… route that I took to get to Leuven today.
While I show you a photo of the train that I took at Paris Gare du Nord, a different type of train than the usual ones direct to Brussels, what I hadn’t noticed when I had booked my journey was how the change-over at Lille would take place.
It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be any problem at all. My train out from Lille to Brussels is a standard TGV and so it would be leaving from the new Lille Europe TGV station and my train from Paris Gare du Nord is also a TGV, I didn’t even question where its terminus might be.
So when my INOUI TGV pulled into the older Lille Flandres Railway Station just 15 minutes before my Brussels train was due to leave Lille Europe, I was wondering whether or not I had made a poor decision here.
It’s lucky that I know the city fairly well and know my way around, so I was able to put on something of a spurt, even stopping to take a photo of the bizarre buildings outside, and arrive at the platform with a couple of minutes to spare.
This new keep-fit me is really working hard at it and it’s just as well, for if I had had to stagger all the way there in the state of health in which I found myself previously, I might have had a problem.
Much to my own amazement, and almost certainly to yours, the door to my carriage and reserved seat was situated right at the foot of the stairs down which I had descended.
Consequently I was able to clamber aboard without delay and take my seat in comfort before we hurtled off into the countryside, and I made a mental note to take more notice of my travel plans in future, otherwise one of these days I’ll come unstuck.
On that note, I settled down for a little snooze all the way to Brussels.
And I needed a sleep too because I had had another late night. Even at 00:45 I was still backing up the computer before closing it down.
It wasn’t the Sleep of the Dead either, because I awoke once or twice, according to the dictaphone entries. And when I transcribe them I can tell you all about them
But I still managed to be up with the second alarm, and then I did some general cleaning and tidying up, and preparing my stuff for the journey. And it did occur to me that this time I was completely disorganised and unprepared for the journey. That’s not at all like me, is it?
The train is leaving half an hour earlier so I had to leave the apartment half an hour earlier too.
Despite the wind and the rain, the fish-processing plant was going full-tilt. Plenty of activity down there so they must have had quite a busy night there with plenty of trawlers coming in.
And regular readers of this rubbish will recall the big red van that seems to have been abandoned on the concrete pad by the plant. That’s still there so I really am wondering what’s going on with it.
That wasn’t the only excitement in the port today either.
It seems that our old friend Normandy Trader has come in during the night and is now moored up at the usual mooring point that she shares with Thora
Don’t think that I’ve forgotten that I’ve been invited to drop in and say hello to the crew. But there’s no time for that today as I have a train to catch in half an hour
So I put a spurt on and made it to the railway station in plenty of time, only to find that the coffee machine is out of order.
That’s not a very good start to the day.
But still, no worries. We headed off into the bright blue yonder at a rattling pace, only to become unstuck at Argentan where a delayed connection kept us waiting for 20 minutes.
Despite that, we were only 5 minutes late arriving in Paris (which shows that this train can do it if it tries) and I had a fairly easy trajet on the Metro to the Gare du Nord.
This new lean, keen, mean me can push it along if it tries these days. There was even time to buy another carnet of tickets and to eat my lunch before boarding the train.
We’ve talked about the journey from Paris to Brussels, and at Brussels I only had 10 minutes to wait before an Inter-City train to Welkenraedt pulled it.
It was nice and quiet at first but at Brussels-Centre we were invaded by a horde of kids aged about 7 or 8, on the way back from some kind of school outing.
Alighting at Leuven, a brisk walk brought me to the apartment complex and after a wait of about 10 minutes someone came to see me and give me the keys.
Now I’m installed and quite comfortable in my little place which is possibly one of the best here in which I’ve stayed.
Plenty of time to go shopping too, and down at the Delhaize I stocked up with a bit of food, even though they didn’t have any of the spicy beans that I like. I had potatoes, veg and a burger for tea and it was delicious, followed by fruit salad and orange sorbet.
Now I’m off to bed. I have my appointment with destiny tomorrow.
