped back into the story from which I had just stepped out.

There were some of us last night around the West Midlands. We’d been somewhere and had to return home so we were looking for a railway station. We were in a vehicle and had driven underneath a railway line. A little further ahead was another railway line so we imagined that there was a railway junction which might mean that there would be a station. There was a bus coming out of there with schoolkids. We saw a sign that said “Intercity” so we turned down this road underneath the railway bridge and followed the railway line. Instead it took us into a yard where there were all kinds of railway maintenance equipment etc. We thought “this can’t possibly be right” but we carried on. At the end of the yard was a kind of dirt track out so we followed this dirt track, still following the railway and ended up somehow in someone’s house. We thought “we’re in civilisation so we can get out here” but we ended up in some girl’s bedroom. There was no handle on the door on the inside. This guy and I had a look round but I could see that this wasn’t going to work so we’d be better clearing off quickly. I went back into the annexe where we’d appeared. The other two people were standing there. I told them that we had better make ourselves scarce because this isn’t it. The fourth person, the one who had come with me into the main room hadn’t put in an appearance. We thought “we can’t hang around because sooner or later we’ll be caught by someone being in this house.

Finally I was in Shavington last night and there was an Austin 1100 being worked on down the street. A young boy was going it. There was a little girl of about 3 or 4 helping him or watching him. He was talking to her and asked her where something was, like a nursery or a toy room or something. She took him down to where Caliburn was parked. He opened the door of Caliburn and took out a bottle of beer and started to drink it. I went down there and grabbed hold of him and asked him what he was doing. He wouldn’t answer so I asked him for his name. He gave me about 4 or 5 different names. In the end I asked him what was his name in his birth certificate. He replied “none of those. It’s extremely complicated”. I was becoming extremely short-tempered at this particular moment so maybe it was just as well that I awoke.

Being awake is one thing. Being out of bed is something else. It was round about 09:30 when I finally arose from the dead, and then after the medication I spent much of the day choosing the music for the next batch of 5 radio programmes.

All of that is done and dusted, although it took me longer than it might have done. Breakfast was a contributory factor and so was lunch, but there was more than just a small amount of indolence too

When I’d finished, I went off into town for my walk.

With it being Friday, it’s market day in the Herbert Hooverplein and the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein although they have usually all cleared off by 14:00. I caught the very last one, who “shall fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away”, just like in Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done”.

First stop on my way into town was at the FNAC to check the data cables for my telephone. But if anyone thinks that I’m going to be paying the kind of price that they want for one, then they are mistaken.

So never mind. I have a cunning plan, so I headed off outside the front door into the Bondgenotenlaan.

There’s a “Match” supermarket just up the road from here but by the looks of things it isn’t going to be here all that long. Since I was here last, they have made a start on demolishing it.

That’s a shame because what we’ll have is a modern deluxe building with the kind of rent that a supermarket like Match could never pay and make a profit, and there’s another local amenity gone for good.

However it is quite amusing seeing the 18th Century building still standing after all these years and here they are ripping down something of the 1960s. It just goes to show.

In Kruidvat, as I expected, I struck it lucky. I picked up a 2-metre micro-USB cable for just €2:99. That’s much more like it.

That was a good move because I can use that with the ZOOM H8 and bring the smaller cable with me on my travels to use with the ‘phone and the NIKON 1 J5.

In my quest for a baking tin, I went down the Louis Melsensstraat towards the cheap shops. And here I noticed a wall plaque of a type that I don’t recall seeing before.

The story of the Sack of Leuven by the Germans in August 1914 has been told often enough and you’ll see many buildings in the town with a wall plaque like the one on the left, indicating that the building was a victim of the German atrocities.

The one on the right though is different. I’ve no idea to what the date of 1922 refers. It might possibly related to the date when the building was restored. I shall have to make certain enquiries when I find someone who might know the answer.

Neither Wibra, Zeeman nor Hema came up with a suitable baking tin so it looks as if I’ll have to buy one of the overpriced ones at LeClerc when I go home. Those there are 18cm ones there but that’s more than enough for me to make a cake for myself in the future. The pyrex dish that I used instead was rather too large for what I want.

There was better luck in Sports Direct, where I bought some new trousers and also in the health-food shop Origin’o where I picked up some more grated vegan cheese for my pizzas and some vegan sausages. I really enjoyed those that I bought last time I was here.

On the way to Delhaize (for some more banana soya drink) and Hema, I went for a little wander by the River Dijle to see what was happening there.

It’s changed quite a lot since we last stood on this spot. Back in 2016 when I was living here the river was overflowing after that very dramatic rainstorm that we had had, and a few months ago it was pretty full too after a lengthy bout of rain.

At Delhaize I picked up my drink and then went round to Hema. No baking tins here either, which was a surprise. Hema usually has almost everything that you need. What do people in Flanders (and France) use when they are baking cakes? And where do they go to buy it?

Back in the Grote Markt, it’s starting to go dark so they have illuminated the Christmas trees and the other decorations.

The crèche has gone so there isn’t all that much here to illuminate today so we have to do the best that we can with what we’ve got. Lighting up the real tree that’s here is … errr … interesting.

It’s still quite cold so I’m not going to hang around this afternoon. There are plenty of places that I would like to visit, but not in this weather. The possibility of a piping-hot coffee is summoning me home.

Back here I had the coffee that I had promised myself and then went through the photos that I’d taken over the last few days.

But now that I’ve had my tea, I’m off to bed. I have an 05:00 start in the morning ready for my train at 06:26.

Friday 26th February 2021 – IT SEEMS TO BE …

… quite the thing for me to feature on my pages photos of people taking photos, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

We’ve had people taking photos too many times to count, people taking photos of people taking photos of people and even, on one occasion if I remember correctly, people taking photos of people taking photoe of people taking photos of people. We’ve also had FILM CREWS while we’ve been out and about on our travels.

Today, it’s the turn of a TV cameraman to feature on these pages. Here he was, quite happily setting up his camera to do some filming down the Brusselsestraat in Leuven.

There wasn’t a van about, or anyone waving a microphone around so I couldn’t see where he’d come from or what the purpose of his filming would be, but as the Belgian Government was about to make an important public announcement, I imagine that it’s going to be something to do about people’s reactions to whatever news there might be.

And I’m not sure what your reaction might be when I tell you that I was up and about, wandering around my digs before the alarm went off, but I bet that it would be worth filming too.

Mind you, it was something of a cheat because the alarm wasn’t actually set for … errr … 06:00 or thereabouts this morning. Having my medication takes a lot out of me so this morning it was set for 08:00.

Even so, wandering around the place at 07:33 is something that I can’t always do even when the alarm is set for 06:00. It reminds me of the time when I used to arive late at school and the teacher used to ask me why. I used to reply that there were eight people in our house but the alarm was only set for seven.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been. I started off last night with a guy and girl, going round a back trail at the back end of Crewe. It was a muddy track, very steep and up and down with hairpin beds, everything like that. I was havng to coach them their way round. This woman was nervous. I was trying hard not to frighten her but make her aware of all of the dangers. At one point we had to ski up and down and back up a slope. I had to get my skis ready – this guy got his, the woman got hers. Mine were somewhere along the road. This incidentally evolved during this voyage into a place that we have visited several times on various nocturnal rambles, that high, narrow mountain pass where we’ve been skiing and walking a few times in the past.

And somewhere in this I was having some work do to. I wasn’t in the office and I was planning on doing it at home but everything was making me run late and my ‘phone was einging more often. At one stage it was a guy from the office asking me when I was intending to do this thing. I replied that I’d be back by 15:15 and I’ll get on with it then. He asked “what about … (and mentioned the name of another case I had to deal with)?”. I replied “don’t worry. That’s not quite so urgent. I’ll deal with that as well while I’m at it”.

Later on, we had an old Ford E83W van (actually when we were kids my father had two, KLG93 and XVT772 but that’s another story) in our drive and my father and brother were talking about breaking it for spares. I thought that it was far too good to break. We were all underneath it and getting all of the mud off from underneath but keeping it in shape as it came off so that it could be used as a profile to make repair panels for other vans. This involved picking these lumps of mud out from underneath and posting them off to him. In the meantime there was a very informal game of cricket taking place between some American kids so they didn’t really have a great idea about what they were doing and this was going on all around ths van. I’d been watching for a while and decided that I’d join in. I fielded somewhere and of course having played a lot of cricket I took up a rather professional stance. Someone said something and someone mentioned wicket-keeping. I said that I had my old wicket-keeper’s gloves somewhere (and I do too, but these days I couldn’t even begin to think where they might be) and then went on to say things like “I’m thnking of taking up cricket again and keeping wicket”. The girl who was in charge of this game told us to hush as we were disturbing everyone’s concentration. But the important thing was this van. I had a good look underneath it and thought that there was nothing much wrong with this yet they were all talking about breaking it for spares.

It took quite a while to type out all of that as you can imagine, and then I attacked last night’s notes. I’d fallen asleep in the middle of writing it and when I awoke I was too tired to finish them so I went straight to bed. Anyway, they are now all done and dusted. But I think that I’ll probably have to end up rewriting them at some point. They aren’t what I would actually call coherent.

From then on, it was the turn of the radio programme to receive my attention. Yesterday I’d chosen the music for the next three “studio” programmes in the sequence (the “live” ones are done separately). Today I combined them into pairs and added into the first pair for each programme the introductory notes. These are pre-recorded and I either fit them in over the top of a suitable quiet passage near the beginning or else prefix the music with it.

Combining the music in pairs isn’t as easy as it sounds either because you need to choose music that is roughly similar in beat and speed and merge then so that there seems to be a seamless joint. But sometimes it’s much more exciting and challenging, not to mention satisfying, to pair up two completely different tracks and try to make it sound good.

There was the usual pause for lunch, and round about 15:30 when I’d finished the music I went for a walk around the town.

This is the first time, by the way, for I don’t know how long, when I haven’t been seriously looking at computers in FNAC. With its 8GB of RAM and its new 1TB solid-state drive, at long last I have a travelling laptop fast enough to do the kind of work that I want when I’m out and about.

The processor isn’t very quick so it won’t do some things, but to replace it with anything much better, we’re looking at prices in the region of €1200. So that’s a non-starter.

At the Sports Shop I finally found a decent woolly hat to go on my woolly head. A proper insulated hat that will keep my head warm if ever I make it back to the High Arctic, which, at the rate that things are going, is highly unlikely.

In the Dienstestraat I noticed a huge queue of people outside a shop. It reminded me very much of Poland and the Soviet Union in the late 70s and early 80s when I used to travel around there.

However what was happening was that it’s the last week of this particular shop. It’s closing down at the weekend and everything in there is on sale at just €1:00, so people were queueing up there in the hope of finding a bargain.

It wasn’t the kind of thing that would have tempted me to go over and see if there were any. I’m not standing in a queue for ages like that. I had one or two things that I needed to do, like go to Delhaize and buy something to eat for tea otherwise I’m going to be disappointed.

Coming out of Delhaize, I noticed this bistro in the side street. We’ll have to go and visit it once everywhere reopens. It sounds to me like a pretty exciting place.

Back here I had an hour or so editing photos from Greenland 2019. We’re now at Hvalsey inspecting the remains of the Norse church that was the site of the last written record of the Norse in Greenland before the colony disappeared.

Now that I’ve had my tea, and done the washing-up, I listened to my live concert on THE RADIO.

Many years ago I had a sort-of girlfriend whose elder brother had a friend who was a drummer. His group had had a couple of albums but they weren’t ever really successful, but they were a phenomenal live act. I came across the drummer on the internet a few months ago and we started to chat. He sent me some tapes of his group playing live and I made up a live concert out of it.

Even though I say it myself, it came out really well and I was very proud of it. And you can hear it ON SATURDAY EVENING at 21:00 European time, 20:00 UK time, 15:00.

So I’m going to have a quick tidy up and then I’m off to bed. I have an early start tomorrow as I have to be in Brussels by 07:10

Tuesday 26th January 2021 – HAVING CROWED …

… yesterday about how well I did in getting up at 04:22 before any of the alarms went off, it goes without saying that this morning I slept through all three of the alarm calls and didn’t awaken until about 08:30.

So while you admire a couple of photos of the Diestsestraat in the early evening dark, I went off and had my medication.

First task today after the medication was to prepare for my Welsh class. And I forgot what I was going (or supposed to be doing), did the wrong homework and generally didn’t do very well at all.

With no fruit bread or anything like that, I had to make do with toast and jam. But with no toaster, that was likely to be a challenging proposition but I’m nothing if I’m not inventive, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall.

In this apartment it has the old-type resistance heater elements on the hob – the ancient type of solid element.

So simply switching on the larger one and putting the bread on top, and turning it over at the appropriate moment I ended up with a very reasonable approximation of toast. And so armed with toast and jam and coffee I could attend my lesson.

Why the lesson was under way I had a ‘phone call from Belgium’s Corona Virus Centre. But when I called them back at half-time, they couldn’t find any information as to why they called me. So I’ve no idea what they was all about.

While you are looking at an image of the Mechelsestraat, I went off for lunch. Yesterday at the Carrefour I’d bought some bread and some stuff to go on it, and of course it was followed by some fruit.

After lunch, I didn’t do very much at all for a couple of hours. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the trip up to here (and the one back again) takes a lot out of me and I need a pause to recover my strength.

But as it started to go dark outside round about 17:00 I went out for my evening walk around the town to see what was going on.

The University Library always looks nice in the dark when it’s all illuminated so of course I would go out that way past the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein – although I do have to admit that I took this photo on the way home when it was even darker than it was on the way out.

Down the Tiensestraat I went, round past the University Library and into the FNAC to see if they had anything going on in the Sales. There were plenty of reductions of course but there was nothing in there that interested me.

While I was out I went into the shops down the Diestsestraat, the photographs which you have already seen, and then down past the Mechelsestraat ditto.

We’d seen the Mathieu de Layensplein the last time I was here, but I’d taken a photo of it from a completely different angle so I reckoned that I’d take a photo from this point of view.

One of the things that I was doing – I had to admit – was to have a look in the windows of the Travel Agents to see if there were any special offers going on – regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’d found myself AN IMPROMPTU TRIP TO NORTH AFRICA a couple of years ago by doing just that – but they are all closed for the Duration.

Not that I was planning on going anywhere though even if they had been open. I think that this year is going to be cancelled too as far as voyages go. With today’s casualty list figures, anyone with a British passport is going to be treated like a pariah from now on, I reckon.

And on the way back I went through the Grote Markt to have a look at the Stadhuis – the Town Hall.

Although it’s quite beautiful light up like this, it’s not a patch on how it has been in the past when it was lit up with all different colours of lights. But as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … Austerity seems to have been the order of the day with Christmas decorations this year.

Passing through the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein to see the Library, I headed home to warm myself up. It was freezing cold outside.

Tea was a lovely spicy burger in breadcrumbs with pasta and veg followed by peach laves and strawberry soya dessert.

At some point I managed to find the time to listen to the pile of stuff that was on the dictaphone.

I was in my hotel somewhere when all of a sudden someone burst in, like Robert Vaughan of The Man From Uncle. He said come on, so-and-so (and mentioned a Christian name) we need to sort this out” or something like that. I replied “I’m not (so-and-so)”. He looked at me strangely, basically “don’t be silly” so I showed him some photo ID that I had. Then I went to show him my passport but somehow my passport had become damp in my neck thing that I wear and it came out in about 3 or 4 different parts. But he could see it and look at it and he said something like “trust it to be a Canadian” or “trust it to be one of you Canadians”. Then he picked up the telephone as if to dial someone The phone rang and all of a sudden I looked up and he wasn’t there – he’d gone But the receiver was hanging off a hook and there was a conversation going on, but I couldn’t understand all that much of it. Suddenly the door opened again and 3 people walked in. They were having a look around my room as if it had just been decorated. One of them was a woman whom I knew from the trip around the High Arctic in 2018. They were having a look at my room and in particular the huge mural of the desert that was on one wall which actually looked so life-like. She lay down on the bed, looked at me and said “do you know – one night when we were in a hotel somewhere I was in one room and when there was nothing particular going on in that room I went into the other room and do you know what i saw?”. She looked at me as if she was expecting me to answer but I couldn’t think of what it was she was talking about because I didn’t recall that I was doing anything that I shouldn’t have been doing in one of these rooms in this hotel that we were in, but she was looking at me with that look on her face as if she was expecting some kind of admission or some kind of answer

There were two girls aged about 7 and 9. They had been out somewhere so I’d made tea, a kind-of macaroni cheese thing with meatballs. When they came back I gave them their tea and made a bit of a play about it with the younger one. For dessert I went to fetch some of my special cake but found that it was all gone. In the box instead was some chocolate cake belonging to one of the little girls, a different one so I asked her if the two other girls could have some cake. She told me which ones to get but I couldn’t get them out. She asked me to pass her the box which I did and she worked the correct combination but a pile of little figurine things fell out so she said “you can have those and take them” which was OK but it wasn’t the cakes so I was wondering what I was going to do about the cake that I had promised this girl that she could have and where was I going to get that from.

I was living in France in a village where there was a lot of demolition going on. It was a village around which I’d walked years ago but since I’d been there I’d only visited a bit of it and hadn’t visited the rest so I was surprised when I went to visit the rest and so much of it had been knocked down I was doing some work for the Government that involved rounding up a group of people and a couple of others and we all piled into this big 9-seater huge car type of 1950s American saloon, a red one with a cream top. I made sure all of these people got in and then I had to get into the front. There were already 3 people sitting at the front so I told them to squidge up so I could get in. They grumbled but the fourth person in here was nothing to do with me. We set off and I drove back with these prisoners. When we nearly reached our destination I had to get out check round underneath the car and everything like that. I had a piece of emery cloth and was busy rubbing down the sills and so on to see what it was like and chatting to another one of the guys who was doing something. He was telling me about some new Hurricane cars that had been brought out and was apparently blowing everyone off the streets including him in whatever car he had – yes, he had the same one as this but had talen out the old V8 motor and put in a 9-litre BMW engine in it and this Hurricane had blown him off. I got back into the car but by this time I was the only one sitting in the front and I’d made my report that this was a good solid car and runs quietly but would benefit from a really good rub down of the bodywork and a respray

Some time later I was around with a group of people and there was an old woman who had a collection of vehicles that we had been admiring. We all went back to her house and she had this beautiful old 1930s car parked in her kitchen. I was having a good look around at this. It turned out that she was running some kind of private museum. I asked her if she had had this car valued. She replied that it had been valued in May at $30,000. I said “God it’s worth much more than this”. This woman was a teacher and had a class at a local High School. I was talking to one of the girls who studied there. They’d all done some homework, 6 pages, that was being handed out and this girl had only 5 pages back. I asked her about it and she replied that she had only done 5 but “I hadn’t done them anyway. One of the boys had done them for me”. She added “it was a weak class and I had 30%, that’s what I usually get and the class is pretty weak anyway so it doesn’t make much difference”. There were some boys there fooling around and they were in quite a bit of trouble with different things. This woman was having some kind of party and loads of people had been invited. I overheard these to boys talking about this addiction to painkillers was really hurting them and they were going to have to get some more from somewhere. They thought “this woman is a nurse too so we could raid her medicine cabinet”. I waited to try to get this woman on her own but she was too busy showing the scars of her operation to everyone so in the end I managed to get her to one side and said “by the way let me give you a piece of advice. Keep an eye on your medicine cabinet”. She asked “what do you mean?” and said it out loud so everyone turned round and looked. I said it again quietly and everyone in the crowd basically said “oh no, not them!”. She sailed off inside her house and we could hear a lot of noise and she was yelling at these two boys. She had obviously caught them trying to burgle her medicine cabinet. She sent them home from this party and made them write out an essay for homework as to why this was really a bad thing.

But now I’m off for an early night. I can really have a lie-in tomorrow as my appointment isn’t until 13:30. But I might not even be having that if I don’t have a negative report from the Covid test that I took on Monday.

It would be nice if they would hurry up and let me know.

Wednesday 30th December 2020 – I HAVEN’T BEEN …

… very far today.

And that’s because for most of the day we’ve been in the grip of a torrential downpour. It was going at it hammer and tongs when I awoke so to be honest I turned over and went back to sleep where I stayed until about 09:30.

It was still raining when I awoke so I had a drink and then listened to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. There had been a party going on in the attic of my house in Virlet and for some unknown reason all of the lights went out. It wasn’t dark, but I was there at the cables trying to touch different cables with a connector to see if the lights would come on, trying to work out the position in which these two cables ought to be in, in order to make the lights wotk. It seemed pretty straightforward but you’ve no idea how complicated it was last night when all of this was going on. Occasionally I was getting the lights to be illuminated but they didn’t look bright enough, suggesting a bad earth or something like that or whether they had the terminals the wrong way round (which of course wouldn’t work LEDs). I was making such a hard job of making this job correct and I have to say that the wiring that I was messing around was a total mess to start with. It didn’t resemble anything like a set of wiring ought to do, except the wiring that I did right at the very beginning.

Later on there was a conflict in a family-run business and the old guy who ran it had been shunted out and the two brothers were fighting over it. It came to dividing up the assets and 1 of the brothers suggested that because of the way of life of the other, he wasn’t entitled to as much money. This discussion went on for ages and in the end they agreed to settle it by an exchange of assets – a painting and something else would be exchanged for a painting and something else of greater value and that way it would be quits. The 2nd brother went to talk to his father about it and in the end, secretly one night before this exchange was due to take place they agreed a change of assets themselves which left n°2 son better off and withdrawing all his claims, leaving his father who was in a much better place to fight the claims against his other son. As they were saying goodbye to each other it was a case of “for God’s sake don’t go home. You want to hit the road straight away to make sure that the other son doesn’t come round to your house by accident and catch you with this because you’ve had a much better deal and he would be extremely dismayed by this”. And then the father too hit the road with his ill-gotten gains but started to be dogged all the way by his illegitimate children turning up from when he was younger claiming their share, unpaid bills suddenly appearing that the company hadn’t satisfied and so on which would lead to a seizure of assets. It seems that the n°2 brother wasn’t as stupid as he looked and had gone and shopped his father for all of this in the hope that if all of the assets were liquidated he would receive more because of his family share of it.

This led to another walking adventure, of which there have been more than a few just recently. I was walking with another couple of guys walking away from somewhere which might have been this situation and having a really pleasant and pleasurable long walk through the south-west England countryside trying to get away from civilisation for a while. On one occasion we ended up lying underneath a car talking about bread pudding, whether you butter the slices of bread or not (ohhh! The excitement!)

Finally, I was being held prisoner for some reason and a big burly guy something like Bernard Bresslaw had been instructed to “deal with” me. When he took me outside I explained that we’d had our differences but they had always been fair fights and we took what was coming in good grace, but this was a pretty unfair way of doing it and did he think it right? etc. he started to see my point of view and agree but just then his boss came in, clearly exhausted and exasperated after a hard day somewhere and barked out a few orders, and I could see then at that moment that I was wasting my time.

As you might imagine, it took me quite a while to transcribe all of that. And what surprised me was that I’d been so far. I’d had a really bad night it it had taken me hours to go to sleep.

By the time that I’d finished, the rain had stopped so I cleared off quickly into town.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve been looking at this property for quite a while.

It’s part of the complex where I have my accommodation, a part that has not yet been developed. It’s been a rubbish dump for quite a while until they started to tidy it all up a while ago.

And I know the story behind it now because I asked the complex manager when I saw him. It seems that they had started to develop it into apartments for the hotel but planning permission was refused, and they have been fighting about it for the last 10 years. The manager isn’t all that optimistic about its future.

As for the tidying up, they apparently had a notice served on them by the local council.

There’s yet more excitement going on just around the corner in the Tiensestraat.

There’s a vague idea going on around in my head that last time that I was here they were doing something to one of the properties there but it seems that whatever it was that was here, they have simply erased it from the map. This is going to be something to keep an eye on over the next while.

From here I headed off into town to see what was going on. And the answer to that is “nothing”. It was a bit much to expect that the Christmas market was going to be working this year.

There was nothing whatever happening in FNAC either. If that was their New Year sale, it’s a bit thin. And I imagine that the New Year sales for most places will be the same.

In the Bondgenotenlaan they have been working on this property for a few years now.

It’s where WIBRA used to be and after they left it was totally stripped out down to the four walls. And it’s another thing that’s taking a while to come to a conclusion. They are a long way from finishing it.

Talking of WIBRA, I stuck my head in there and also in Zeeman but there was nothing to tempt me. Not even a nice new
woolly hat that I would like. I ended up in Delhaize for just a couple of things and then came back here.

After lunch I sat down and did some work on the radio programmes. I now have two programmes with the music chosen, remixed and paired. And I’m hoping to do a couple more on Friday.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to do my Welsh homework as I … errr … had a little relaxation.

No tea either – I wasn’t al all hungry, so I wrote up my notes for the day, such as they were. No evening walk either as it’s still pouring down with rain and didn’t leave off until after curfew as you might expect.

So a rather late night, and tomorrow I have the hospital when I can see what they are going to do to me. And see how I’ve been keeping for the last couple of months since my last appointment in October.

And I shudder to think.

Thursday 8th October 2020 – IF EVER I …

… get my hands on whoever it was who telephoned me this morning at 07:02, they’ll be eating soup through a straw for the next three month.

It’s always the case though – you can absolutely rely on it. Whenever I plan on having a lie-in, someone always comes along to disturb it. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous incarnations will recall that my bank, not having contacted me for several years, once rang me up a good few years ago at 05:00 when I was fast asleep in a motel somewhere in North Carolina.

What was worse was that I’d left my phone downstairs and by the time that I was down there, whoever it was rang off.

Nevertheless, I went back to bed where I stayed until about 09:10.

While i was having a coffee, I listened to the dictaphone. I had walked for miles and miles last night but I can’t remember anything about it now hardly. Except that we were out in the countryside somewhere near Barthomley way and the group had had a huge row and I was sulking for some reason or other. Someone was talking about all of this, the past, showing us photos, all kinds of stuff. One of the photos came across what looked like some kind of farm building. There was an old coach there and drawings showing hos they wanted to extend this farm building to make a garage for the coach. It turned out that one of the guys said “oh yes can you imagine – while you lot were doing whatever it was that you were doing in the early 70s I was living in this coach. We all said “wow that’s amazing”. he said “yes my BMW was behind the hedge here”. it turned out that he was a famous rock star from the period when he was living in the Crewe area. We were talking about all the goings-on in that particular area and how there was someone who hired out wedding cars and how the place would be decorated when there was a wedding. Then he mentioned a name and it immediately rang a bell with me . He played in a rock group from Nantwich and they had an LP out. This album bombed spectacularly so I asked “do you have any idea where I can get in touch with this guy?” “Ohh, he’s still around. Why are you interested?”. I said “I want to get my hands on their LP because I want to broadcast it on the radio”. H replied “I have a copy”. I asked “I don’t suppose that I could borrow it so that I could record it and play it?”. He seemed to be quite enthusiastic at the idea and one or two other people started to become interested in it.

Strangely enough, there was a rock group from Nantwich, a group called Strife. They fitted the bill and there was a musician in this group who actually had the same name as the one last night. And even more of a coincidence, I have in fact during my daylight hours, I have been trying to track down a copy of their album – and for years to – for just that reason.

No success as yet, but I live in hope.

This morning I’ve been doing some housework on the laptop. I have several files that have been duplicated and I’ve been going through a few of them and merging them in together. Plenty to do though, and that reminds me that there is a whole raft (like 4TBs worth) of this to do on the backup drive that I created earlier this year.

In fact I was trying to do something with the trip that I had on board Spirit of Conrad but it seems that I don’t have the edited photos with me and I can’t remember the numbering sequence.

After lunch I decided to go for a nice long walk to stretch my legs

While I was out on my travels yesterday I noticed that a house down the end of the street in the neighbourhood was having its roof ripped off. I thought that I may as well go into town that way and see what was going on.

And they are certainly making a really good job of it – going flat out at it and making a completely thorough job of it. Obviously, with the house being in Dekenstraat -Blanket Street – it’s having a new blanket.

There was nothing exciting in FNAC, nor Wibra, nor Kruidvat, nor Zeeman, nor Hema. But in Sports Direct I bought another couple of pairs of the trousers that I like seeing as they were on special offer. The ones that I’ve had for three or four years are starting to look pretty thin and I damaged a pair when I was in the Auvergne the other week.

After my little trip to the shops I went for a walk out of town.

In the past, regular readers of this rubbish have seen the sad state of the part of medieval city walls at the Handbooghof right by the River Dijle, and yesterday we saw that some renovation was about to be carried out. My trip around to the Handbooghof was to see what was happening there.

They’ve stuck up a sign to give a little hint as to what is going on. Only a little though because it doesn’t contain very much interesting information.

It doesn’t really help matters either that they have shrouded the work in this corrugated iron fence.

Even with the camera held high above my head I couldn’t really see over it to find out hos they were doing. But there were some big bags of rubble lying around so it looks as if they are dismantling them.

But whether they are going to rebuilt them is another matter. It certainly seems to be pointless if they are taking away some of the bricks that were used in its building. It won’t be the same at all with modern bricks.

While we’re on the subject of bricks … “well, one of us is” – ed … I went to look at that building that I mentioned yesterday – the one that has recently been exposed by the demolition of a more modern building in front ot it.

There is no evidence (like a date-carved lintel) to give an idea of the date, and while the bricks certainly look contemporary to the appropriate historical period, they look extremely clean and the pointwork looks to be extremely tidy.

Not at all what you’d expect from a building several hundred years old so you take your choice.

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that yesterday we went past that building in the Monseigneur Van Waeyenberglaan – the one that was stripped right out.

We’ve been keeping an eye on its renovation over the past while and today, purely by chance, I went past the estate agent’s office where the apartments are advertised for sale.

There seems to me to be little doubt that this is it, and if you have a close look at the asking prices you’ll see why I could never ever afford to come and live in Leuven. Some of the prices here are totally out of anyone’s reach.

One of the things that I intended to do was to go and take a few photos of the old St Rafael Hospital before anything happens to it, so after I’d been and bought my pepper I went round for a look.

The best view of the building is from down the Biezenstraat, and then it isn’t particularly good.

So dodging the school kids coming out of school I took a photo from this corner. At least it had the more modern part visible behind it, and there was a good view of the roof too. It’s green but it’s very unlikely to be copper.

The Kapucinenvoer, the street where the Sint Rafael is situated, is quite narrow and built up on both sides down its whole length so it’s not possible to step back and take a photo of all of it from face-on.

The only way that I could take another photograph is from further down the street on the opposite corner of the building, and it doesn’t look anything like as imposing from this angle.

It’s not really much better inside. I’ve had to go there on a couple of occasions and it’s really just a maze of corridors and tiny consulting rooms. At least – that’s what I saw of it. I didn’t go very far in there.

A little further along the street towards the Brusselsestraat by the Cuythoek, there’s a more modern extension.

It won’t be much of a loss to the community if that part of the building were to disappear. It seems to be nothing more than a typical early 20th Century Government building.

The only drawback would be whatever they would build in its place. We’ve seen PLENTY OF EXAMPLES in the past of modern buildings conjoined to older masterpieces, and all it seems to do is to show up the lack of skill and appreciation held by modern rchitects and builders.

On that depressing note I went around to the Brusselsestraat to see how they were getting on with the demolition of Sint Pieters Hospital.

When we were here in July, we saw a couple of large grabs at work, just like dinosaurs, nibbling away at the brickwork. But they don’t seem to be there any more. Instead, what we seem to have is someone inside the building on the top floor throwing material out of the window.

And if there’s any more pointless task than that, I really don’t know what is.

As I (and quite a crowd of other people) watched, more objcts, and then brickwork and the like, followed the first batch of stuff down to the ground.

And I really can’t see what is going on here at all. Surely, if they are demolishing the building, they’ll do it from the outside with machines like the big ones that we saw back in July. Whatever was still inside it would come down automatically with the rest of it.

It seems to be a waste of time and money to send someone up there like that. It’ll take them forever to knock down the building like that.

While I was there, I noticed that they had taken out a fence panel. That meant that I could approach that machine that I saw yesterday.

On a closer look at it, I could see that it isn’t a water atomiser as I had thought. It’s not powered by compressed air but by electricity (at least, there’s an electric cable attached to it) and the name that’s written on it – “Spray Stream” – seems to indicate that it’s nothing more than a water sprayer.

The huge fan at the back helps to disperse the water all over the rubble. But at least I was right about that – it’s to keep the dust down while they are knocking down the brickwork.

It was a good job that that fence panel was out, because while I was down there admiring the Spray Stream, my eyes alighted on something else.

The city is honeycombed by branches of the River Dijle, and we’ve seen quite a few of those in the past in all kinds of different places in the city.

But this is one that I haven’t noticed before. It’s been pretty well concealed underneath the Leistraat across the road and it isn’t shown on any maps.

There’s a medieval religious house here on the site that has been pretty much built over the river.

It’s the Sint Elizabeth Gasthuis, dating from about 1090 and was the city’s hospital from the 13th to the 17th Century. And when I worked out what it was, that rang a bell with me because I recall having read somewhere that it was the fashion to build hospitals over running water during the Medieval period.

It was something to do with hygene, if I remember correctly, and I’ll have to track down what it was that I read and remind myself.

Back here I had a few things to do, and then I had tea. Another falafel burger with the rest of the vegetables and some pasta with tomato sauce.

No possibility of going out for a walk right now because it was teeming down with rain, so I made a start on writing up my notes.

. The rain did ease up for a little moment so I nipped out to make the most of it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen a few photos of where I stay taken during the day, but I can’t remember whether I’ve ever photographed it in the night. So here it is. My little room is down the little alleyway to the left just by where the tree is.

So having taken the photo I walked on around the block to run up the time on the fitbit to over 100%. I might have gone farther but I suddenly realised that I didn’t have my facemask with me so I’d better head back. Not for health reasons, but for fear of frightening the locals.

But now I’m off to bed. It’s a 5:30 start in the morning so I need to be on form.

Tuesday 7th July 2020 – IT”S NOT VERY …

… good news at the hospital unfortunately.

While you admire the roadworks in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan, which they are digging up in order to replace all of the sewers down there, I shall tell you all about it.

My appointment was for 16:00 so I was there at 15:30 and it took a while to sign in, basically because there is no provision for signing in if you don’t have a Belgian identity card

While you watch the car disappearing into its own dustcloud, something that brought back may happy memories of Labrador I went up in the outpatients department where they took a blood sample and then sent me to wait until a doctor sent for me.

Round about 18:00 I was eventually seen. I’ve no idea what took them so long. And this is when they told me the news. My blood count has dropped to 8.3 – just slightly above the critical limit.

That’s a substantial drop from the last time that I had a blood test, when it was 9.4. And this is probably what happened on Tuesday morning last week when I was taken ill on the boat, and why I had such a hard time on my run on Sunday night.

Mind you, there’s not a sign of infection in my blood.

Consequently they have decided not to give me any treatment right now. They think that I can struggle on until October and then start a new cycle of treatment.

It seems to me to be a strange manner of proceeding if you ask me, but I suppose they know what they are doing. However they did want to retake the the blood sample so I was told to wait.

And wait I did.

And after an hour or so, fed up of waiting in a deserted out-patients’ department and no-one about at all, I eventually found someone who was on the way home and flagged them down. It seems that the doctor had forgotten to tell a nurse.

She couldn’t use my catheter port with it only having been used a short while ago so it had to be taken from my arm.

It was round about 19:20 I was finally able to leave the hospital and head back home.

This morning I was up and out of bed before the third alarm went off. First task was to finish off the notes from last night and that took much longer than expected.

Plenty of stuff on the dictaphone too. We were out with something like LORD OF THE RINGS last night. We’d been under attack by the Nazgul. After we had pushed them away and they cleared off we were all talking. There was someone who had a model city with a wall all round it. I mentioned to one of the people we were with about this – that would make an ideal defence so he decided that we could all go and stay in that. So we trooped off around the heqdland and there was this city. One of the people who had been with us earlier was a baby. We had started to give this baby bottled milk, all this kind of thing and we reckoned that this baby would be thirsty by now. As we went round the headland we could see that this baby was nursing off its mother so we made the point “ohh look! It’s having mother’s milk on draught”. We went to install ourselves in this toy castle on the coast to defend ourselves against another attack of the Nazguls.
I was back in school last night, but a school in the USA and I was late back from my break – 4 minutes late so the teacher told me, a black guy. We were talking about people on welfare, how they had to wear a certain tyope of sandal but the zip was inside it so you had to put your hand down inside to work the zip. You could always tell people on welfare because of their sandals. I came into the class and I was new, 4 minutes late and the only seat free was next to the teacher so I had to sit there. It was one of those places where your desk was behind you and you had to sit facing forward and you turned round to do your work. I asked him what we were doing. We were talking about colours. There are three colours when you are computing and he should know because he’s built a computer. I rattled off these three colours. He looked at me and wondered what I was doing in his class that I was obviously so old and I knew so much already.

A shower and a clothes-washing session was first, followed by going down to Delhaize for supplies for the next couple of days.

There was my welsh lesson too so I had to do the preparation for that. When the meeting started I realised that this laptop doesn’t have a microphone.

In the end I had to connect the video on the laptop and at the same time run the audio from the mobile phone. A very complicated system but it worked.

Down at the shops I had bought a small loaf so I made sandwiches for lunch, with spicy hummus, tomato and lettuce, followed by fruit.

After lunch I headed off into town.

First stop was at FNAC. The s;all folding headphones that I had bought back in 2016 had stopped working on one side so I wanted another pair to replace them.

The headphones themselves were really good apart from that so I was happy to buy another pair. They fit nicely in the top pocket of my backpack.

Walking my way across town in the warm afternoon, I passed by the old Sint Pieter’s hospital in the Brusselsestraat. I had wanted to watch the demolition in action.

And i wasn’t alone there either. There was quite a crowd there in the street watching all of the activity over there behind the fence.

There was this enormous machine here that caught my eye.

It was a huge hydraulic nibbler that was eating away at the walls of the building, taking huge chinks out of the wall and sending it crashing down to the ground.

And there, there was a digger with a hydraulic breaker that was breaking up the brick walls into smaller manageable proportions ready to be shovelled up by another digger that was waiting to move it.

It’s going to be quite a big job, disposing of all of the rubble.

Round the corner is the old Sint Rafael hospital.

That has been slowly run down over the past few years and now it looks as if it’s biting the dust too. There’s going to be a really big empty site there when the two big hospitals are knocked down and I can’t wait to see the area when they have finished.

There are all kinds of plans for the area and we are going to see quite a transformation when it’s all complete. Removing the culvert that covers the River Dyle will be something spectacular.

Another thing that we have been keeping our eye on is the work that has been going on in the car park in the Sint Jacobsplein.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw them digging it out at the end of last year but unfortunately I wasn’t here to see what they were doing in the hole.

They have now filled it it so I won’t ever get to know, but having seen them replacing all of the sewers in the street, it’s very probably something to do with that project.

The resurfqcing of the car park was something that was an essential task. Driving on it was like sailing a galleon on the high seas in a storm. So that is something to look forward to.

It’s not just around here that all of the work is going on.

While they are replacing the sewers, they have taken the opportunity to realign the Tervuursestraat and make to road junction with the Heilige-Geeststraat. That’s always been a difficult junction but this will be much better.

However it prevented me from walking all the way up the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan and I had to go a really long way round to get to the hospital. I’m certainly knocking up the kilometres right now.

On the way back into town this caught my eye.

We’ve seen breadomats and potatomats and pizzamats on our travels but we haven’t ever seen a soupomat until today This one is parked up behind the bus stop on the Rector de Somerplein

Back here I put my baked beans in the microwave and then went in search of a fritkot. My usual one is closed, the next one has ceased to trade and I had to walk miles before I eventually tracked one down. How is this possible in Belgium?

So beans and chips for tea followed by tangerines and banana dessert.

So now I’m off to bed. No alarm because I deserve a lie-in after today’s effort. I’ll have a think about where I go from here and see what I can do about my current situation.

It’s not what I was hoping for.

Tuesday 16th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

Yes, people. Yours Truly went to the bank today – and left his card in the machine, didn’t he?

And I didn’t intend to. I went to draw out some cash, and made sure that my money and card were safely stashed away. But then, being totally puzzled by the credit balance, I put the card back into consult the transactions, didn’t I?

So that’s today’s bad news. The good news is that the balance is indeed correct. Something upon which I have been working for a few weeks and which has involved several trips to Brussels over the years has finally come up trumps.

And so a new camera might be on the way, as well as a fretless five-string bass guitar. I’m allowed to reward myself for my efforts.

last night was a bad night yet again. I managed to just about stay awake for all of the film, but then I couldn’t drop off properly. Drifting away and drifting back in as the fancy took me.

Plenty of time to go on several rambles though, and when I return home, I can tell you all about them.

One, though, sticks in my mind. I was travelling yet again with a group of people, several of whom were people with whom I had been on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. I walked into a railway station buffet and sitting in there was the Asian girl who had been pn board. She was sitting on her own so I went to sit by her. asked her what had happened to Boon (her husband), to which she replied that he was in their room resting. Later on, I was on the platform and Marian the photographer was there. She was taking a photo of something on the wall, and stepping further and further back. I shouted at her to stop because she was in danger of falling off the platform. However, she still shuffled back a few paces regardless of my shouting, and took her photo. When she finished I told her to look behind her, which she did and let out a gasp. “You were on the point of falling off the edge just there” I told her. She replied “yes” so I went on to say that her back would have been broken on the rails too. We walked down the platform towards the end of the station, passing a few shops and the buffet on the way. Some of them were brightly illiminated with pink lights, all very artistically. One of them particularly caught my eye, but it took me a while to sort out my camera, and just as I was on the point of photographing it, the buffet closed and they switched off the lights and I was so disappointed.

With no alarm this morning (I’m allowed to recover my lack of lie-in on Sunday) it was about 08:30 that I finally arose from the Dead.

It was rather a late breakfast, of course, and then I rather shamefully fell asleep on the sofa for about 20 minutes.

As a result I was rather late going for a walk into town this morning. I did a tour of a few shops.

First of all though I went to the Herbert Hooverplein to see the spring daffodils. They are really beautiful, just as you might expect to see in Flanders and the Netherlands

At the shops, FNAC came up with nothing, but Zeeman produced a shoulder sports-bag for just €4:99.

The backpack is too big to carry around for casual trips and this bag folds up quite nicely into a small space at the bottom of the rucksack to carry around when I’m on a voyage.

At the bank I forgot my card, as I said, and then I went to the Loving Hut. But that’s now officially crossed off my list as the products in there are fewer and fewer, and more and more expensive. On the other hand, the bio shop across town, the Origin’O by the Vismarkt, has everything that I need, including vegan grated cheese.

Back to the bank about my card but it was closed for lunch so I rang up and stopped the card. Now I’ll have to apply for a new one.

On the way back I had an ice-cream now that the stall is open for the summer, and then I want to sit in the sunshine to eat it.

At the Universun Tavern on the corner of the Tiensestraat and the Herbert Hooverplein, they had set out all of the tables so that people could sit in the sun.

It’s definitely a sign that summer is acumen in.

At the Spar shop I picked up a baguette for lunch to eat with a tomato and my vegan cheese.

This afternoon I fell asleep yet again and then struggled to stay away, not being able to concentrate on anything.

In the end, I read a couple of articles about the High Arctic that I had downloaded the other day.

Tea tonight was the other vegan burger with potatoes and vegetables followed by some fruit, and then I went for a walk around outside to digest my meal.

One route that I don’t usually follow is the Blijde Inkomststraat, the street that goes down to the back of the Herbert Hooverplein and the University Library.

There was this beautiful Flemish maison du maitre down there, and it was all illuminated in the dusk. It’s really brought out the best in the carved statues on the wall above the door.

But my purpose in going out was to see the new fountain.

I’d had a good look at it earlier but I thought that it might be nicely illuminated in the evening and that would make a really good photograph.

But that was something of a disappointment. I was hoping to see it much better-illuminated than this. They really ought to do better.

Now, I’m all packed and ready to leave for home. It’s an early start as you know so I need to be on form.

Friday 15th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

Even though I went to bed early, I was almost immediately stricken by a bad attack of cramp.And this went on for several hours and I was in total agony. What was even worse was that some of the attacks occurred spontaneously without even moving. I have never hurt so much in all my life.

At some point during the night I did manage to go off to sleep. And to go on a voyage too. To some kind of touristy island in the Mediterranean where there was a typical British family trying to run a bar. They were making a lot of money at it too catering for all of the Brits who went there, but there was clearly something else going on because although one side of the cashing-up briefcase was full of cash, the other side was empty and there was a very neat slit in the bottom of the case that someone had made to get into the case and take the money. In the end, they decided to move to an island just offshore where there was a vacant bar. There was some kind of festival that had taken place on there, where four people charged a bull, and then the five of them turned round and charged the rest of the people sitting at the table. They decided to revive the festival, but the first day there it was pouring down with rain and they were so dispirited that they didn’t want to open. In the end, I volunteered to go because even though there wouldn’t be any custom,the place still needed to be open. So I went upstairs to the cafe but two policemen followed me up and they fixed two white triangles in the window to indicate that the place was closed by the authorities. Apparently the new owners hadn’t applied for a licenceand they were fed up of Brits coming over and flouting all of the regulations just because they didn’t suit. All of this ended by the youngest son going off to an island off the coast of Madagascar to open something but he had been to the authorities to sort out all of the licensing issues first.

We had the usual medication and breakfast – and my porridge took longer than at home – probably due to the lesser power of the microwave here. and then I spent most of the morning catching up with some work.

At lunchtime I went off down the Tiensestraat to the Delhaize in the centre of town.

My route took me round by the Herbert Hooverplein and despite all of the time that I lived here in Leuven I didn’t know about the existence of this market.

It stretches right round into the Ladeuzeplein too. It was closing down now that it’s lunch time so I’ll have to come here earlier the next time.

FNAC came up with nothing either which was a shame, so I headed off down the Bondgenotenlaan.

On the other side of the road there seemed to be a gilets jaunes demonstration, but closer examination revealed that it was in fact nothing more than a group of nursery school on their way for an afternoon out.

So I left them there and went on to the Loving Hut.

And the Loving Hut was a wash-out yet again. But at Delhaize I found stuff for lunch as well as some vegan burgers, tinned vegetables and pasta sauce for tea for the next few days.

With having had a really bad night I spent most of the afternoon drifting off into a state of semi-consciousness broken only by a shower and a clothes washing session.

And then tea – and I overcooked my burger which was a shame but the rest of it was nice, especially the sorbet and pineapple.

Later on, I went for a walk around the Tiensesteenweg.

The fritkot there, where I used to go for my chips when I first started living at this end of the town had closed down a while ago. Tonight, I noticed that they were in the process of flattening it.

I wonder what they are going to put here in its place.

While I was here, I peered in at the window of the motorbike shop – but I couldn’t see much in here.

But now it’s an early night. I’ve an early start tomorrow and off to Koln. And the weather forecast is exactly as I expected. Pouring down with rain.

street market monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven belgium

roadworks paving grote markt leuven belgium

railway bridge leuven belgium

Tuesday 19th February 2019 – OVER THE PAST …

… few days – or more like a few weeks – I’ve been complaining about not feeling too well. I had an idea about what might have been happening and now I know.

With having turned off the alarm last night, I was looking forward to a decent sleep. I had something much better than 08:40 in mind.

I don’t know what I had done during the night but I awoke feeling totally and thoroughly dreadful. I know that I’ve been feeling down just recently, but this was down on another level.

It took a while to haul myself out of bed and have breakfast and by now I was feeling rather better. Well enough to set out into town to pick up my medication and a baguette at Delhaize.

I had a wander back via FNAC to see what cameras they had on offer but there was nothing that I really fancied having a play with.

But this was where my little morning stroll came unstuck because I was hit with a wave of fatigue.

I headed off back to my little room, passing by the corner of the Vital Decosterstraat and the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein to see what the noise was, to find that they were pressure-washing the walls of a building.

Back home, I really fancied a coffee but instead I sat down in a comfy chair and went to sleep.

Round about 13:30 I came to and made myself a sandwich, but by 14:00 I was on the bed and under the covers. Goodnight Vienna!

The next thing that I remembered was that it was 21:30. I can’t recall ever feeling as ill for ages as I was feeling right now, and I’m heading off home tomorrow morning. But I forced myself out of bed to pack and then went back to bed. And that’s my lot for today.

Saturday 22nd December 2018 – IT’S ALL VERY WELL …

… going to bed really early at something like 21:00 or whenever it was, but it counts for nothing at all if you are wide-awake again at about 23:20.

After that, it took me an absolute age to go back to sleep. And when I finally did manage to drop off, I wasn’t out for long. By 04:30 I was awake again and by 05:00 I was up and about.

None of the aforementioned stopped me going for a little nocturnal ramble though. And wherever I was during the night, I was somewhere that bore a resemblance to the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence. And I don’t remember what vehicle I was in either. But there I was in some kind of small town with some kind of rural business park out there but with buildings so well hidden that they would take some tracking down. There was an ice-cream parlour there somewhere and I was on my way. I had to negotiate a few barriers and ended up in a field that was being used as a car park, but then I couldn’t even see the sign for the ice-cream place, never mind find the buildings. And so I found myself back on the road, heading to the end where there was a huge car ferry that would press onwards. The road to the ferry terminal turned a sharp left right by a series of small lakes and ponds. By now I was accompanied by a young girl who was going to an interview. This was taking place at a modern building near the turning. When we arrived there we met someone who was going to take us thereand we noticed a couple wading across the pond to meet us. I remarked that I wouldn’t like to do that in winter, to which the guy replied that in winter they walked on the ice. Even so, just before the ice formed it would still be far too cold for me. This girl went off with these two people and I was obliged to wait for her. I was shown around the ground floor of this building and while this was happening I saw my ferry steaming… “dieseling” – ed … out of the harbour down the road. Something had to be taken to the theatre, which was upstairs, so I volunteered.This place was much bigger than the ground floor, quite modern, clean and tidy. The bar was in a strange place, down at the end, and there was a woman there. She thanked me for what I had brought and invited me to watch the next production. I explained that by then, I would probably be a very long way away from here.

First thing that I did after I joined the Land of the Living (and believe me, this was at a moment not exactly adjacent to 05:00) was to have a shower. There were clothes ti wash, of course, but I wasn’t up to dealing with those right now. They can wait until the next time.

Second thing that needed doing was to write up my notes for yesterday. Going to bed at 21:00 meant that I hadn’t even thought about that last night. What with an interruption for coffee and a couple of others too for various purposes (including a little relax), it took me quite a while to deal with it.

By now it was 10:00 and I have things to do, so I hit the streets.

It wasn’t very cold at all outside – rather disappointing in fact, because I was hoping for some kind of Arctic weather for Christmas.

And so instead I went for a wander for a good view of the Pope Leo XIII Seminary, nicely framed by the new student accommodation blocks off the Tiensestraat.

And the Christmas Market wasn’t open either. They were still setting it up. Instead, I went to FNAC but there was nothing there that caught my eye.

Moving on, I went on to the Delhaize to buy what I couldn’t carry home yesterday.

My route took me through the Grote Markt where I walked past all of the strange Christmas cabins that they have erected here. They certainly go to town when they tart up the place.

Delhaize came up with what I need, and I now have almost everything that I need, especially as on the market outside was a stall selling Brussels sprouts.

No Christmas meal of any description is complete without Brussels Sprouts.

And so with nothing else to do and nothing else going on, I headed home for lunch.

But not before I took a little diversion onto a car park in the Windmolenstraat to admire a vehicle parked in one of the spaces. I shall leave Strawberry Moose to sum up the situation perfectly.

By the time that I returned it was almost midday so I had a mince pie with my coffee. That’s the official declaration that the Festive season has arrived. Although I don’t really feel festive at all, with a hospital appointment on Christmas Eve.

And being away from home doesn’t help. I do like Leuven, make no mistake, and if I had to be anywhere away from home them Leuven would receive my vote any time. But all the same, it’s not my home.

After lunch, I headed back out again.

This time, the Christmas market was open and I had a good stroll around. But there was nothing that interested me. In fact, it didn’t seem to be anything like as good as last year’s when there was an ice rink and all of that.

First stop was to Kruidvat for some of their gluten-free and gelatine-free sweets. And that place was heaving

Next stop was the Sports Shop. I went in for a look around and saw that they had the trousers that I like on special offer again. As one of my pairs was torn and I seemto have left another behind in Canada, I bought two pairs.

But here’s a shock! Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I went to Africa earlier this year. And I had it in my mind to go to the Travel Agent’s – just across the road – to see if there was anything else coming up in the near future that would be exciting.

But SHOCK! HORROR! It’s closed down! That’s no good to me at all and it’s very disappointing.

Another thing that was very disappointing was that the supply of vegan food in the Loving Hut has dwindled almost to nothing. None of my favourite cheese, none of the spray-on vegan cream. Stocks have been running down in there for quite a while and it doesn’t look as if there’s much more to go.

Instead I wandered off to the Bio shop – the Origin’O – across town in the Vismarkt and they did the business. Well, sort-of. They had pouring cream, not spray-on, but they did have some decent cheese and also a slice of vegan walnut-cake. That’ll do me for Christmas Day.

On the way back, walking up the Muntstraat, I came across a restaurant that I hadn’t noticed before. It was advertising vegetarian and allergy-free meals so I stuck my head in to enqure about vegan and gluten-free. And much to my delight, they could indeed cater for us. So I’ll invite Alison there next time I see her.

Back in my little room, and another mince pie, with vegan cream this time. What they call “pushing the boat out”.

Another little relax, and then 18:15 saw me back on the road again.

Idly scanning through Livescore, I noticed that there was a Belgian Premier League match on in St Truiden this eveninf. STVV v KV Kortrijk. I’d seen STVV play in Oostende earlier this year but I’d never been to St Truiden. It’s only three stops down the line from Leuven and the kick-off time corresponded nicely with the trains.

So there I was, at 18:44 leaping aboard the train to Genk.

At 19:15 I was leaping off it in St truiden and decanted myself into the fritkot right outside the station. Being in Belgium, fritjes are always on the menu and eating them while walking down the road to a football match is always a good plan and typically Belgian.

It really WAS a good plan too, because these were some of the most delicious fritjes that I have ever eaten. And they were quite generous too. It took me all the way to Het Staaien to eat them.

But as for the football though … What can I say?

I’ve seen some rubbish in my time but I would have to search deep and long into my memory to see anything quite like this. Apart from the fact that both teams were too slow to move the ball about and wasted numerous chances by taking one touch too many – something that seems to be a modern trait – the quality was dire.

I don’t know what was up with the STVV keeper but he couldn’t kick to save his life and his antics, especially in the first 10 minutes but here and there throughout the match – as he received back-passes from his team was like watching in slow motion an accident waiting to happen.

Both sets of attackers must have suffered from vertigo or have had lead weights in their boots because I only counted two high balls into the penalty area in the whole match. So clueless were they that from one short corner, the player taking the kick somehow managed to kick it out for a throw-in.

We had dozens of misplaced passes, dozens of players falling over the ball and, even worse, dozens of shots from excellent positions blazed hopelessly over the bar.

STVV were roundly booed off the field at the end of the game (and no surprise either) and had there been more than 100 or so fans from Kortrijk, their team would have been booed off the pitch too. 0-0 was how it finished and you aren’t ever going to win a match playing like these two teams did this evening.

I had to wait for a while for the train back – the last train from Genk as it happened. And it was a little rowdy too with a few Kortrijk supporters who had clearly been just a little too close to the barmaid’s apron.

It was quite late by the time I arrived back, so I wasn’t going to hang around. I had some pineapple and ice cream for pudding and then I went to bed. Although it’s a Sunday there’s an alarm set for 06:00. i’m off out early and I’ll be gone all day.

load of boels schepenenstraat leuven louvain belgium

pope leo 13 seminary chapel leuven louvain belgium

wilfried craps leuven louvain belgium

christmas market herbert hooverplein leuven louvain belgium

christmas market monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven louvain belgium

het stayen st truiden stvv kv kortrijk football belgium

Friday 16th March 2018 – AND SO, AFTER …

… all of my exertions, I was awake quite early this morning.

And although last night was still a tossy-turny affair, it wasn’t as bad as the previous one. And I was on my travels too – heading for home on the bus (the n°11 as it happened) from stoke on Trent, so work that one out. And I was going home to “sort out” a few things and a few people over my taxi business. There had been some considerable discussion about how inconvenient the buses were, but i’d insisted that they were more convenient than people think. As the bus turned from Ruskin Road into Gainsborough Road (good, these buses, aren’t they?) I saw TOTGA standing on the corner. I made a gesture indicating that I wanted her to follow on down, but she gave a blank look. Suddenly, it turned into a flash of recognition. The bus stopped right outside my front door (I’d explained to the driver where I had lived but he knew anyway) and the whole house was in darkness. That was weird for 19:30 on a Wednesday evening when we had the taxis and I’d certainly have words about this. But even with dropping me off at my front door I had a long walk home and it was a weary, tiring trudge, what with my illness, all down along Coppenhall Land towards The Playing Fields I was on the track through the woods and there hanging in the trees was a towel that looked very much like my old blue one, and as I followed the path I had to cross onto the road but someone had planted a hedge in the way and I had to climb over it. It took me two attempts too. But I was so tired and weary that I realised that I couldn’t go on and my business would have to go.

after the usual morning performance, I had a little … errr … relax on the armchair. I’m really not doing this, am I?

And it took me quite a while to come round as well. I must have been out. In fact it took me until about 11:00 before I was in any kind of state to leave the room.

Halfway down the road I realised that I had forgotten my prescriptions – so that meant that I would have to come out again this afternoon.

My perambulations took me down and across the Ladeuzeplein, where my progress was arrested by these goings-on.

I’m not sure what it was that they were trying to do – except building a wall to presumably keep out illegal Mexicans, but they are using piles of crates that belong to that well-known manufacturer of iced tea, all of which had been brought to the Square by a large fleet of lorries.

So shrugging my shoulders, I continued on my way.

First stop was at Kruidvat, for a pile of gelatine-free sweets, and then to Wibra. I’d seen some good microwave steamers last time that I was here. Not very substantial and probably won’t last all that long. But that’s not going to be much of an issue because I probably won’t either.

But star of the show was in the FNAC. As you know, I’ve been having mobile phone issues since December and I ended up with a cheap Chinese import. And cheap was the appropriate word too. It does work but it was only ever going to be a stop-gap until I could find something better.

And so when they had some Samsung J3s on sale for a price less than I could have had one with a renewed contract, and when I negotiated another €20 off it too, I’ve now ended up with that. and the exciting thing about it is that with me having saved my settings on the old Samsung phone, this new phone simply downloaded everything as soon as I logged in, and it’s just like my old phone now.

Back here with a baguette and a tomato and some vegan cheese, I made myself some lunch. And then back out again.

And I was halfway down the road when I realised that I had forgotten my prescription yet again. I did a little wander around though, bought a tin of spicy beans from Delhaize for tea and then came back here.

Rounding up the prescription, I went back out and rounded up the medicaments.

Tea was baked spuds and spicy beans, and then I went for a little walk. And the temperature which had really been so nice today, had now plummeted. Snow is forecasted, but I might miss it.

Now it’s an early night. I have a train to catch back home in the morning.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Category Archives: FNAC

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Tuesday 16th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

Friday 15th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Tuesday 19th February 2019 – OVER THE PAST …

Saturday 22nd December 2018 – IT’S ALL VERY WELL …

Friday 16th March 2018 – AND SO, AFTER …

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