Category Archives: jackie schueller

Sunday 12th April 2026 – SO FAR, I HAVE …

… managed to avoid falling asleep today.

However, that’s not such a big deal today, because when you don’t wake up until about 09:00 and you don’t leave the bed until about 09:40, there isn’t much time to fall asleep afterwards.

In fact, you might say that I spent twelve hours in bed last night and, believe me, I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t actually, to my shame, rush through everything last night – it was something more like a leisurely stroll – and by the time that I’d finished the notes, the stats and the back-up, and then gone to sort myself out in the bathroom, it was just coming up to 21:30.

How long I spent in the bathroom, I didn’t record, but it wasn’t all that long and I was soon in bed, tucked up under the quilt.

And there I stayed until … errr … 03:55, when I had to go walking the parapet, and then back in bed, I slept until 07:05. However, I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly, and there I lay until the nurse awoke me. And that first sleep was not far short of six and a half hours, and it’s the best sleep that I’ve had for ages.

The nurse was having another good moan at me this morning. He was complaining that I hadn’t pulled the curtains. Well, much as I love the dark, seriously, I love the light too so I’m happy in the morning with the sunlight creeping around the edges of the shutters in here. He thinks that I ought to be in a perfect state of darkness in here while I’m asleep.

Once he left, I tried to go back to sleep but without success. And Alison made up my mind for me when she sent me a text message. Trying to reply when you have your head and your ‘phone down under the quilt is not easy, believe me, and when you drop the ‘phone on the floor and the message turns into a load of gibberish that sends itself, it’s even less easy than that.

With all of that going on, I decided to leave the bed, although it took me a good twenty minutes to find the enthusiasm and the energy to stand up. But once I was up, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out.

Back in the kitchen afterwards, where I forgot to take my medication, I baked my croissants, and they turned out really well. I was so impressed, especially as I was using some of the cheap pastry rolls.

So, with two of my croissants, some porridge and some hot black coffee, I sat down to read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

And here we go again. In a footnote on page 115, he launches another attack on one of his predecessors, Thomas Stukeley, saying "The antiquary Stukeley published a “Medallic History of Carausius”, which, although it displays too much of that writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions, shows us with how much advantage the coins might be made to illustrate the history."

Whilst he’s not wrong about the coins illustrating the history, as we have seen before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the phrase “the writer’s hasty speculations and conclusions” reminds me of a well-known phrase involving a pot and a kettle.

After breakfast, I came back in here to transcribe the dictaphone notes.

There was some kind of civic centre opened in a local town. It had a huge ballroom-type of place, meeting room or whatever and there was a small annexe that had a licence for fifty people. Someone had applied to hire the smaller room for a birthday party and had sent in a list of fifty people who would be attending. However, the local council was dithering about this because they were thinking that whilst a couple of people on this list might not turn up, a couple of other people might turn up unannounced and take the attendance to over fifty, in which case there would be all kinds of legal issues, so they were still dithering about this for ages.

We were actually talking yesterday about people turning up uninvited to funerals and weddings. It’s strange how these things come round so quickly. And, of course, fire regulations, particularly in the UK, are such that there is a genuine fear of being found over the limit for the room. And when you see the size of the fines, no wonder people are rather nervous

I was staying with Bob Dylan last night. We were at his house, which was overlooking one of the lakes in either Vermont or New Hampshire. It was a very steep climb up to the front door and the garden was filled with flowers. We were sitting on a kind of terrace, and the way to go back to the front door was to go down, across and back up again, but he went inching his way along the edge of one of the flower beds, which looked extremely dangerous to me. He came back with a plate of cold baked beans. I asked him about why he preferred them cold instead of hot, but he didn’t really answer. Then, he said a little later that we had to go into town for something so I went into the house to put on my shoes. However, every couple of minutes, there was some kind of interruption, and there were lots of things that I had to do. Each time that I tried to put on my shoes, there was something else, but in the end, I managed to put on my shoes. Then, the story skipped and it was about a musician in a group who also played for Y Bala. He had mysteriously disappeared and no-one knew where he was. The police report said something that he had been living in a two-bedroomed terrace but he had seen something that had dragged him out, and no-one knew what that something was. He’d gone to follow it but hadn’t returned. Later on, back at Bob Dylan’s house, he was having an evening with his friends. There were three of his friends there and the father of this missing musician, footballer or whatever. They were all eating mashed potato and baked beans that were cold.

Actually, this looked much more like one of the lakes in northeast Maine to me, a region that we have visited ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

But the cold baked beans are interesting, especially if they are American ones, packed full of sugar and additives. They must be disgusting. Even the “British recipe” baked beans don’t taste the same as they do back in the UK. I can’t recall whether a musician ever played for Y Bala, but Ywain Gwynedd had a long and successful career in the old Cymru Alliance League, mainly for Porthmadog FC.

With all of these interruptions while I was trying to put on my shoes, I’m surprised that a member of my family didn’t turn up. The odds would have been nailed on that they would have been involved somehow with all of that.

After that, I had a few things to do and then I recommenced the editing of the radio notes from where I had fallen asleep yesterday.

Not that I advanced very far because the girls arrived to say goodbye. We had a little chat and then an exchange of presents before they pushed off to catch their train for a girly evening in Paris. It was really nice of them to come to see me, and I appreciated it very much. I hope that they come again soon, and stay for longer.

Once they had left, I carried on with the editing, and the programme is now finished. It’s not very good at all, but given the circumstances that surrounded this concert, it’s lucky that there is a tape recording at all. Its value is in its rarity – it’s probably never been broadcast on the radio previously.

By now, it was time for the football. I’d already seen Stranraer beat Spartans 2-1 away from home and Greenock Morton lose away at Kirkaldy against Raith Rovers earlier this afternoon, but now it was the Welsh Cup Final between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. And for seventy minutes, we had one of the most exciting games that I have seen recently.

It’s a pity, though, that Y Fflint didn’t wake up until the twentieth minute, because the match was all over by then. Caernarfon had roared into a 3-0 lead while Y Fflint were still sleeping.

But as I implied just now, after that Y Fflint made a game of it and had several chances to score, but it was all too late and the score remained the same until the final whistle.

There were a few things to do after that, and then it was time for tea. Just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream again. That will do me for this evening, and now, when I’ve finished everything, I’m going for an early night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about walking the parapet … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone once asked me "you know how we say ‘spend a penny’ to say that we are going to the bathroom"
"Yes?" I replied.
"So what do you say in Europe?"
"Simple" I replied. "We say that we are going to euronate."

0

Saturday 11th April 2026 – THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

Most of the day has been spent fighting off wave after wave of sleep, quite often unsuccessfully.

Anyone would think that I wasn’t in bed by 21:30 last night with all of this, but it’s true that I was. Once again, tea last night was just chocolate cake and home-made ice cream, and then I came back in here to write up my notes.

Once my notes were finished, there were the other usual things to do, and then I went into the bathroom to sort myself out ready for bed. As I slid under the quilt later, it was just 21:28, and that made me feel so much better.

It didn’t take long to go to sleep either, and there I stayed, flat out until all of … errr … 03:20. Mind you, that’s almost six hours of continuous sleep and I was happy with that. I even managed to go back to sleep a little later too.

When I awoke again, it was 05:23 exactly. I hung around in bed for a while and then raised myself from the Dead to go to walk the parapet.

Back in here afterwards, in a fit of keenness, I dictated a pile of outstanding radio notes. However, I had this very dry throat, which seems to be a symptom of one of these new pills that Emilie the Cute Consultant prescribed for me, so I binned what I had dictated, went into the kitchen to gargle with some water, and then came back in here to start the dictation again.

By the time that the alarm went off at 06:29, I’d dictated the notes for four “additional tracks” and also the notes for a concert to replace those that I had discarded yesterday.

The next stop was the bathroom, where I had a good scrub-up and then went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, fighting off the first of many waves of sleep, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night. But first, I had to find the dictaphone. Eventually, I came across it underneath the little bedside table at the head of the bed. It looks as if I’d missed my aim after I’d finished dictating something and had been presumably trying to put it on the table where it lives during the night.

There was some kind of new society or something like that which was created. It had all kinds of different social rules with the aim of people living together more happily than they seem to do at the moment under the current system. One of the surprising things about this was that they had “sock hand grenades”, you stuck a brick down the end of a sock and you would wield it around as a weapon and challenge other people in your society to a duel with these sock hand grenades. When these socks weren’t in use, they were hung over what looked like a horse hitching rail that you see outside saloons in Westerns, something like that.

It beats me how people can live together more happily together when they are clouting the living daylights out of each other with bricks stuffed down socks. But bricks or stones stuffed down socks made an effective blackjack during the war when you wanted to remove a sentry from his post without alerting his colleagues. You could have a nice swing from short range if you were to hold the open end of the sock, that’s for sure.

There had been a new artificial intelligence encyclopedia opened on the computer. But this time, instead of people making contributions to the meaning, people would suggest a word and the computer would work out the meaning and insert it. The plan was that people would only request words when they were actually working on a topic that included it. But some of these definitions were not very accurate at all and of course, people were not happy. However, it became quite quickly some kind of established way of job hunting, and people would look for new jobs on this system. Apparently, the keywords were something like “I want to push myself further on”. But this program actually was liked from that point of view.

We’d been talking about artificial intelligence yesterday evening and the rather variable quality of some translators, so that will explain this dream. But it’s true that many of these translators do leave something to be desired. They haven’t been perfected yet.

The nurse turned up, rather later than usual this morning, which is not like him. He didn’t have much to say for himself and was soon back out on his rounds. I could then go to make breakfast and read some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today’s highlights include "the barrows and other monuments of this island, which we are accustomed to attribute to the Druids, belong, not to the earlier Celtic population, but to the later settlers". Seeing as the arrival of the Celtic people is generally dated to the period 100 BC – 0 BC, he’s putting all of these Neolithic (4000 BC to 2200 BC, give or take a bit) barrows and monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury towards being at least contemporary with the Roman occupation of Britain, if not closer to our own time.

That was bad enough, but I really and honestly did groan with dismay when discussing cave-dwellers, whom these days we associate with the Old Stone Age of 10,000 years ago, and I read his "these caves … were probably inhabited in the times of the Roman rule,"

Back here eventually, after fighting off a few waves of sleep at the breakfast table, I had a few things to do, and then I began to edit the radio programmes. However, it wasn’t long before a wave of sleep caught up with me yet again. Wave after wave, in fact, and at one point I fell asleep at about 12:00 and didn’t awaken until the girls came and rang the doorbell at 13:30. If they hadn’t, I’d probably still be asleep even now.

We had a good chat, catching up on old times, until they went out at about 15:30 to take some photographs. I came back in here to carry on … "and to sleep" – ed … until they came back again a little later, and our discussion continued.

After they left, I made the next batch of homemade croissants, and they are now ready for baking tomorrow morning, and then I came back in here to carry on. However, once more, I fell asleep. And there I stayed until teatime, which is ridiculous.

Tea tonight was, as usual, just chocolate cake and vegan ice cream. But I am starting to feel hungry again. I’m going to try to hold out until at least Monday night after dialysis, to see what happens there, and then I might slowly begin to reintroduce more food into my routine.

But not right now, though. I’m going to have another early night and then … "he hopes" – ed … a nice long lie-in. The girls say that they will be round at about 11:30 so I shall have to set an alarm for tomorrow, but I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, and that is that it won’t be at 06:29, that’s for sure. It’ll be enough time to have a good wash and have breakfast before they arrive, and that’s the lot. The nurse can sort out my legs and feet while I’m still in bed.

And before long, I really am going to have to snap out of this chronic fatigue. It’s one of these new tablets that’s causing it, I’m pretty sure, so I’d better hurry up and become accustomed to it.

But at least, today, despite everything, I’ve managed to totally complete four radio programmes, which is better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper. I would have loved to have finished the fifth too, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

Tomorrow afternoon, by the way, it’s Welsh Cup Final day between Caernarfon and Y Fflint. If you want to watch the game live, THE LINK IS HERE and the programme begins at 15:00 UK time (16:00 CET, 10:00 Toronto time) and the kick-off is fifteen minutes later.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh Cup … "well, one of us has" – ed … a strange fly saw a large group of flies running round the edge of a saucer, stopping to stretch and to limber up every so often.
"What are you doing?" the strange fly asked.
"We’re warming up" replied one of them
"Warming up?" asked the strange fly. "What for?"
"Well, we’re playing in the Cup in half an hour."

0

Friday 10th April 2026 – I HAVE HAD …

… a lovely early evening just now. Two of my friends, Alison and Jackie, have dropped in to see me for a chat. They decided to have a weekend away and so they have come down here to see me, which is really nice. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t see my friends half as often as I would like to.

It certainly breaks up my miserable routine, which never seems to change from one week to the next. I seem to be doing the same old things week after week after week after week, basically because I don’t have anything else to do with my life.

Like last night, for instance. I had my chocolate cake and home-made ice cream at 19:30 and was back in here by 19:50, when I began to write out my notes for the day. There were the usual things to do afterwards, such as to take the stats and to back up the computer, and after I’d been to the bathroom to sort myself out ready for bed, it was a mere 21:20 when I crawled underneath the covers.

That’s what I call an early night, but it didn’t do me much good. Even though I was asleep quite quickly, regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens next at times like these. At 01:20 or thereabouts, I was wide awake again, and I had to leave the bed, for the usual reasons that any man my age will understand.

Back in bed, it was another session of tossing and turning, dozing, sleeping and so on. I couldn’t settle down at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:29 though, I was fast asleep, and I wished that I could have stayed like that. However, I was having coughing fits like I had never had before, I had a streaming head cold that I’d caught from somewhere, and despite the painkiller that I’d taken last night, the pain in my right foot was killing me.

Eventually, I managed to struggle into the bathroom and sort myself out, and then I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication. And one of the tablets that I took was another painkiller because I could no longer stand the pain.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was reading the Bible last night. And while there were plenty of obsolete words in there that had either been removed or been changed to represent the actual occurrences of the time, the language was generally left quite basic. It was one of those things that, the way that it was left and the way that the voices were speaking, it was almost as if it was threatening me with violence on my way home that night from dialysis – it wasn’t dialysis – it was teaching that I was doing.

This is another one of those dreams of which I have no recollection at all. It certainly wouldn’t be anything like me, going teaching for a living. I don’t have the patience.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m asleep when I’m dictating, but I usually have some very vague memory of the dream when I’m transcribing the notes. However, this one wasn’t one of those at all.

When the alarm went off, I was busy editing a very long speech, about three different copies of what had been said. I was trying to go through them to sort them out and see where the common threads were at first. What I was doing when the alarm went off was that I was actually spell-checking the documents to make sure that there were no spelling errors in them before I started to copy and paste them.

Three different copies of what had been said in a recent speech by someone. I remember from the dream that two had been digitalised but the third one had been handwritten, which made things much more complicated.

The nurse turned up as usual. He’s trying his best to make me change my lifestyle, but I am resisting valiantly. He also thinks that painkillers are a waste of time, and I don’t necessarily disagree with him. He knows of many cases where they don’t seem to work, and, as it happens, so do I.

After he left, I had my breakfast to make, and some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright to read.

And right now, I’m becoming fed up of Thomas Wright and his “likely assumptions”, and I’ve only read about 15% of his book. Up to the present, he’s certain that the hillforts are of Saxon origin, that all bronze artefacts found by archaeologists are Roman and not from the Bronze Age, 1000 – 2500 years previously, and that the monuments like Stonehenge are Celtic, probably concurrent with the Roman occupation, rather than built by Neolithic farmers some 3500 years earlier.

There are still 480 pages to go, so I wonder what other “likely assumptions” he’s going to make before we reach the end.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but by now, the painkiller was beginning to have an effect, and I ended up drifting away to sleep for a couple of hours. I really didn’t need that.

While I was having a little doze this morning, I was editing songs, trying to make up a radio programme and having to decide which ones to include, which ones to exclude and whether any would need shortening or lengthening.

That just sounds like a normal day in this apartment – nothing new in this.

When I awoke, it took me half an hour to get to grips with myself and then I had those things to finish off.

Once they were done, I could turn my attention to another lot of radio notes that needed editing. And fighting off (sometimes unsuccessfully) wave after wave of sleep, I edited the notes, assembled the two halves of the radio programme, chose the joining track and prepared it, and wrote the notes for it, ready for dictation.

There was even time to edit the notes for a subsequent concert, and I could have prepared a full radio programme by doing so, but the more editing I did, the less I liked the result. I’d dictated it a couple of weekends ago when I had another stinking head cold, and it sounded as if I were dictating with my head in a bucket.

No matter what I tried to adjust the sound, it only seemed to make it worse. In the end, I chucked it into the bin and decided to re-dictate the notes when I’m feeling better, whenever that might be.

At this point I knocked off because my visitors arrived. My cleaner had been around to do her stuff earlier, so everywhere was looking quite nice and tidy. My friends had brought me some presents too – a book of photos from their last trip last August and, most importantly, some ground cumin from one of the Leuven spice shops. The French spices are nothing like as strong as the genuine Indian product.

We had a lovely chat for an hour or so, and then they wandered off for a meal. I had some of my chocolate cake and home-made ice cream, and that’s my tea for tonight.

Back in here, I wrote up my notes, and now I have a few other things to do before I can have another early night, hoping that tonight, I’ll FINALLY have a really good night’s sleep.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Stonehenge … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking ages ago to a small girl about Stonehenge
"These stones are really old, you know. They go back a very, very long time" I said.
"How old are they?" she asked.
"Nobody knows for sure" I replied. "They are really ancient stones and go back to a time before people could write and tell the date."
"Oh, I see" she replied. "Are they Mick Jagger and Keith Richards then?"

0

Sunday 24th August 2025 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… evening that was last night. I can’t think of a time when I have been as tired as I was last night. In fact, I can’t remember whether it was three or four times that I fell asleep while I was writing my notes. One thing was sure though, and that was that I fell into bed almost immediately afterwards and that was that.

It wasn’t as if I had done anything special to warrant it last night either. And I’d had a nice, relaxing if painful session at dialysis too. It must be the after-effects of the chemotherapy that I had on Tuesday and Wednesday, I suppose. That does quite a few strange things, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Anyway, once in bed, there I stayed. I knew nothing about anything at all until all of … errr … 06:50. And it took twenty minutes for me to raise myself from the Dead. This might sound late to some people, seeing as the alarm is usually set for 06:29, but in fact Sunday is my Day of Rest and the alarm doesn’t go off until 07:59, so it’s still an early start.

First thing was to go to sort myself out in my nice new bathroom, and then I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was one dream about the hospital and the taxis, and dialysis, all of that, but I had rather a rude awakening and the moment that I basically went to grab hold of the dictaphone, the dream evaporated and I could remember nothing whatsoever except a very little of how it began and what was involved in it. It was a huge disappointment when it happens like this.

It’s obviously preying on my mind, all of this, and it’s no surprise. Over the past twelve months or so, I’ve become a slave to the medical service and I can’t see any way out of it, except to go out horizontally. There is no cure in sight, nor is there ever likely to be, and I shall have to just keep on trudging wearily on until I meet the inevitable.

Although I didn’t dictate it, I have a vague memory of being upstairs, looking at the old apartment and how clean and tidy it was, even down to the polished glass in the old oven. And there was someone there saying “you aren’t really dreaming, you know” or “this isn’t a dream, you know” – something like that. There was also a vague recollection of having to go downstairs, and that I’d taken half a dozen steps to the top of the stairs before I realised that I didn’t have my crutches, and I had to send someone to fetch them.

As it happens, I have been specifically banned from entering the apartment upstairs, on pain of suffering the wrath of my faithful cleaner who has done her best to tidy up after me And I am not alone in that interdiction, because a similar ban has been also placed upon the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Interestingly, how many times is that now that I have been dreaming of going somewhere without my crutches? I hope that this is a positive premonition once I start to have my treatment in Rennes. We can but hope.

Eventually, the sleeping beauties on the sofa crawled back to life and I was looking forward to a coffee but the Hound of the Baskervilles had urgent business to which he needed to attend so he dragged his master off outside.

But not before the nurse had taken us unawares yet again. Not quite as early as yesterday, but still early enough. And once more he didn’t hang around.

While I was waiting for everyone to come back, I attended to the erection of the antenna for the maritime data recorder. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I maintain and operate the maritime data recorder for the Port of Granville, a radio transceiver that tracks the movements of the boats and ships in and out of the port and sends them to a Worldwide central control database receiver in Denmark.

When we had all collected in the kitchen, we had a coffee and a chat, and when they went out again, I attended to the assembly of the hi-fi unit. That involved drilling a couple more holes in the rear and the side of the shelf unit so that I could pass the cables through. It didn’t take too long, and we celebrated our success by eating breakfast accompanied by music.

After breakfast, my friend went to empty out the van while I tidied away the tools that I had been using, but we didn’t get very far because the girls turned up. They checked the books to make sure that I hadn’t rearranged them, and then we sat around for a while and had a really good chat as they are going home this afternoon.

Everyone went off later for a late lunch so I came in here to sit down and relax for an hour or so. I needed it.

When my friend came back, having stuck the girls onto the train, I began the baking exercise – a loaf of bread, and a pizza for tea.

Firstly, my new adjustable stool really is the business. Adjusted to the maximum height, sitting down to knead the dough is totally painless. The stool was an excellent purchase.

Secondly, the oven is wicked. Even with the baking time reduced from 55 minutes to 30 minutes, it still burned the top of the bread. It’s now a glorious dark brown instead of the insipid white of the old table-top oven.

As for the pizza, I cooked it for 15 minutes instead of 25 minutes, and even so, it still burned the edge. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

There was a mountain of washing-up to do and that took an age, but now I’m finished. I’ve written my notes and I’m off to bed in a minute. Tomorrow, the Hound of the Baskervilles and his master are leaving, so I’ll be on my own. There are still plenty of things to do, but they will have to be done some other time, and I don’t think that we’ll be able to take the solar panel off the roof of the van, which is a shame.

You can’t win a coconut every time.

But seeing as we have been talking about the new oven and its cooking capabilities … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was thinking that my mother would really be at home with my new oven.
Back many years ago, I remember telling a friend "my mother treats me like a God"
"Why’s that?" he asked.
"Well, every time we came home from school, my mother served me up a burnt offering."

0

Sunday 10th September 2023 – SO FAR THE SCORE ..

… is “Eric 2, Alison’s cups and saucers 0”. And that was just trying to make one meal here this evening. By the time that I leave here after my hospital appointment Alison won’t have any crockery left

However, look on the bright side This sofa on which I’m sleeping is one of the most comfortable on which I’ve ever slept. Once I’d finally gone to sleep last night I had the best night’s sleep that I’d had for some considerable time.

So much so that at 06:15 I was awake and by 08:00 I was up and about, feeling quite refreshed. How about that for a Sunday?

Hans came down a short while later and brought me a coffee, and when everyone had finally assembled down here we went for breakfast in Tervuren where we were yesterday.

Alison knew a scenic route through the park and the forest and quite luckily there was a parking space nearby.

Everyone else had patisserie but I had my bread rolls with jam, coffee and orange juice. We sat in the sun for hours and put the world to rights.

Later on we came home and an elderly lady passer-by actually helped me into the car which was very nice.

Back here we sat in the sun, nibbled on bits and carried on with our chat, and then Alison took Hans to the airport and Jackie to the station. There wasn’t much point my going, although after seeing the kind of damage that I can do while tidying up, I bet that Alison wished that I’d accompanied her.

Instead, I had a listen to the dictaphone. There was something going on last night about finding medals stuffed down sofas. When we uncovered this one we had a feeling that it was fake. later on there was an issue at a petrol station. I was with Paul. In the end I can’t remember very much but ha had to speak to a cashier. At the end of each line of petrol pumps at these Motorway services there was a kind-of hatch where there should have been a bank employee sitting. We had a drive around this fuel station but could only see one that was occupied, right at the top of the hill. We had to go to the bottom, swing the car round and drive back up again to pull up alongside the kiosk.

I then had to go to pickup someone at the airport at 12:45 – pick them up to take them to the airport. I was in one of these Japanese-style midi vehicles from the 1980s. I found the address and pulled up outside but no-one came out. I was waiting for about 15 minutes. Then I saw that the door was open and the keys were in the door. I imagined that they must have wanted me to go along and knock. I went and knocked, and a guy and a few boys dressed in some kind of sports uniform and track suit came out, said their goodbyes to whoever was in the house and went into my vehicle ready to leave.

Later on Alison had bought some kind of dancing sheep, cut-out trains and earth-moving equipment that were being used as a promotion for a cartoon film about sheep. She asked me to look at it. It was cheap and not very good, one or two of the things didn’t work properly so for just £1:00 or whatever I thought that it was quite interesting and amusing. It turned out that she’d paid £60:00 for one pack and £50-odd for the second. I thought that that was absurd. She realised that it was expensive, particularly as one or two of the things didn’t work but she happened to fall in love with them when she saw them being stored at the side of the road. Later on when we were around at her house which was actually Rosemary’s, thinking of something else I asked her if all the vehicles had been removed from that plot of land, thinking of the place where Terry found that old van that we drove away. She said “no, there’s just the old red one left”. I couldn’t remember any red one there. She said “the one that my son was going to use when he started his business before he died. I had someone come and take away all the others but that one hasn’t gone yet”. I realised then that we weren’t talking about the same plot of land at all. I was talking about one next to her cottage in France which was all overgrown etc.

There was something else with cars too. We were preparing a fleet of vehicles ready to go to a war zone, big red American-type tipper vehicles towing trailers. We prepared them. Before that there was a building site nearby. I’d been there to ask if they needed any volunteers to do any work. They asked about what I did, and to come back the next morning. I was there preparing these cars. In the end there was just one like an American Cobra sports car left. We couldn’t find the key to it. We spent hours sorting out the seat belt for it. When it was ready the guy looked under the table and found the key. he asked “what’s this key doing here?”. I replied “I don’t know – I’ve never seen it before”. he looked at it, looked at the registration number of the car and said “it’s one off the buses off on the holiday tomorrow”. I asked everyone what I was supposed to be doing tomorrow. One of his children – he had four, 2 boys, a girl and another who, although it was the oldest, was the smallest and rather fragile. This smallest one said to me “it’s lime-washing tomorrow again, I’m afraid”.

We had something about a cup of tea. Tea in Italy was something of a delight and they’d bought me a tea and a biscuit. The tea had milk in it but it tasted really nice. I couldn’t understand that because normally I wouldn’t drink tea with milk. It tastes bitter anyway

For tea I had pasta in a cheese sauce with olive oil, black pepper and oregano along with a couple of the vegan sausages that I’d bought yesterday.

Alison has an early start in the morning so I’m going to bed early. It would be nice to drink a coffee with her before she goes to work.

And then I can find a few things to do; to keep me out of mischief.

0

Saturday 9th September 2023 – ALISON’S SOFA …

… is one of the most comfy places in which I’ve ever slept.

There is actually a bed for me but to tell the truth, I can’t make it up the stairs any more so “arrangements” were made. Oh!!! How the mighty have fallen

For a change, I was the first awake (with no alarm) but the others soon came to join me and we sat outside in the heat and drank coffee.

Later on we headed into Tervuren. Alison knows a nice cafe where they do pastries so while they were tucking into pastries and coffee I had bread rolls and strawberry jam.

Up the street we then went to see Alison’s new house. It looks quite small from the outside but it’s a real labyrinth inside. We had the guided tour while she outlined her plans.

The sale was only concluded on Monday and she’s decided to have a pile of work done to it before she thinks about moving in

On the way back home we raided the English Shop for Ginger Beer, ice cream (I even found some vegan ice cream) and vegan food for me, then we came home to sit outside in the heat with ice cream and ginger pop like something out of an Enid Blyton novel.

We found a new vegan restaurant that does a buffet where you pay by weight so that seemed like a good idea.

We knew where it was but driving to it was another complication but we eventually settled down. And I’m glad that we went because the food really was delicious.

Back here now, everyone’s exhausted and gone to bed. I’ll be going too in a minute, but not before I exploit a remarkable discovery that I’ve made.

If I select more than one piece of music (like a whole album-full for example) and keep them selected while I go into “properties”, I can batch-edit all of the properties for each track simultaneously.

1994 was the first time that I played with “Windows” and it’s taken me that long to work this out.

What’s even more bizarre is that I discovered it by accident too.

One final thing – the dictaphone. There was some stuff on there from my nice, comfortable night. I had posted on a Social Network page that I was planning on leaving Leuven and going back home. Someone posted to ask if I could bring something back. I replied that it wasn’t possible so someone else asked me if I could bring back something else. I explained that that wasn’t possible either. It ended up with me being given a rather unfortunate heap of abuse.

There was also a dream about a load of Port Vale replica football tops which were not in Port Vale colours at all and a series of bad “knock knock” jokes told by a girl of about 4. And I’m glad that I can’t remember them. After all they won’t trouble my sleeping any.

0

Friday 8th September 2023 – THAT WAS A …

… horrible journey and I don’t ever want to do it again.

As usual, when I’m going away, I had a bad night’s sleep and spend much of the hours of darkness tossing and turning.

Nevertheless I was up and about (in principle) before the alarm went off

First thing that I did was to grab a shower and then I did a few last-minute things before going out for the bus.

The bus was there but the driver wasn’t so I had to wait a few minutes before he turned up. And then we set off with a bunch of kids who were staying at the youth hostel in the town and who had been for a morning run.

The bus threw me out at the port and I had a 200-metre walk to the bus stop around the corner where the next bus would pick me up. And it was this 200 metres so early in the journey that convinced me that my travelling days are over.

There was a 20-minute wait for the bus during which time firstly my cleaner went past and rearranged my backpack on my shoulders, and then one of the girls from the radio came past and said hello.

The bus didn’t drop me off at the station but across the road so it was a long walk. And with my carriage being right down at the far end it was something of a scramble to be seated before the train pulled out

Updating all of those files took an age, not helped by the fact that I had a little … errr …relax at some point, and we were late pulling into Montparnasse too.

What with one thing and another I’d decided long-since that I was going to throw caution to the wind and have a taxi across Paris, but the walk to the taxi rank was about as far as the walk to the underground, which is regrettable

The ride with a friendly taxi driver wasn’t as expensive as I thought, but my leg had collapsed again getting into his car so I wasn’t enjoying it one bit

To make matters worse I staggered into the Disabled Persons’ room and asked for assistance to board my train to Brussels but they told me to clear off because I hadn’t booked 24 hours in advance.

So four of the assistants there sat and watch me make my slow weary way all the way down the platform to my carriage right at the far end of the train.

There was plenty of stuff on the dictaphone from the night. We were back at school – some kind of sports day with competitions etc. We were with our own House and had to stay with our own House all day. There were all kinds of things going on in the way of competition etc. The final one was a football match so we all had to go to our various common rooms afterwards to prepare. It was then that I realised that in all my things I didn’t have any shoes with me do it looked as if I would be playing in my socks. I didn’t really fancy playing too much because of that so when they began to talk about goalkeepers someone asked a girl “have you ever tried to be rather rough with a goalkeeper when you have the ball in the penalty area. I replied “you can always try it with me and see what happens” but no-one seemed to pick up on it so I didn’t bother all that much. I went up to the common room to prepare. One of the girls was closing the door so I had to insist and make some kind of rude comment before she’d open it again. There was a girl there from about 2 years younger than us whom I knew. Her boyfriend was in our year. The two of them were together and there was another girl in a green check dress – our colours were blue so I don’t know where she was from and what she was doing in there.

Back into this dream again, I eventually made it into the room when they let me in and sorted out into houses except these two girls and I don’t know what was happening with one of them. The other one was with her boyfriend, and we were joking about the football with my ingrowing toenail on my right foot and wasn’t going to be very happy for it especially as I didn’t have my shoes etc with me.

Back once more into the same dream and we were all back in our groups again, going back up Welsh Row towards the Grammar School dressed in our school uniform. Something happened and one of the boys pointed to another one in our class and called him names because he was more interested in eating a bar of chocolate than playing football. There were a few other things like that too.

This was another dream that took place in connection with a school. This time I was in a bath and the water was coming out with such a force that I was sure that it would break the porcelain fittings etc so I was prepared to be dumped into the middle of the bathroom. Somehow the contraption kept on running which surprised me greatly.

still on the theme of children, there was something going on about therapy for children who had been troubled. It was like a drawing and colouring class. What they had for adults was like a painting-by-numbers where you could go along and paint yourself a picture and hope to get rid of stress and tension by doing that.

This final part looks as if it might be something to do with the previous one. There was something about a clinic, people who have financial health problems. Part of the therapy there for children is drawing. For adults they had a few of these huge “painting by numbers” outfits with pictures even taller than the people themselves. The adults could spend as many hours as they wished simply painting the image.

At Brussels I didn’t have long to wait but climbing into the train was next-to impossible on these double-deckers with their steep stairs. Next time I go to Leuven I’ll have to wait around for one of the local stopping trains. These are all on the same level, and a level that is level with the platform so there’s no trying to climb in.

Leuven was roasting hot when I arrived and the walk along the platform to the lift finished me off.

And for some reason my phone wasn’t receiving messages so Alison and Jackie didn’t know that I’d arrived.

Eventually we met up and roared off to meet Hans at the Airport.

Alison knew a lovely Indian restaurant in Sterrebeek so we went there and had a delicious meal. Then we cam back here and sat outside in the heat until God Knows what time chatting.

My sofa is comfortable so I’m going to get in it and sleep for a week. I don’t ever want to do that journey again. Not on any terms.

0

Saturday 12th February 2022 – HAVING BEEN DEPRIVED …

… of really good company for quite some considerable time, Alison and I had hatched a cunning plan last time I was here. Subsequently we had been in touch with Jackie in Köln and suggested that we meet up for a day and exchange our news. After all, it’s been two years since we last met.

And so, seeing as Aachen is halfway in between the two of us, we set off this morning by car.

Not that I was feeling too much like it because it had been another rotten night.

As I mentioned yesterday I was in bed early and although the party that started at about 00:30 wasn’t anything at all like last night but what did happen was that I had another series of regular voyages that overwhelmed the dictaphone.

We started off in World War I last night. There was something about this arty (do I mean “artillery”?) regiment that I’d encountered that had turned up at Ieper somewhere where there had been some crucial fighting in November 1914 where the Germans had been pushing either side of the British and a British salient had been created. This was one of the crucial moments of the war and of course the area was totally devastated. I was talking to a soldier from this unit. He was saying that they had only been in this particular area for a weekend or so. It wasn’t actually in the thick of the fighting but it was pretty close to it. We were talking about the area and the history because with it being in the cockpit of Europe it was a pretty vital place. Battles had been fought here for years and all kinds of stuff had been uncovered in the past but the war had come and obliterated everything. He said to me that it was all very interesting to me of course. We talked about some of the bodies that had been found here and one in particular that had belonged to a regiment that had had 100% casualties during a charge. A couple of other regiments that had gone to relieve them had also had 100% casualties. One body that had been found subsequently must have been something of a hero to have gone like that. This conversation went on for quite some time.

Later on we were going somewhere last night walking by a canal looking at an old ruined cottage there and some kind of crane with a platform dangling from the grab. This cottage had been burnt to the ground practically. It turned out that it belonged to someone and they had discovered several structural defects in it. They had been trying to repair it but the thng had caught fire and gone up. The crane and platform were there for when they needed to make a bridge to take machinery over there and demolish it. This was in the parish magazine that some woman not my mother had had and as she had a mailbox I couldn’t understand why she had had it every time. There were several other magazines, including one about cars and a foreign boy who lived there sad that he had put it for me. There were a couple of conjunctions so he said that he had written some notes for me. I chucked that away but this parish magazine was very interesting and so was another article about some kind of meeting that everyone had had, some exhibition or something. It seemed to me that for the environmental group that we were running we could have made a really good magazine out of all of this. We could have had some names and e-mails from the people who attended this meeting, made a really good newsletter and hoped to push on and do something like that every month or so.. This was my one big opportunity and it had gone

Meanwhile, up in my room I was sharing a room with Zero. She wasn’t there but the room was in a real mess. She had shoes all over the place so the first thing that I wanted to do was to tidy up her shoes so I said to whoever it was I was with – a woman – that I would have to find one of these plastic boxes to put all her shoes in. She produced one immediately but I came up with some excuse why we couldn’t use that because I wasn’t really ready to do it just then. Yes, imagine this? Me sharing a room with Zero and she isn’t in it!

There was something else about this woman too. Her mother was going into an old people’s home and was looking at one in Union Street. pointed out that the one in Shavington by the Vine pub was being expanded and having new rooms so maybe she could get her in there. I thought that Shavington would be a much nicer place because it was a smaller village, you can’t go far, you can’t get lost, everything that you need is there, shops and everything and with it being quiet there was less risk of being knocked down than an old people’s home in a rundown area on the edge of Crewe Town Centre. Whoever it was put my comments down to some kind of loyalty about Shavington than any kind of practical consideration which was a shame because I really did think that it was so much better.

I was also at Liverpool football ground last night. They were discussing the remodelling of the stadium and all the crowd had to fit into a room that was the size of a normal living room. They were discussing ways to make it more safe and fit more people in. I thought that if they were only going to be havng 50 people at the most then they are wasting their time, aren’ they? This discussion went on for hours about whether they should put this extra level in. I was saying that they could knock a hole through where the kitchen is and have a bar, stuff like that. It was really getting out of hand. And then the subject drifted round to players. There were some people from Crewe there. It seems that they were interested in taking on trial a player from Crewe and they were trying to work out which one it was. In the end they had to aska girl who worked at Crewe – they had to ask her her name and check her writing. In the end they came up with a name. They thought that it woukd be “somebody Thomas” and that immediately meant about three or four different players. In the end end they had an idea whom it might be and asked me to go and fetch him. I said “OK but tell me who it isn’t” so they said it was “something Thomas”, a double-barrelled surname to go and not fetch him. Then the conversation continued about players from Egypt and the Ukraine. Someone took the paper from me and gave me another paper and it was for a guy called Olivier Ochoi and that was now the player that I had to fetch to bring up here. I asked them “are you sure this time?” and the general consensus seemed to be “yes”.

On the subject of football it was also the Welsh Premier League Final between Newtown and Aberystwyth and was taking place somewhere I can’t remember. I was up early at 06:30 and drove all the way out to where it was. The were busy setting out the hall there for spectators to come along and watch the game. It was a big hall shaped like a figure 8 bit wuth 2 squares and a joining piece. In one of these was a TV and someone was busy arranging a TV in front of it so that he and his friends could watch it. I explained that last time there was a play-off final, in the other room they had a big 225″ TV and arranged all the chairs in semi-circles around to watch so I didn’t think that what he was doing was going to work. Having checked out the place I had then to go back home for all my stuff and the radio stuff because I was going to do some radio interviewing for the game. I went outside, it was still dark and the whole car was starting to freeze up. I had some trouble trying to remember what key it was because it wasn’t the usual car. I eventually managed to open the door and I got in. Some young boy opened the window at the back – it was a rear-engined car – and asked me if I needed any help for this, any help for that. I replied “no” so he asked what I was going to do about this, what was I going to do about that and kept asking so persistently. In the end I got out of the car, picked up his bike and threw it over the fence into a field. He had a run off after it but then he came back and tried to get nto the car and tried to steal something out of the car. I had to get out and go to deal with that

Anyway I stepped back into this dream about this football match. I was in this car and we had all arranged to meet at a service station on the A55. That was where everyone met up but no-one still knew where it was going on. I was sitting down there trying to pass the time waiting for a decision to be made. I ended up talking to someone. We had a really good chat and I was sorting through a few boxes of stuff that they had. When I looked at my watch it was 14:20. I looked around and everyone else had gone. I scrambled over to try to find someone now. I went to the reception desk to ask if they knew where everyone had gone. They said that is was something like “Fingland” but of course that meant absolutely nothing to me. There was only 40 minutes to kick-off and I hadn’t a clue where I was going to go. I thought “how on earth am I going to find out now where I’m supposed to be heading now that everyone else has gone and cleared off.

Anyway when the alarm went off I was out of bed fairly quickly and by the time that Alison arrived I was actually ready.

It was freezing outside as we set off, and we had a really good chat all the way to Aachen.

Jackie arrived at the station just as we did. We parked the car and then headed off into the centre.

barbarella cafe aachen germany Eric Hall photo February 2022Our day turned into trip to various coffee houses, restaurants and shops.

Alison knew a good café around the corner from where we had parked the car and so we headed that way. The coffee was really nice there and the cakes that the girls tried were delicious too. There may have been vegan cakes I suppose, but I didn’t ask. Having had toast for breakfast I wasn’t hungry.

It was in an area of the city that I don’t really know so when we left, I was surprised to find that we were only just around the corner from the Rathaus, and isn’t the German name for a Town Hall really appropriate?.

The main shopping centre is on the other side of the city so we headed off that way.

roman remains aachen germany Eric Hall photo February 2022The site is known to have been inhabited for almost 5000 years but perhaps its best-know period was that under the Romans from the beginning of the First Century until its evacuation, which appears to have taken place round about 383AD. No Roman coin has been discovered here later than that date.

There are plenty of Roman remains here in the city, especially those here in the Elisengarten.
We made quite a tour of the shops and the two girls found a load of interesting stuff to take home with them.

And as well as that, I wasn’t left out of the shopping either. I found some of that really nice vegan cheese that I used to buy in Montlucon, and the two girls bought me a pile of that lovely vegan chocolate for my birthday.

spa elisenbrunnen pavilion cathedral st folian church aachen germany Eric Hall photo February 2022From the shopping precinct we can see across the road to the Elisenbrunnen Pavilion.

The Roman name of the town was Aquae Grannae – the waters of Grannus – and the most popular source from where the water can be obtained is from over there. However there’s a big notice by the outlet that says “not for drinking”. I should really have brought something in which I could have taken some water away.

Although it’s often said that the pavilion was built in the 1820s, it was in fact destroyed by bombing during World War II and this replica was built in the early 1950s.

Lunch was nice too, at one of these franchised bio restaurants down at the side of the spa. My salad was delicious. And then we went back to the shops.

As darkness fell we went for another coffee and then dropped Jackie off at the railway station for her train back home. At the station we fell foul of a German police patrol. “That’s why I moved from Germany” said Alison, and I could see her point. It was all extremely unnecessary and I admired her for her calm.

When she dropped me off at home I wandered round to the fritkot but they were overflowing with customers and weren’t taking any more orders before they closed. It was lucky that I had some pasta left.

There’s an 05:00 start in the morning ready for my trip home so right now I’m off to bed. Not that I’m expecting a better night that I’ve had just recently but we have to make an effort and if necessary I can sleep on the train.

0

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 – I REALLY AM …

… eating quite well these days. I really am.

This afternoon I have had one of the nicest lunches that I have ever had.

For a start, I fried two rather large onions in a very large saucepan. To that, I added several cloves of garlic and an assortment of herbs. When they were browning nicely I added the four leeks that I had bought and which I had peeled and sliced, and stirred them in, along with a variety of herbs and ground black pepper.

home made cream of leek and potato soup place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallFour small potatoes followed them into the pan, washed and cubed. They were stirred into the mix too.

Once everything was all mixed in, I added a couple of stock cubes, just enough water to cover the contents, and then a box of soya cooking cream. When it was all in the pot, I stirred it well in and left it to simmer for 45 minutes.

Once it was all well-cooked, it was all whizzed up and I ended with probably the finest vegan cream of leek and potato soup that I have ever eaten. I was really pleased with this.

sourdough fruit loaf home made wholemeal bread place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallAnd that wasn’t all of it either, not by a long way. I have made this morning the most perfect loaf that I have ever made after all of these attempts and with my leek and potato soup it was absolutely delicious.

It goes without saying that I was pleased about all of this because my day didn’t start off like that.

Never mind the first alarm, or the third alarm for that matter, it was 08:30 when I finally found the strength to leave the bed and that filled me full of dismay because it made me run so late for everything that I had to do during the day.

First task was to give the sourdough dough a second kneading, and then I shaped it and put it in the smaller of the two silicone moulds and left it for its second proofing.

Second task was to make a 500-gramme wholemeal loaf using traditional years. And I do have to say that for some unknown reason for which I really have no answer, the dough turned out to be absolutely perfect – exactly as it ought to have been – nice and rubbery and elastic and smooth.

It was then left for an hour or so to proof in a mixing bowl and I came in here to make a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes that have been building up over the last few days.

After a break for my hot chocolate and cake for breakfast I gave the dough its second kneading, shaped it and put it into the larger silicone mould and while it was proofing again, carried on with the dictaphone notes.

When the bread went into the oven I made my soup so that it was all ready for eating. It was a rather later lunch than usual but it was well-worth waiting for because everything was exactly as it would have been – especially as I finally seem to have managed to have made a loaf that came out exactly as it should have done after all these attempts.

Once lunch was over, I attacked the form for my registration with the Securité Sociale. Filling in the form was reasonably straightforward but finding the accompanying documents took rather more time than it ought to have done. And when the scanner function on the printer didn’t work and I had to photocopy some of them instead, that took longer still.

By the time that I’d completed everything I was ready for my afternoon walk.

It was quite cloudy outside and windy too and things hadn’t dried up that much. But I pushed on around my little circuit.

chausiais joly france port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallThere was nothing whatever happening out there this afternoon. The only thing of any interest whatever was the fact that Chausiais and Joly France were moored up in the mud over by the ferry terminal and don’t look anything like moving within the foreseeable future.

And the only reason that I took the photos, I suppose, was for the sake of having taken a photo while I was out.

Back here, just as I sat down with my coffee, the telephone rang. Ingrid phoned me and we had another one of these very long chats that took me right up to guitar-playing time.

Tea was pie and veg with gravy followed by apple pie. Like I said right at the very beginning, I am really eating rather well these days. I have never in my life had such good food as I’ve been having since I’ve been living here.

The net result of all of this is that the blog entries for SUNDAY, MONDAY and TUESDAY have been amended to include the dictaphone notes, if you have the patience to read them because during those three nights I travelled miles, as well as taking a couple of old and welcome regulars with me.

Last night though I was with one of the Welsh rock bands and the story gradually evolved as we were trying to work our way between several concerts last night – I hadn’t actually got up on stage but I’d been jamming away in the background while they were there and one of the Man offshoots picked me up and we went off to perform a few gigs. There was a photo that they had passed around of Strawberry Moose playing the drums at some resort in North West England. They’d made some kind of remarks about the Vikings who had come along to conquer that country and were busy beating it up with rock and roll songs because Strawberry Moose still had on his helmet from our voyage with Adventure Canada on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. One of the couples had a daughter who was about 4. She was a very precocious kid and was actually playing and singing on one of the numbers on stage. Surprisingly she wasn’t doing a bad job at all and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. When we got off the stage at the end she stayed on the stage to do something and her mother had to go and fetch her back. Everyone was making a joke about her being 4 and doing all of this, and I thought that that was most unfair because what she was doing was nothing to laugh at at all. It was quite serious stuff and quite good and enjoyable. I thought that she was getting the rough end of this.

A little later on our coach pulled in to Audlem although it was nothing like Audlem. As we climbed up the hill which doesn’t exist of course we had to stop to let some people out. I asked about the toilets and they replied that they were in the Market Hall. They showed me where it was and I ran off. It was miles, absolutely miles, and on the way back running past this guy I came to a set of stairs and there was an archway over the top every 4th or 5th stair or something. rather than running through the archway I ended up on top of it running from one top of an arch to another down these stairs. I eventually reached the bottom and went outside, and the coach was there. One of the guys who had a toilet cistern said “it’s ok, there’s no hurry. This toilet cistern is no use to me – I’ve just found out that it’s made in Spain, not the UK. We’re just making 1 or 2 phone calls about how to deal with a certain thing” and the coach doesn’t seem much like moving at the moment so I just loitered around outside. This was a hot sweaty dream again.

Later still, we were coming into Shavington via Dodd’s Bank, Nerina and me. I asked if it was OK if we go to a pub – I mentioned the name of a pub – it was one in Crewe somewhere to go and see Jon Dean because he had my bank credit card and one or two other things that I needed for my journey. I could see as she answered back that she wasn’t very happy. As we got into Shavington there was someone (I couldn’t decipher who) who could see the 2 of us together and he smiled a bit because he probably heard that our relationship was just a little rocky but we were still together I suppose which cheered him up.

Somewhat later Jackie and Alison were round at my house revising. I’d been out the previous day to go to Manchester to fetch some car parts and had to go again today because some were missing. I went round to the wholesaler’s first to check and he said it wasn’t there and i’d have to go myself to Manchester to fetch it. I think that I’ve dictated (which I apparently haven’t, so I wonder what it is that I’ve missed out) a lot of this about going with Percy Penguin and having to go and pick her up from her home where she was living. There were loads of other people living in this home as well which which was overrun with cats. I had to find her – she was busy doing something and I couldn’t work my way back downstairs again. A woman told me where to go and I had to climb down a load of pipework which was very awkward as there were no stairs. She was at the bottom and was pleased to see me so I had to get ready to go. I wanted to go to the toilet but a cat kept on getting in the way. And then I realised that I wasn’t going to the toilet in the right place so I found that. Percy Penguin took so long messing around that it was now about 11:30 znd we’d never get to Manchester before the place closed for lunch. I wanted to be back for lunch as I was going to take Jackie and Alison somewhere. We got in the car ready to go and she was talking about driving lessons and how she’d taken a few but Covid had closed it down and when they reopened they had forgotten all about her. I wanted to put “Traffic” on the car radio but for some unknown reason their live album wasn’t on my playlist and I had to select some tracks which was pretty awkward while I was trying to drive. It turned out that they were tracks from some kind of play or something. There was an advert of some kind or other and the music of “Traffic” was used as the background so while I had that on there was some other music coming from somewhere and I couldn’t hear it properly. That was starting to annoy me and all in all I was becoming quite annoyed about everything that was going on.

And so the obvious question is “where am I going to be travelling tonight”.

0

Sunday 26th January 2020 – WHAT A NICE …

monschau germany eric hall… day out that was today!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen a photo similar to this a while ago. It’s the town square in Monschau in Germany, just across the border from Belgium and about half an hour’s drive south from Aachen.

And that’s where I’ve been today.

We’ve been celebrating – if that’s the correct word – the last day that we can do an outing like this free of any control whatsoever, thanks to 17.4 xenophobes and racists in the UK who have voted to stop me living where I like, working where I like, travelling where I like, receiving medical treatment where I like, and receiving the full amount of retirement pension to which I am entitled after all of my years of paying into the system.

What’s worse is that these racists and xenophobes loudly trumpet the “democratic will of the people”, but they refused to allow me the right to vote on an issue that affects me more than any of them.

What’s “democratic” about that?

So this morning the alarm went off at 06:00 and I was up pretty quickly after that. I had the medication and then looked at the dictaphone.

And hello to Esi, who I don’t think has joined me in a nocturnal ramble before. I’d met her somewhere and we were heading for a train. We were talking about the trains and she was going to one place and I was going to another and we were walking around the outside of this car park. We suddenly came to an area which was fenced off and they were doing some brick rebuilding. I suddenly realised that I’d walked this way before and I couldn’t get out this way so we had to retrace our steps and go across this car park rather than around it. We ended up somewhere, she went and I ended up in a rom somewhere with my things. I was thinking “should I take my big camera? Should I take my small camera?”. In the end I decided on the big camera. My train was at a quarter past the hour. For some unknown reason I had in my mind all things like when I used to walk all the way across London to go to my hospital appointment which of course I don’t do, and all memories about other nocturnal voyages on which I have travelled before like that petrol station out in the countryside in London (… the BP one to the north-west …) that kind of thing. I was reminiscing on all of this and suddenly I looked at my watch and I had 15 minutes to get to the station. I thought “God I’d better get a run for my train won’t hang about long’. It took me a minute or two to get all of my things together and I wasn’t sure that I had everything. I had to climb out of this train because I realised that I was in a train. I had to climb out of this train and there were lots of people in my way dropping things off and someone had lost their suitcase locks and there were a couple about where I was and they picked up their locks. I was already to go and these guys were talking to me about all kinds of different things and I was getting ready to run back across this car park to the station but the train started to move but had to stop to give way to something. It was in my way and wouldn’t move and I couldn’t go behind it and I couldn’t go in front of it or behind it or underneath it and time as ticking away while I was waiting there to get on my way to move and it was all very very strange. It was like heading towards one of these panic attacks again
later I was back in the Brusselsestraat looking at that mannequin that I like, being used as a model for various childrens’ clothes, adjusting and cutting them. And if that makes any sense to anyone, please let me know.

martelarenplein station leuven belgium eric hallBreakfast next and then time to head for the hills

Around the ring road towards the station, and wasn’t it looking magnificent in the dark, all illuminated with the war memorial in the Martelarplein standing out so well?

It’s all fenced off now as they are constructing an underground bicycle park just there. Yes, bicycles are big business here in Leuven. The way the road system is and the issues about parking, it’s pretty pointless owning a car in the city.

train eupen station leuven belgium eric hallMy train was at 08:2 and I was in plenty of time for it

It pulled in bang on time too, but I couldn’t see which engine was propelling it because it was another one of the “pushme-pullyou” sets and it was running engine-last, something that always surprises me on a high-speed train.

These trains start out at Oostende and you would have expected there to be a run-round facility at an important station like that so that the locomotive could take its proper place at the head of the train.

tour des finances liege belgium eric hall“Never mind” I thought. I can photograph it when I alight at Liege Guillemins station. I have 12 minutes to wait for my express there. I don’t even have to move because the Frankfurt train comes in at the same platform as the Eupen train goes out.

But for once the Tour de Finances building in Liege is pretty much unobstructed and looking quite nice so while I was awaiting the Eupen train moving out, I went over and took a photo of the Tour de Finances.

So if you live in Liege and want to know where all of your money went, then there it is. I admit that it looks fantastic but it’s not exactly the best way of spending public money on an extravagant building like that.

ice deutsche bahn inter city liege guillemins belgium eric hallWhile I was waiting for the Eupen train to move, there was an announcement on the tannoy “passengers for the Deutsche Bahn ICE train to Frankfurt am Main, please note that your train will be departing from …” a different platform.

So we all had to scramble up the steps, across the walkway and down another set of steps and I never did get to take a photo of my train from Leuven as it was still in the station – somewhat delayed – as we pulled out.

So I’ve no idea what was the matter with that but whatever it was, I’m glad that it happened after I had alighted from it. It can do what it likes then. We were on our way.

Alison was waiting for me at the station but Jackie’s train wasn’t due to arrive for another half hour so we went for a coffee and a chat to catch up on the latest news.

citykirche st nikolaus aachen germany eric hallWhen Jackie turned up we went into the city centre to look for a coffee.

There’s a beautiful church there, the city church of St Nikolaus and just for a rare change today, it actually was open so we stuck our heads inside.

It’s nothing like how it was supposed to be in the interior, but subsequent investigation revealed that it had been the victim of a fire and a considerable amount of damage had been caused.

So that might explain everything then.

city burghers rathaus aachen germany eric hallWe eventually found a cafe that would serve us just a coffee – Sunday morning is a pretty sacred “brunch” day in Germany.

We had a good view over the square where there was something clearly going to be happening. People dressed in historical costume, sword fights, people walking around with falcons on their arms.

But as the crowds started to gather we decided that we would move on. It looked as if it was going to be a really lovely day so we planned to move on the Monschau in the hills.

monschau germany eric hallWe made it to Monschau but the good weather didn’t. It was overcast, misty and foggy here and that was a disappointment.

We found a place to park the car and then walked down the hill into town. Considering that it was mid-winter there were crowds of people about and roadworks that blocked the main street.

It wasn’t easy to navigate ourselves around and see what was going on down there today.

monschau germany eric hallThere’s a handbag shop in the town with a name that will delight almost any one with a warped sense of humour.

We went inside for a look around and Jackie struck lucky. The prices had been slashed to a figure that even I thought was a good deal and she found a handbag of a decent size that exactly matched a jacket that she owned. So that found its way out of the shop.

What caught my eye was a really nice leather-look backpack, small with plenty of pockets that would have been ideal for a lightweight camera bag, and at 9:99 too. And had it had a shoulder strap as well as the backpack straps I would have brought that home with me too.

Just what I needed.

hotel stern monschau germany eric hallBy now it was pretty well past lunchtime so we retraced our steps back through town to a place that we had seen earlier.

They had these flammenkucke pancake things on offer so the girls had one of those each. As for me, there was a beautiful fresh vegetable soup with bread and that was delicious. The vegetables were actually in proper chunks and it was really well done.

There was fresh hot ginger tea on offer too and a mug of that went down really well in the cold weather that we were having.

old cars trabant monschau germany eric hallBut my eye was diverted to what was outside the restaurant.

It’s a long time since we’ve seen a Trabant – one of the East German fibreboard cars that came flooding into the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which vanished without trace almost as quickly as they appeared.

The ones that I see these days are mostly used for publicity purposes and this one here is no exception. It’s so full of knick-knacks that you couldn’t drive it anywhere even if you wanted to.

We dropped Jackie off back at the railway station in Aachen, and after another coffee, Alison and I headed home. We had another one of our really long chats on the way back and made some further plans.

But what will happen about them I really don’t know. It depends on the hospital visits and the radio commitments before I can actually decide on anything.

For tea I used up the rest of the food that was lying about and having written up my notes, I’m off to bed.

Tomorrow starts at 05:30, something to which I am not looking forward, so I need to be at my best.

Here’s hoping that all of the trains are running.

0

Sunday 17th November 2019 – REMEMBER LAST NIGHT …

christmas lights town hall grote markt leuven belgium… when I said that I had planned to go out and take a photo of the Grote Markt and all of the buildings lit up for Christmas, and how I forgot to take my camera with me when I went out?

Tonight, I didn’t forget. And in fact I made a special journey to go out and look at the town hall in the dark and show you how it was looking.

And unfortunately it’s not as spectacular as it has been in previous years. There’s no creche and the lights that illuminate the windows are not changing colour.

fourth hotel restaurant grote markt leuven belgiumThe Fourth Hotel or Restaurant or whatever it is, while always looking spectacular at night, hasn’t been dressed up at all for Christmas.

Still, I suppose that it it early days as yet and there’s plenty of time to organise things ready for Christmas.

And in any case I would only be complaining if it were done too early so I can’t have everything my way. I’ll see what has happened by the time I come back here in four weeks time.

A late night last night but I wasn’t unduly worried. I set the alarm for 0:00 and beat it easily, being up and about by 07:30. Plenty of time to go for a ramble too during the night and when I’ve transcribed the dictaphone notes I’ll tell you all about it – where I went and with whom I was.

Seeing as I had plenty of time I had a quick shower and organised things ready for when jackie came down for brekfast. I’d explained her the Belgian tradition about couques on Sunday morning, so she had been to the boulangerie around the corner and come back armed with a pain au chocolat and a chocolate eclair.

“Well, I am on holiday” she explained.

We breakfasted together and had a good chat, mainly about her job, and then went round the corner to meet Alison. She took us to the mini-Carrefour where the girls stocked up with more chocolate and then into Tervueren.

man woman dog sitting by brazier tervueren belgiumOur destination was to meet her friend Theresa and go for a walk around the park, but we were somewhat waylaid by the sight of this couple here and their dog.

Sitting around at the bottom of the bicycle ramp with a lit brazier to keep them warm in the winter wind.

It was certainly novel, and quite ironic seeing as we had just been explaining to Jackie not two minutes beforehand about the somewhat strange behaviour of some of the Belgians and their profound sense of the absurd.

ducks geese parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgiumWaiting for Theresa, we sat on a park bench and the girls opened one of the bars of chocolate that they had bought.

Of course, that brought the crowds rushing in towards us. Not humans, although of course there were plenty of them about, but also the wildlife, to see what titbits were on offer.

We had nothing for them, as you might expect, but it didn’t stop them coming over to investigate us.

scouts parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium“Crowds of people” I said. And I wasn’t wrong either.

As well as the civilians, of which there were more than enough, there were whole troops and packs of Hitler Yout … errrr … Boy Scouts and Girl Guides out there – presumably rubbing each other together to try to start a fire or something.

It’s the usual thing, Scouts on Sunday morning all over Belgium, tying each other in knots and playing with each other’s woggles.

autumn colours parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgiumAnd who can blame the crowds for being out there today?

Despite being windy and cold, it really was a glorious morning out there in the sunshine.

And the autumn colours were glorious too. Not a patch on the colours that you see in Canada of course – nothing whatever can equal that – but nevertheless for Europe it was pretty spectacular.

Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika Royal museum for central africa parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgiumThe Tervuerense Park is actually the gardens of the Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika – The Royal Museum for Central Africa.

Formerly the symbol of Belgian colonialism and exploitation of the natives of the Congo, it had been closed for a good number of years while it underwent a make-over.

It’s supposed now to “have a different focus” but whatever that might be remains to be seen. One day I might be lucky and find it open when I’m at a loose end.

cafe parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgiumThere is an old mill on the far side of the Vossemvijfer, the lake at the far end of the park.

That’s now been turned into a cafe so now that Theresa had caught us up we headed that way for a coffee.

There was a handy table free in a quiet corner of the upstairs room so we grabbed that and had a chat and drank our coffee while the girls finished off the chocolate.

All very convivial.

qatar airlines plane coming in to land zaventem belbiumBut soon enough we had to leave so that Jackie could catch her train back to Cologne.

On the way back to Leuven we drove down the side of the flight path for planes coming in to land at Brussels National Airport at Zaventem, and I was rewarded by the sight of this Qatar Airlines plane disappearing into the trees.

Jackie organised herself a sandwich and boarded her train back, and Alison brought me back here where we had a really good chat for an hour or so about different things.

pope leo 13 seminary chapel leuven belgiumIt suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t had lunch so I headed off to find a bakery.

My route took me past the Pope Leo XIII Seminary Chapel, and I noticed the Flemish lion on the roof – something that had escaped my attention befofe.

So equipping myself with a demi-baguette and a tomato I came back here and made myself a tomato and vegan cheese butty.

Shame as it is to admit it, I had a little crash out and then caught up with a few other things.

For tea, even though it’s Sunday and I had some vegan cheese, I eschewed my pizza and finished off the burger and potatoes with some of the frozen vegetables, followed by the last of the fruit salad and raspberry sorbet.

That was my cue for my evening’s perambulation, and I’m being a bit of a wuss today. Having managed 194% of my daily activity and 16.8 kilometres yesterday, today I’ve done a mere 137% – or 11.1 kms. Clerly slipping, aren’t I?

An early night now because I’m up early tomorrow and going home. I wonder what delights are awaiting me there.

house parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium
house parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

view from house vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium
view from house vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium
vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium
vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium
vossemvijfer parc de tervuerense park tervueren belgium

0

Saturday 16th November 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

… nice day today in the company of some very pleasant people. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I don’t have too many friends, but those I have are the best in the world.

Last night was something of a late night. But with having set the alarm to a much more realistic 08:30 I wasn’t all that concerned.

Plenty of time to go on a little voyage or two and having been joined on a few nocturnal rambles over the past few nights by some pretty bizarre characters from my distant past, last night was probably the most bizarre of all to date. Mandy Crane was there last night, and that was a surprise wasn’t it, after something like 45 years since I last wasted a moment thinking about her, and we were talking about something – I dunno. It occurred to me that she had been round to see me quite a lot and I was wondering whether she was waiting for me to make some kind of advances to her. But on one occasion when I turned my back to her she put her arms around me and we started to chat. But it became pretty weird and even in my dream I was thinking that I couldn’t imagine why she would come around at this stage
And later on I was back in my pawn shop last night. There were three people, two brothers and a woman, who ran it. Each had their own special area of management control of the situation and I was going through who did what (the woman was the admin person and I can’t now remember what the speciality of each brother was) and all the files of the people had different coloured tags (like Government “BF tags”) to tell them what the arrangements were, about people, why people were involved in this particular pawn shop – one colour of tag for this, one colour of tag for that – but before I got too far into this dream I awoke.

That was at about 06:09 but no danger of my leaving my stinking pit at that time. I turned over and went back to sleep until about 0:30. That’s more like it so I left the bed just in time to beat the alarm.

After medication I had a few things to do to keep me out of mischief so just for a change I applied myself to them.

town tourist train leuven belgiumAt about 11:15 I left my room and headed up to the railway station, thinking to myself that I remembered that I had somehow managed to forget to have breakfast this morning.

So engrossed was I in this thought that I was nearly squidged by the town’s little tourist train as I crossed the road. And I do have to say that I don’t remember having seen this before.

That’s another job for me then – to sift through my photos to see whether it’s featured before.

Jackie’s train was bang on time and it was nice to see her after all this time. Alison hadn’t made it to the station so I sent here a message to say where we were and we went to the cafe over the road to wait.

With no reply from her, I rang her up, to find that she hadn’t received it (she received it about an hour later) so we headed off into town to meet up.

First stop was the wool shop. Alison is a knitter and so is Jackie, so they spent a good while browsing through the products on offer there. Nerina was a knitter to so I’m quite used to this sort of behaviour. It’s nothing new to me at all.

Lunch was next and, seeing as we are in Belgium, a fritkot was an obvious choice. We headed to the Ali Baba around the corner and while they tucked into a meal I had a plate of fritjes with looksaus.

We were in there for hours chatting about all sorts of things and then we headed off for some fresh air.

It was for about a year or so that I lived in Leuven and I’d walked for miles around the city, so I thought that I knew it pretty well.

hollands college pater damiaanplein leuven belgiumBut that’s not the case at all because Alison took us around some areas that I didn’t know at all, like past the Father Damiaanplein (he of the lepers whom we have encountered before) with the Hollands College down at the bottom.

That’s an interesting building, dating from the 17th Century for theology students from the diocese of Haarlem in the Netherlands.

Long-since abandoned, the University took it over in 2008 and since 2011 there has been some kind of project of restoration with the aim of returning the building to its former glory.

bridge river dijle dijlepark leuven belgiumThere’s a little park – the Diljepark – just past there. Something else that I didn’t know.

It follows, as you might expect with a name like that, the River Dilje out of town. And one of the attractions was this little Japanese-style bridge over the river just here.

Unfortunately it didn’t look as if it’s in use. Or maybe fortunately because as far as anger management issues go, they have the same effect on me as do ferries. Whenever I see one it always makes me cross.

beguinage begijnhof leuven belgiumOne thing for which Leuven is very well-known is its Begijnhof – the Beguinage.

The great issue with Medieval life was the number of widows and single women. While childbirth affected quite dramatically the number of women, the incessant warfare of the period and industrial accidents had an even greater effect on the male population.

A great many women were thus left for one reason or another without a protector and the church was mainly responsible for this role.

beguinage begijnhof leuven belgiumIn Medieval Flanders I can’t thing of a single important religious city that didn’t have its Beguinage and Leuven is certainly no exception.

And so magnificent is the Begijnhof here in the city
that in 1998 it was recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

Mind you, it wasn’t always like this. For a long while it was occupied as a sort-of social housing complex and there was never the money available to do anything with it.

river dilje beguinage begijnhof leuven belgiumBy the 1960s it was in a deplorable condition and so it was sold off.

The University bought it and spent a great deal of time, effort and money restoring it to its present glory. It’s now occupied as student and academic staff accommodation which is a waste because I’m certain that I wouldn’t mind a little apartment there.

It’s another place that I had never visited during my stay here.

We walked back into town and to another modern square that I had never visited. There’s a second-hand clothes shop there that the girls visited (nd Jackie bought a handbag) and a decent cafe where we went for a drink.

christmas lights mechelsestraat leuven belgiumLater on we walked back across the centre of town so that Jackie could catch her bus.

As we were passing by the end of the Mechelsestraat where I was yesterday, I happened to notice in the dark that they now seem to have switched on the Christmas lights.

“Surely it’s a bit early for that” I mused to myself. Christmas is still about 6 weeks away.

brass band the fourth grotemarkt leuven belgiumBut apparently not because in the Grote Markt we had a brass band going on, playing all kinds of Christmas music.

And the Town Hall was all lit up too. I would have taken a photo of that but the night wasn’t yet as dark as I would like it to be.

I made a mental note that when I come back later I will bring the big Nikon back with me. After all, I’d bought it with the express purpose of using it for night photography.

Back at the apartment building Jackie checked herself into her room and then we had a coffee and a chat. At 19:15 we headed back into town to meet up again with Alison.

And it was then that I realised that I had forgotten the camera.

The girls fancied an ice-cream, but all of the ice-cream parlours were closed.

Never mind. Seeing as we are in Belgium, a Belgian waffle would do them just as well. But as we got to the Belgian waffle stall, he closed up his equipment.

In the end we found a cafe that did crepes and waffles and they contented themselves with that. I had yet another portion of fritjes. Extravagant, you might think, but those two portions of chips are all that I have eaten today.

The coffee bar at Kloosters Hotel was next, but someone had pinched our usual spec by the fire so we had to sit elsewhere. We set out to solve all of the problems of the world as we normally do, but suddenly Alison noticed that it was gone 23:00 and she was in danger of turning into a pumpkin.

That was the cue for us to head back to our various destinations. Alison walked off to her car and Jackie and I came back here. Not an early night – not by any means – but quite an enjoyable one in good company.

I hope we have such a good time tomorrow.

0

Saturday 16th March 2019 – I’VE SPENT …

gestapo headquarters LD house appellhofplatz koln cologne germany… the afternoon in Gestapo headquarters in Koln. And all that I can say is that these 17.4 million racist xenophobes who voted to kick out the foreigners from their country ought to go along and visit it too.

We’ve seen the Biffers and UKRAP and Nigel Garbage doing things like refusing to shop in places run by Muslems, boycotting shops selling halal food, defacing mosques and the like, and no-one bats an eyelid.

You only have to compare what’s going on in the Fascist Paradise that is the UK today and compare it with what happened in Germany 1933-1945 to see some alarming similarities.

Everyone stood by and watched back then, and we had stupid, naive politicians waving pieces of paper about. And look how it all ended up because of this inaction. It’s getting to the stage where the ordinary citizens need to rise up and take matters into their own hands otherwise we’ll all be back here again.

Who will ever forget Martin Niemoller’s famous words?

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Last night I had, for a change, a reasonably good sleep last night. From about 22:45 to the alarm at 06:00 with a brief awakening at 03:45.

I’d been on my travels too, with a couple of people making their debuts. What we were doing was cutting up an onion into very fine particles whilesomeone else was preparing hot dogs or hamburgers. We had to remove all of the skin and everything else from the onion and that wasn’t easy although mine seemed to disappear quite quickly. And then wait.And I noticed that my onion was starting to congeal so I pointed this out to one of the women who was there. The conversation moved on and some guy joined in the discussion. He was a guy with whom I’d played guitar a couple of times in the Auvergne but with blond hair and this chat developed into some kind of problematic discussion about how he was going to join the Good Ship Ve… errr … Ocean Endeavour somewhere out between the Faroe islands and Iceland given the really poor weather. he then started to talk about his period in the Swedish Army which might explain his blond hair and strange accent. Mantime someone came down the corridor between the office desks shouting for someone – someone I knew on the Wirral. A girl piped up that “he sits here next to me, but he’s not at his desk right now. You can tell that it’s his desk because of the stuff on it.”.

push me pull you sncb class 18 railway locomotive leuven belgiumThere was the usual medication and breakfast and then I headed off to the station. Alison was already there so we headed off together to our platform for the train.

It was the 08:28 to Eupen, but we were only going as far as Liège.

There at Liège Guillemins railway station we alighted and waited for the German Inter-City Express to come in from Brussels.

ice express hauptbahnhof koln cologne germanyAnd we made a slight miscalculation in that the train was a lot shorted than the one from which we had alighted.

We had to run (and you’ve no idea how difficult it is for me to run these days, but at least I managed it) half-way down the platform to leap aboard it.

We were 10 minutes late arriving in Köln, so I imagine that there’s a few more railway employees sent off to the Ostfront. But it didn’t really matter because the train was just so comfortable – even compared to the best of the TGVs.

hohenzollernbrucke cathedral koln cologne germanyAlison and I went for a coffee and then walked round the cathedral to check on the Roman paving that I had seen last time that I was here. We then continued up to the Hohenzollernbrucke.

By now the rain had stopped so we stood on the bridge to admire the barges passing by underneath.

And then up-river on the eastern bank to see a few things that I had noticed last time.

roman temple heumarkt metro station koln cologne germanyBack across the river on the Deutzerbrucke, stopping to take a few more photos of a few more barges, then Alison went for a wander around a few shops while I disappeared into the bowels of the Heumarkt metro station to look at the church tower that I saw last time.

While I was down there I stumbled over the ruins of a Roman temple from round about 100BC. This was uncovered during the construction of the Metro here

Unfortunately they haven’t been able to discover to which god the temple was dedicated

A couple more shops and then back to the Hauptbahnhof to meet Jackie.

We ended up at Mama’s Trattoria, an Italian restaurant that I had found on the internet. It advertised vegan and gluten-free meals. And what an inspired choice it was because there was plenty of choice and my penne al arrabiata was totally delicious.

gestapo headquarters LD house appellhofplatz koln cologne germanyFrom there, round to the Gestapo museum, and what a frightful place that was. It’s hard to imagine a series of prison cells about 1.5 metres by 3 metres and 30 people at a time crammed in each one there for a couple of weeks on end.

The only time they would ever be allowed out would be for a good round of torture and, eventually, being hanged or beheaded in the courtyard.

As I said, the idea that 17.4 million people have voted for a return to those unspeakable times is something that fills me full of dread.

A nice walk, another coffee and a few more shops saw us back at the railway station in time for another drink and then our trains home.

gare leige guillemins belgiumWe had to change trains at Liège Guillemins station again for our train back to Leuven.

There was a 10-minute wait for our train and so that gave me plenty of opportunity to have a look round and take a few photographs.

The station is certainly out-of-the-ordinary and looks even better at night when it’s all illiminated.

Back finally at leuven Alison caught the bus home and I grabbed a falafel durum to eat on the way home.

167% of my daily activity and it feels like it too. So I’m off to bed where I intend to sleep until I wake up.

0

Sunday 23rd December 2018 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER .

… thing crossed off my list of things to do.

Back in the early 1970s when I first started coming over to Oostende, I was always puzzled by the train that was waiting at the station for the passengers. Its destination was always Welkenraedt and I didn’t have a clue where Welkenraedt was.

gare welkenraedt belgiumA little later I had a look for where Welkenraedt might be. It’s a small town nestled in the Ardennes miles from anywhere.

That puzzled me even more as to why the boat trains from Oostende would be going there.
I eventually found the reason. It’s a junction station where lines from Spa and from Eupen come in.

But more importantly, it’s the last station of any importance before the German border. The electricity current in Germany used to be different to that in Belgium, so that was where the Belgian engine came off, and then a German locomotive would be attached to take the train on into Europe.

gare welkenraedt belgiumAlison and I went to Welkenraedt on one of our excursions out back in July to see what was going on. But it was always my ambition, strange though it might seem, to change trains there.

So here I am, on a windswept, soaking wet freezing platform huddled under a tiny shelter at Welkenraedt in the middle of winter waiting for a train to come in.

And no coffee for miles around either

bondgenotenlaan leuven louvain belgiumDespite it being Sunday I’d left the alarm connected and at 06:00 it duly rang. No breakfast, no medication, just packing my backpack and then out into the dark, stopping off on the way to take a few photos of around the station area because I had plenty of time..

At 07:24 the train to Eupen came into the station and I leapt aboard. And at Welkenraedt I hopped out. These days the trains don’t go on into Europe but go round to Eupen.

We had to wait for a diesel multiple-unit to come rattling in from Spa.

automotrice sncb 644 653 gare welkenraedt belgiumWe didn’t have long to wait until this filthy, dirty disreputable ancient thing came staggering into the station.

Old, covered in grafitti and all kinds of things, and the train was even worse. I’d be ashamed to be seen in something like this, and the idea that the SNCB would be content to send such a machine into a foreign country where it could be compared with the pristine stuff on offer over there is an absurdity to say the least.

But here it was and here I was. So I climbed aboard and rattled off into Germany.

hauptbahnhof aachen germanyHere I am finally in Germany, in Aachen in fact, at the Hauptbahnhof.

I have to change trains here, and there’s a wait of about 20 minutes for my connection, so there is plenty of time for breakfast.

German bread is probably the best in the world and so a couple of bread rolls of different varieties and a coffee were just what the doctor ordered.

hauptbahnhof cologne koln germanyMy next train was already in the station. A newish double-decker that put the SNCB offering to shame. This rolled off out of the station, 10 seconds late, and an hour later, I was in Koln.

That was where I took this photograph, by the way.

Interestingly, the announcements on the train were in German followed by English. I imagined what might be the response from the xenophobic racist Brexiters if this kind of cosmopolitanism were ever to happen in the UK.

cathedral cologne koln germanyIt’s years since I’ve been to Koln. About 2007 if my memory serves me correctly.

Looking for something to do to pass the time, I’d been idly scanning through the SNCB website and I found that a voyage by train from Leuven to Köln and return would cost me a mere €68:00 – that’s a four-hundred kilometre round trip.

With nothing much happening in Belgium, I decided to come for a day out.

cathedral bahnhofsvorplatz cologne koln germanyI spent a couple of hours wandering around the city, visiting all of the places that I had visited on my previous trips. But at midday I had to return to the cathedral.

When I was chair of the North European Regional Forum of Open University students, one of the committee members lived here in Koln. And by coincidence she was a big friend of my old friend Liz. Hence the regular visits to Koln. Jackie and I hadn’t seen each other since those days, but she had heard that I was coming to Koln and we were going to meet for lunch.

It was at that moment that the heavens opened. As I picked my way through the crowds I was becoming wetter and wetter, and so I was glad to meet Jackie and go for a coffee.

When the rain eased off a little we headed off into the town and an Italian restaurant. It was a strange place for an Italian restaurant. They wouldn’t do me a plate of vegetables with pasta and tomato sauce. I got the pasta and the tomato sauce, but they couldn’t do the vegetables. That can only mean one thing, as I’m sure that the more astute readers will realise.

christmas market markt der engel neumarkt cologne koln germanyBy now the rain was coming down even worse, but we headed off regardless. Down the main shopping street and through a couple of the Christmas markets, looking at the products on sale.

We ended up at a hot drinks stall. Jackie had a gluhwein and I had a hot cocktail. The mugs were beautiful so we forewent the deposit and I took them away in my backpack.

Jackie’s partner came down to meet us. They were off to a carol concert at the end of the afternoon so I said goodbye

barge river rhine deutzerbrucke cologne koln germanyNow on my own, I retraced my steps back through the markets and down to the River Rhine, thinking that I could have done with a good Rhinecoat.

I walked up along the side of the river and then up the steps to the Hohenzollern Bridge – the huge railway bridge with a pedestrian footpath that straddles the river.

It was a dismal dreary walk in the dark and the rain but even so, it’s good to stand there in mid-stream and watch the fleets of barges and cruise ships passing by underneath.

breslauerplatz hauptbahnhof cologne koln germanyEventually I found myself back at the railway station. And to my dismay, the rear of the station has all been cleared up and modernised and the excellent fritkot that I remembered from the past has been swept away.

Nevertheless I did manage to fit myself up with some food. Back inside the station, I found a Thai restaurant in the subterranean shopping gallery that had a range of vegetarian and vegan food.

I had a stir-fry tofu with rice and it was really good.

dbag class 146 locomotive hauptbahnhof cologne koln germanyMy train was a few minutes early and already in the platform. To my surprise it was pulled by the same locomotive that had brought me out.

I hopped aboard and grabbed myself a comfortable seat. And here I had an interesting encounter with a German ticket-collector. It had been so wet that the damp atmosphere had caused the ink on my rail ticket to run and he couldn’t read it.

In the end, reason prevailed.

automotrice sncb 644 653 gare welkenraedt belgiumAnother wait at Aachen for an even more disreputable Belgian multiple-unit. And which, surprisingly (or maybe not) it was likewise the same one that had brought me out.

There was graffiti all over the inside of the train and rubbish strewn all over the floor. Not a very good advert for the SNCB, sending atrain like this across the border into foreign parts.

And then another wait on the cold and wet at Welkenraedt for my train back to Leuven.

So now, I’m back home, looking and feeling like one more haggard, drowned rat, although I had no idea where I would find one more haggard drowned rat at this time of night.

And straight off to bed because I have the hospital in the morning and I need to be on form.

On my travels today, I took well over 100 photos. Some are in the text and some more below.

But if you want to see the rest, I’ve prepared a web page where you can see them in all their sodding and dripping glory, such as it was.

christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium
christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium

christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium
christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium

martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium
martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium
railway station war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium
war memorial railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium
war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium
railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

train station leuven louvain belgium
train station leuven louvain belgium

hauptbahnhof aachen germany
hauptbahnhof aachen germany

hauptbahnhof aachen germany
hauptbahnhof aachen germany

automotrice sncb 644 653 hauptbahnhof aachen germany
automotrice sncb 644 653 hauptbahnhof aachen germany

0