Category Archives: Oostende

Wednesday 18th April 2018 – AND AN EARLY START …

… it was in the morning too.

never mind the alarm at 05:20 – I was wide-awake at 04:00. That is, of course, quite another thing from saying that I was out of bed at that time but at least it’s a relief to know that my body clock seems to be working when it has to.

I made my breakfast – a half-baguette with jam – and packed it in my rucksack for the journey along with the butties that I made afterwards.

By 06:00 i was ready to go and a brisk walk through the not-so-deserted streets (it seemed as if the whole town was heading to the railway station right now) brought me there in such good time that the previous train was still in the station. And so I leapt aboard.

It was quite empty when it left but by the time that it had stopped at Brugge and Gent St Pieters it was standing room only throughout the whole length of the train. Early rush hour of course and everyone was off to work.

But my early arrival had availed me nothing because there was no earlier train to the airport.

“Airport???” I hear you say. “What it all of this?”

Well, we’re having a change of plan and instead of leaping aboard the next available TGV to go home, I’m going on a little voyage. I didn’t mention that when I was in Leuven buying my shorts, something in a shop window across the road had caught my eye.

And so to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time, checked in, had a totally painless passage through security – and much as Ihave criticised the mentality of Belgian officialdom in the past, it’s only right that I say chapeau and wish that Canadian and USA border staff would take a leaf out of their book – and walked the endless miles of corridor to my departure gate.

And then walked half the way back because there was a gate change.

I’d been very lucky checking in. I used the old “bad leg” ploy (actually, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I do have issues with my leg) and was given an aisle seat, which was just as well because the plane was packed out with not a free seat anywhere. I had literally had the last ticket on the flight – as the Travel Agent had said.

And it was the oldest Airbus A320 I’ve ever been on. Piloted by Orville and Wilbur Wright, I had to move Amelia Earhart’s sandwiches off my seat before I could sit down.

And once we had settled down and taken off we all had to unsettle ourselves to search for documents papers and pens to fill in the applications for Visas. Why then couldn’t issue those with your boarding cards so that you could fill them out while waiting for the aeroplane to arrive is totally beyond me.

It was just as well that I had made my butties. I know that there’s a meal organised on the aeroplane but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that past experience has taught me never to rely on airline and tour companies to provide what I order. And so when I found out – just as I had expected – that there was no vegan meal on the plane for me, I didn’t worry.

The plane itself wasn’t that comfortable. We were crammed in like sardines but that didn’t worry me too much either. It’s a cheap tour package operator’s runabout and we weren’t going all that far anyway.

Two and a half hours later, we touched down. At Enfidha–Hammamet International Airport which, for the benefit of those of you who studied something other than geography, is in North Africa. Tunisia to be precise;

I’d seen a bargain last-minute offer to fly out to a holiday resort for a week in Sqanes on the Tunisian coast between Sousse and Monastir. All-inclusive, even down to the transport from the airport. Large air-conditioned room, balcony and sea view leaving, as you know, 5 days after I saw it and after a considerable amount of intense negotiations, knocked down to Yours Truly for all of €400.

And here I was. First off the plane, first through customs and immigration and sitting on a bench eating my butties waiting for the baggage.

I’d been saying for a while that the weather in Europe had been depressing all winter and how I wanted to go to the desert. Well, this was the best that I could do at short notice.

And while the weather in Western Europe had improved this last while, it seemed as if I had brought the bad weathe rover here with me.

There we were, loading ourselves up into the tour buses on the edge of the desert and in the background was this dirty black cloud hovering about quite ominously.

And, sad as it is to say it, we hadn’t driven more than a mile or two before it started to rain.

Yes, here in North Africa, in April on the edge of the desert, and it is raining. You couldn’t make up a story quite like that, could you? But then, I suppose that with knowing the way that things work out when I’m around you would have bet the mortgage on it.

Local farmers will be paying me a fortune to keep on coming back to the country, whereas the local Tourist Board will be denying me admisssion

Onto the motorway where tractors, bicycles and carts drawn by horses are prohibited.

But not herds of sheep and goats, so it seems. We would regularly pass a herd of sheep and/or goats, complete with shepherd and/or goatherd, on the hard shoulder nibbling away at what passes for greenery around here.

That’s the sheep and/or goats of course, not the shepherd and/or goatherd, although one never knows, of course.

In fact, it’s all very much as you might imagine that it would have been back in Biblical days.

Even the motor vehicles. And yes, they did have cars, and even motorcycles back in Biblical days.

Everyone knows that it clearly states in the Bible that the sound of Joshua’s Triumph was heard throughout the land, and later in the New Testament we read that the disciples were all in one Accord.

Sousse has always been one of the towns that I have wanted to visit, and for no other reason than the fact that I had actually heard about the place.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to go through the city itself, but round the outskirts where we were driven past the big University here.

But no matter. I’m sure that I can work out a way of going for a day out in the city once I get my bearings about the place

I’m not sure what I was expecting for a hotel. I know that, at the price that I paid, I wasn’t expecting all that much. And so my flabber has never been so gasted as it was when I saw it.

Firstly, it’s a gated compound and there are security guards who patrol the gate and the fences. But when you go inside you can see why.

It’s the holiday village to end all holiday villages and really must have been something quite impressive when it was built because today, even though it’s looking rather tired around the edges, it’s by far and away the best hotel in which I have ever stayed.

We were treated to a little cabaret by the … err … “Enjoyment Team” when we arrived and that, I’m afraid, got me off on the wrong foot.

I’m the wrong person to come on one of these tours because with having worked in the tourist industry for as long as I did, I’m immensely cynical about this kind of thing. I just wanted to get to my room.

And when I did, well, what can I say?

I can have a dance in my bedroom it’s so big. A family of 6 could sleep in the bed and it’s all a kind of five-star luxury even if it is a little worn in the corners.

And there really is a balcony, and there really is a sea view – and a proper sea view at that too, just as I had been promised. None of your craning your neck around a corner and leaning out dangerously, like you would get in many other hotels.

I threw open the windows really wide and let the sea air blow in around the room for quite some considerable time.

And then I … errr … had a little relax. It’s been a long day so far

Once I’d rejoined the Land of the Living I could go for another good look out of my window.

And it seems as if the sea isn’t the only attraction here either. There’s a whole series of swimming pools and I can see three of them – two just down there and one under cover that you can’t see – from my window.

Mind you, it’ll need to be warmer than this before I’m enticed into the pool. I can’t believe my bad luck with the weather.

We came through Sousse on the way here, but we are actually in a town called Sqanes, which is on the outskirts of the city of Monastir.

That’s Monastir, right down there. And although it’s quite an interesting city, the seaport isn’t up to all that much.

And it’s for that reason that if I have the chance, I’ll be heading to Sousse for a day trip. The port there is one of the largest in Tunisia with a busy railway freight line into the desert.

That should provide some good opportunities.

The production of oil is a big thing in North Africa and Tunisia has some at its disposal.

And in the days of a tight economy, exploration has expanded and underneath the sea has been targeted as a likely source – hence the oil rig that I can see from my window.

It’s quite a way out from the shore, but it’s amazing what you can do with a decent telephoto lens and a good graphics program.

Tea tonight – and every night – is a buffet. You can help yourself. And it’s rather light on the vegan options unfortunately but a plate of wild rice and vegetables cooked with garlic, and a helping of beans from the salad tray followed by a real and proper fruit salad and I will settle for that.

So now I’m going to have an early night. Only 56% on the fitbit but I’m not too bothered about that. I’m exhausted after everything today and an early night will do me good.

Tomorrow it’s the beach!

Tuesday 17th April 2018 – SO THERE I WAS …

… bright-eyed and bushy-tailed leaping out of bed as soon as the alarm clock rang, ready to fight the good fight for yet another day.

And then I awoke from the exciting dream that I was having – something to do with a cake of some description and my mother (although I shudder to think what it might have been) – and it took me a good ten minutes and three alarm calls to shake off the feeling of impending doom that I was having.

And i’m not sure why that was either.

We had the usual morning ritual which involved a good 20-minute search for the apple-and-rhubarb purée that I knew that I had (and which came to light about 20 minutes after I had finished breakfast) and then a little pause while I tidied myself up and gathered my wits (which, considering how many wits I have these days, takes much longer than it ought to).

Having finally organised myself, I set out for the shops. First stop was Kruidvat and the gelatine-free sweet counter. i’m heading off tomorrow and I shan’t encounter another Kruidvat after this.

Next stop was Delhaize for the baguetteand the stuff for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. With my early start I won’t have time to track down any fresh bread so I need to organise myself now.

And just for a change, there was no-body doing anything unusual in the supermarket. That incident with the punnet of strawberries has affected me just as much as the other incident in LeClerc did the other day, the one where the woman insisted that they weighed her fruit and veg before they bagged it.

The walk back here was quite uneventful, but I did stop at a café for a morning coffee and a little relax by the sea. And I fell in with one of the workmen digging these holes on the promenade and it seems that my guess is correct. They are indeed digging out for a new underground car park.

As I have always said – if you want to know the answer you have to ask the question.

While I was working on the laptop I found myself going off with the fairies which I found quite surprising. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had a good sleep during the night, was it?

But it didn’t last long and I soon recovered enough to make my butties and head out to the street.

And boarded the ferry down the road just in time to see one of the barges at the cement works flushing out its pipes into the open harbour.

At least, that’s what I assume that it was doing. It certainly wasn’t smoke that was coming out of that pipe over there.

In case you are wondering, which I’m sure you are, there’s not only the offshore works going on for the extension to the wind farm but there’s a huge construction project on dry land just here where the old loading bay for the former RMT ferries from Oostende to Dover is being converted into the new city bus station.

Now, how about this?

I’ve seen people carry dogs around in their arms, in a push-chair (yes, I have), in a bicycle trailer, but this beats just about everything, doesn’t it? Taking your mutt “for a walk” in a box attached to the frame of an old bagging truck.

I just don’t see the point of any of this. I thought that the whole idea of having a dog was so that it would fit in with your lifestyle. So why have a dog that needs to be dragged around like this?

I’m a cat person, not a dog person as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but even I reckon that if you are going to have a dog, you have a DOG, not something that looks like a drowned rat that can’t run about and have fun.

The wind had changed round today so my little sunny nook from yesterday was ruled out. But farther along the beach I found another sheltered spot to eat my butties. And I had a good hour in the sun with my book. It really was starting to become a very pleasant afternoon.

As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … Oostende is a ship-spotter’s paradise.

There were tons of shipping out there in the English Channel again today as always but unfortunately far too far out to sea to properly identify. I wish we could persuade them to come in closer to the coast line the 18th Century wreckers did.

That would provide a bit of excitement for the holidaymakers around here, wouldn’t it?

One of the reasons why they can’t come in closer is because there are some sandbanks out there.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, they are building a wind farm out there and we saw in the harbour the other day the masts of some of the turbines.

A few of the turbines have already been erected and although they are quite a good distance out to sea, the telephoto lens will pick them up and with a little bit of “crop and enlarge” and other kinds of enhancement we can at least manage to see them in principle.

It was quite a pleasant walk all the way down to the café where I had stopped yesterday.

And yesterday there were just two or three of us. Today, with the beautiful weather, they were queueing out of the door to be served and it wasn’t all that easy to find a good place to sit.

All in all I was there for a good 45 minutes drinking coffee and reading my book in the sunshine and (as I noticed later this evening) I am even sunburnt a little (no, it ISN’T rust). I certainly wasn’t expecting this.

The promenade ends here but I carried on a little way through the dunes because from up here if the weather is good there is an excellent view.

On a good day you can see all the way down the coast as far as Zeebrugge, and probably beyond as well.

We were certainly having that kind of weather today and the view was really excellent. And that doesn’t include the view that I had of the rather solitary gentleman whom I surprised in my assault on the hilltop.

He certainly wasn’t expecting to be disturbed, lurking as he was amongst the dunes.

But that’s not all that there is to see up here either.

We’ve talked … "at great length" – ed … about the fortifications of the Atlantic Wall that the Germans had built to protect the north-west European coast from invasion and I even live just a couple of hundred metres from some of the fortifications.

But this part of the coast was certainly the most crucial from the point of view of the Germans. Probably the shortest crossing, the easiest access to the interior and several major ports in the immediate vicinity, most of the effort of the Germans was concentrated in the strip between Boulogne and Antwerp.

Even out here, you can stumble unexpectedly upon parts of the fortifications hidden in the dunes.

My walk back to the harbour was relatively slow under the burning sun and there was nothing whatever of any excitement to break up the journey.

Nothing, that is, except a working party tidying up the bows of HMS Vindictive.

It’s 100 years ago this year since her rather futile attempt to block the harbour mouth here to prevent German submarines heading out into the English Channel and beyond and they are planning on having some kind of celebration. So I suppose they want her to look her best.

The ferry was in when I arrived so I didn’t have to wait too long. And I was soon across on the other side.

By now if anything it was somewhat hotter, but the ice-cream stall came to the rescue. Non-dairy sorbets are much more widespread than they were and the banana sorbet here is delicious. I adjourned to a bench on the promenade overlooking the sea with my ice-cream sorbet and my book and soaked up some more sun.

In the distance a huge container ship was heading our way and so I waited patiently for it to arrive. But before it reached me it had a touch of the old right-hand down a little and headed off out further away from shore.

As a result I can’t tell you very much about it, and even the view isn’t all that clear. No matter how good your photo equipment might (or might not) be, it can only do so much.

By 18:00 the temperature was cooling down so I headed off back to my hotel room. And at the entrance to the hotel I encountered yet another specimen of the whining, moaning Brit wbo didn’t like this, didn’t like that, didn’t like something else.

So I reminded him of how much he was paying to stay here, but that had no effect whatsoever.

That really is the one thing that totally annoys me. It’s all very well not having certain facilities if you aren’t actually paying for them. I’m paying €110 for three nights accommodation here (without breakfast, without wifi in the room and so on, of course) but the place is clean and tidy, the staff is helpful, the rooms are comfortable, it’s a quiet hotel and it’s 100 metres from the beach.

Where else are you going to get that here in Oostende?

I have to admit that there really are times when I am ashamed to admit that I’m British when I encounter people like him in mainland Europe.

With all of the effort that I had been through during the day I was feeling a little weary and so I lay down on the bed for a quick 10 minutes.

But 10 minutes. 19:55 when I awoke. More like 110 minutes I reckon. But I’m not complaining. I have a very early start in the morning so I need my sleep.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last year I discovered a Syrian restaurant run by a couple of refugees. That was my destination for tonight.

And I do have to say that it really was an excellent choice because the meal was just as good as the one that I had had last time.The falafel was cooked to perfection and there were enough chips to feed a small army.

A choice of sauces too, so I chose garlic sauce. And if I could make mine emulsify like theirs I would be an extremely happy bunny.

Back here I packed away the stuff that I don’t need now and then went for an early night. I started to watch a film on the laptop but after about 20 minutes Iswitched it off and settled down to go to sleep.

Like I said – an early start in the morning.

Monday 16th April 2018 – I’M PAYING …

… €110 (well, €118 with taxes) for three nights in this hotel and I do have to say that I’ve not had such a good deal as this in most other places where I’ve stayed.

No breakfast of course at that price but I’ve brought my own, left over from the place in Leuven so that’s no big deal. But the bed was so comfortable for a cheap bed that I was out like a light and stayed out for quite a good while.

That didn’t stop me going on a midnight ramble though. I was in some kind of tower last night – a tower that was some kind of tourist attraction. Right at the top of it I was. But for some reason there was nothing that interested me and I was more interested in seeing how quickly I could descend to the ground. Old women, schoolgirls, families – nothing slowed me down and I was bowling them over like ninepins in my race to the bottom. Outside, I was just leaning on a fence in some kind of depression when I was tapped on the shoulder. Two people – a young man and his girlfriend – from his party were there and they were desperately trying to cheer me up – telling me about all of the machinery that was still in this mill and how there were a couple of big old engines in the cellar that were used to manufacture electricity. But nothing seemed to haul me out of my depression.

Nothing seemed to haul me out of my stinking pit either. After all of the exertions of yesterday I was aching in places that I didn’t even realise that I had, and I thought that my fitbit was really taking the mickey when it told me that “your activity yesterday will really benefit your health”.

After our usual morning performance I had breakfast and then, shame as it is to admit it, I closed my eyes and was away with the fairies for at least half an hour. I definitely did too much yesterday.

But you can’t keep a good man down for long – nor me neither for that matter – and I was out on the streets again.

Off on a walk down to the Delhaize supermarket for some shopping and a baguette for lunch. I have to eat;

And this is the kind of thing that would bring tears to the eyes of many single women. I’m not quite sure of the purpose of this display but it was certainly interesting from an aesthetic point of view.

And we had yet another delightful scene in here too – of a woman weighing the punnets of strawberries (clearly labelled 500 grammes) to find out which one had the most in it. I thoroughly despair of the human nature that is within some people.

Back here I had a few things to do and then I made my butties for lunch and hit the streets yet again.

But not very far – just outside the hotel where the people who run the bar opposite were unloading stuff from their van.

And you only need to look at the corrugated bonnet to tell you that this is one of the earliest generations of 2CV vans. And that makes it something of a rare beast. you don’t see too many of the cars of this generation about these days (although regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we do know someone who has one) never mind the vans.

In fact, thinking about it, with the Healey 3000 on Saturday, the Ponton last night and now the 2CV, I’ve seen more interesting vehicles this last three days than I have over the last three months.

Having dealt with the 2CV, my route took me along the promenade again in the general direction of the railway station.

And past some very interesting works going on down on the beach with them building a sort-of lego wall there on the right to stop the sand drifting over the new causeway that they had built a couple of years ago.

And there was some piling work going on at the end of the older, previous causeway that was the harbour mouth. So it looks as if the work on the modernisation of the harbour is going to be going on and on.

It’s always a bad idea for me to see a ferry. I get in such a bad mood because, of course, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross.

And of course there is a free ferry from near the aquarium that goes across the harbour to the commercial side of the docks where there are many of the fortifications still remaining from World War II, and also from World War I when Oostende was an important German submarine base.

There was only a short wait until the ferry put in its appearance too.

We saw these towers yesterday and I had been wondering what they were.

And so seeing as I was in the company of Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy aboard the Good Ship Ven .. err … Roger Raveel, I enquired of one of them what was going on.

It seems that they are the masts of more wind turbines for the offshore wind farm, whose headquarters you may remember we visited last time we were here. And the ships that are dodging in and out of the harbour are supply ships for the construction of the extension to the wind farm.

Being decanted onto the other side of the harbour, I threaded my way through the network of canals and locks that form the entrances to the various little avant-ports and found myself in the shipyard.

The shipyard was built in 1931 apparently but not much ship repairing goes on there these days. It’s pretty derelict.

The increase in size of ships and the decline of the fishing industry, as well as new high standards for pleasure boat construction, have put paid to hundreds of little yards like this.

But despite the air of dereliction, the yard wasn’t empty.

There was still this old fishing boat here, up on chocks and fenced off from the public. It’s looking very much the worse for wear these days and like the yacht from Delaware that we saw yesterday, this one won’t be going anywhere any time soon either.

As a fishing boat, you might say that it’s had its chips.

In our quest for yet another Ship of the Day today I wandered around the headland to see what I would see.

But the first thing that I saw was the barge with the piling machine scuttling off presumably for its lunch break.

Subsequent enquiries revealed that they are still working on the harbour with the intention of providing a safe haven for ships of up to 150 metres in length (which will be quite impressive from my point of view) and the work will continue for quite a while.

Not only that, according to the architect’s drawings, there seems to be the intention to put some kind of amenity building over there at the head of the old harbour entrance.

That would be a pleasant addition to the amenities offered to tourists by the town.

There was a ship sailing … "dieseling" – ed … about in the distance.

Of course I can’t be sure about it but judging by the gear that it had on board it looked as if it might be one of the supply ships for the new wind farm that they are building.

And so with the aid of the zoom telephoto lens I was able to have a good shot of it so that I could inspect it at my leisure.

But I was interrupted by a French couple who enquired about the piece of the bow of HMS Vindictive (which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is stuck on a plinth just here, and which, because of the distraction, I forgot to photograph).

Of course it’s the kind of thing that I’ve talked about before … "at great length" – ed … so I was able to tell them everything about it. They may not be any the wiser, but they are certainly better-informed.

There was a biting wind out here and it was quite cold too, but I went down onto the beach and found a corner of the beach that was well-sheltered and in a sun-bowl.

And there I sat on the sand and ate my butties.

And read my book

And … errr … had a little relax in the sun.

And why not? It was the first time this year that I had felt really comfortable outside in the nice weather.

There is quite a bit of work going on along the beach here right now.

It seems that the sand has drifted quite considerably during the winter, probably with all of the storms that we have had (and if they had the one like we had at the beginning of January that would certainly be the case), and has buried the protective fences.

There are teams of diggers digging out the sand and passing it over to bulldozers which are spreading it out on other parts of the beach.

And judging by the amount of sand that needs shifting, they are going to be here for quite some considerable time.

A good way along the promenade in the direction of Zeebrugge is a little cafe and this was my destination today.

I’d had a really good walk so far and so I reckoned that I had earned a cup of coffee and a little relaxation. And apart from anything else, there is a gentleman’s restroom here.

So yet another sit in the sun with a coffee, the book and a little repose for half an hour while I gathered my strength for the return journey. It’s a long way back to civilisation from here.

I took a slightly different route on my way back.

After a mile or so I clambered up over the dunes behind the promenade and was rewarded by yet another candidate for “Ship of the Day”.

Never mind the smaller boat in the foreground – it’s hard to tell at this kind of distance whether the ship in the background on the horizon is a container ship or a cruise liner.

But nevertheless it is certainly an impressive sight and I’m glad that I bought the zoom telephoto lens for the new little camera.

Now this is what I had been clambering over the dunes to see.

We’ve mentioned the World War II fortifications and also the World War I ditto, but there are fortifications from an earlier date here too and the fact that they are built of brick rather than concrete will tell you that they date from before the mid-19th Century.

In fact, this is the Fort Napoleon, built by the aforementioned as part of his defences to keep out the Perfide Albion from invading the Continent.

It had also been a German command post in both World Wars so for some time it’s been on my list of places to visit

Every time that I’ve been to Oostende something has always cropped up to put a stop to any plan that I have had to come here, but not today. And so, in accordance with the usual procedure, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s closed right now to visitors.

Being obliged to scramble over fences and building roofs is not something that has caused me any great difficulty in the past, but it’s not the kind of thing that you do in Belgium. Belgian police have no sense of humour and are notoriously unpredictable in their reactions.

We have had some … errr … interesting encounters in the past, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Oostende was a German submarine base in World War I. A total of 19 were stationed here, of which 15 were lost.

I’ve never been able to find out which was the actual basin that they used, but there is a suggestion that it was apparently behind some kind of harbour gae. If so, this basin could be a very likely candidate.

I don’t think that the sunken boat over there in the corner is one of their victims however.

As an aside, it was announced over the winter that an completely intact and sealed World War I submarine, with just its bows blown off as it it had struck a mine, has been discovered just offshore.

This was also in the same basin.

And although she hasn’t sunk, she may as well because she has all the air of being a derelict.

She’s called Scorpios, having at one time been knows as Loodsboot 4 and is described as a “yacht”, although there are a couple of other “Loodsboots” with different suffixes that are described as “pilot tenders”.

Scorpios was actually built here in Oostende, in the Beliard Oostende Scheepwerk, but a long time ago. 1950 to be exact. She has a displacement of 499 tonnes and is registered in Antwerp.

As for her builders, the company was founded in Antwerp in 1877 but set up here in Oostende in 1923. The company’s main output was fishing boats.

The name of the company changed on many occasions as the smaller shipyards combined in order to remain viable, but the decline of the fishing industry saw the company finally slide into bankruptcy in 1994.

Their yard remained derelict for many years but was finally swept away in the modernisation of the port of Oostende in 2008

Heading back to the ferry I was lucky enough to be standing on top of one of the lock gates when the siren went off to tell me that the gate was about to open. I had to get a move on to avoid falling into the lock.

It’s that time of the day of course when the tide is coming in, up to the level of the water in the smaller docks and harbours and so they are opening the gates to allow traffic to proceed in and out.

And as luck would have it, right at this moment there were two fishing boats, O190 and O191, preparing to leave the harbour.

They were queued up at the inner gate (being a tidal harbour there is a double-set of lock gates here, one opening inwards and the other opening outwards).

Fishing is not something that is as common today as it was 50 years ago. In those days there would have been whole fleets of smaller coastal fishing boats in ports like Oostende but with the amount of over-fishing that took place, the fishing fleets have declined as quickly as the amount of fish that they used to catch.

Nowadays it’s mainly huge deep-sea trawlers that work on a more industrial basis out of the bigger ports.

Back on the western side of the harbour my walk along the promenade took me past yet more redevelopment.

When I first started coming to Oostende 40-odd years ago the whole sea-front area was nothing but nice belle-epoque villas from the lats 19th Century and small, cheap down-market hotels.

But today there’s almost nothing from that period remaining. It’s all been bulldozed away and replaced by modern holiday flats that cost an arm and a leg to buy or to rent. It’s just not the same as it used to be and I personally think that much of the character of the town has gone.

Nevertheless, it’s still one of the places that I enjoy the most for a little break for a couple of days and I’ll keep on coming here for as long as I can find some reasonably-priced accommodation close to the sea front.

It has some nice beaches, good walks, good, cheap rail connections to just about everywhere and not the least of the reasons being that it’s situated on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the World.

Out there on the horizon miles away but we can see quite well thanks to the telephoto lens is a ship that, i reckon, is almost certainly a container ship.

And although it’s difficult to tell at this distance, it seems to be “outbound” to the North Atlantic. That looks to me like the blunt end to the right of the photograph.

And in any case, traffic is regulated in the English Channel because of the volume of traffic, and westbound traffic is routed on the southern side. “Drive on the left”

Back at the hotel I had a little … errr … relax for half an hour or so and then later went out in search of food for tea.

The Syrian restaurant that I like and which does excellent falafelschotels was open, but so was the good Italian restaurant next door. But that was displaying a “closed on Tuesday” notice on the door so it looks like falafel tomorrow then and Italian meal tonight.

The penne al arrabiata here, zonder kaas of course, is wicked and it does have to be said that had there been a fridge in my hotel room I would have put the toilet paper in it ready for tomorrow. But I enjoyed every mouthful of it and I’ll be back here again next time I come to stay in Oostende.

On the way back to the hotel i was swept up in a party of kids streaming out of the Youth Hostel on their way to the beach for some late-evening amusement but I came back here to wash my clothes, to have a shower and take an early night. No internet up here in the rooms so instead I watched a film on the laptop.

And I made it down to the end too, for the first time in quite a while.

So now to settle down for a good night. The next night won’t be anything like as comfortable as this one. The alarm will be going off at 05:30 for a start and that’s enough to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

At least I can sleep on the train on Wednesday morning though.

Sunday 15th April 2018 – I’M MOVING ON …

…this morning so I can’t afford to hang about. I have a lot to do.

Not like during the night anyway. For some reason or other I had a desire to learn English – more really for the precise terms of grammar than anything else. And so I enrolled on this course that was taking place in Flint in North Wales. So I entered the class where the teacher greeted me in fluent Welsh. Whatever the standard of my Welsh might be, it wasn’t good enough to understand anything at the speed that she was speaking and this took me completely unawares. I stepped back for a minute to wonder how I was going to cope with this. In the class was a girl from Finland – tallish and well-built with shoulder-length blonde hair in a pony tail, and we ended up in a bar having a drink and a chat about our experiences in this class.

I leapt out of bed with alacrity (and I bet that you thought that I was on my own, didn’t you?) and while I was waiting for my medicine to work I caught up with a few bits and pieces that needed doing and that I should have done yesterday had I not been so exhausted after our trip out.

After breakfast I started to hunt things down and do my packing but for some reason or other it took far longer than I expected and I ended up stuffing things at random into my suitcase – and then unstuffing them as I searched for things that I needed and that I couldn’t remember having stuffed into the aforesaid. I’m clearly in a bad way.

And my suitcase seems to weigh about 10 times more than it did coming here. I haven’t bought that much extra stuff – I know that – and a lot of the stuff that I brought, like the food for example, has been vastly diminished in quantity. And the towels in the hotel weren’t all that fluffy.

Dashing out, I handed back the key to the room and was delayed for a few minutes by the local cat who finally allowed me to pick him up and stroke him. Stroking a cat is of course very good for the stress, but not if you are in a hurry to catch a train.

At the station I had to queue for hours behind people who clearly had nothing better to do on a Sunday morning (I’ve no idea why my new bank card won’t work in the self-service ticket machines of the SNCB).

I was only just in time for my train. Had it not been running 5 minutes late I would have been in difficulty.

It was one of the first generation of the “luxury” second-class trains – the first of those from the late 1980s with comfortable individual cloth seats. And so it was a little on the tatty side with frayed edges and so on but nevertheless, very comfortable.

I settled myself in for the long haul up to Oostende. I’m treating myself to a couple of days by the seaside before I come home.

We pulled into the station at Brugge and after a while I noticed that we hadn’t pulled out again. I didn’t think much of it until I was tapped on the shoulder by the ticket collector.

It seems that there’s a problem on the line higher up and the train won’t be going any further. A bus had been provided for us.

Eventually tracking down where I was supposed to go, I joined the heaving throng crammed like sardines into an old De Lijn service bus that whisked us up the motorway at 49mph. And was I happy when the doors opened and we could all alight?

The beautiful summer’s day that we had had in Leuven had now descended into a grey overcast sky but it will take much more than this to dampen my ardour. I set off to find my hotel, stopping on the way to pick up a baguette and being given the change from a €20 note in €2 pieces because they had nothing else to hand.

As for the hotel, I had a very good price from the Hotel Neutralia – a hotel that I don’t actually know. It’s wrong to say that it’s spartan – probably “basic” is a much better word to describe it – but I’ve stayed in many worse hotels than this and paid much more money for the privilege.

The staff are very friendly and hospitable, but the downside is that the internet doesn’t reach into the bedrooms on the upper floors (like mine). You have to come down to the foyer or the bar.

With the baguette that I had bought and a few other bits and pieces that I had, I made some butties and then headed out to the beach.

Just in time to encounter a Ship of the Day – and it’s been a long time since we’ve had one of those, hasn’t it? So I scrambled across the beach onto the sea wall over there for a closer look.

She came into the harbour, did a quick lap around and promptly sailed … "dieseled" – ed … back out again.

She’s the Artevelde out of Antwerp, and is described as an offshore, tug, supply or dredging vessel, which would suggest to me that she has some connection with the offshore wind farm that we know is out there somewhere.

Despite flying the Belgian flag and being based in Antwerp she’s owned by a company called Dredging International Luxembourg.

That reminds me that last time we were here we saw in the harbour quite a few other Luxembourg ships that looked as if they had connections with the wind farm.

Built as recently as 2009, she has a gross tonnage of 5005 and so is rather big as far as a coastal vessel goes.

I walked on down to the railway station to check on the time of my train back to Brussels, passing by the fishmarket on the way.

I’m not sure now if I’ve ever taken a photo of it in the past, but here’s one to be going on with. I’ve probably mentioned that each stall is occupied by an individual trawler skipper, and the goods displayed on the slab came out of his trawler’s hold earlier in the morning.

You don’t get much fresher than that without having to go out to sea to catch it for yourself.

Outside the fish market is a pile of temporary stalls that specialise in certain seafoods.

As well as the warme wullocks that we saw on a previous occasion you can have your mosselen in case you want to make your own mosselen en fritjes, and if you aren’t careful you can get crabs too.

One of the stallholders offered me oysters. “They are a well-known aphrodisiac” he assured me.

But regular readers of this rubbish will know that that is nonsense. I had a dozen the last time that I was in the UK with Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as much as she deserves) but only 9 of them worked.

I’ve never noticed this war memorial before and I can’t believe that I’ve missed it in all the times that I’ve been coming to Oostende since the early 1970s.

It’s been erected to commemorate 25 sailors of the 29th Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla who lost their lives when an accidental fire ignited explosives aboard one of the boats and blew a total of five boats into oblivion.

Either it’s fairly new or else I’ve been walking around Oostende in a daze.

It’s not possible to miss this though, is it?

This is the Sint-Petrus-en-Pauluskerk – the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul – in Oostende, designed by the architect Louis Delacenserie and said to be based on the cathedral at Cologne.

Despite its ancient, Gothic looks, construction of the church began in 1896 to replace an earlier one on the site that had burnt down. It was consecrated on 31st August 1908

And it wasn’t missed in either of the World Wars, suffering some damage in both. As a result, the magnificent stained glass windows in there are much more modern than the rest of the church.

And one day I’ll be walking past here with a camera when the sun is actually shining.

So down at the station. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I am not looking forward to a train that starts out at 06:41. Whatever time will I have to be out of bed to catch that? But at least there is a train. I could have ended up at somewhere much more isolated than this.

My perambulations took me around the yacht harbour and here there were many interesting things to see.

We had the Mercator of course. She’s the centre of attraction here in Oostende in the same way that Marité is back home in Granville although she doesn’t move about quite so often.

She was designed by Adrien de Gerlache, the Belgian Antarctic explorer and author, and rigged as a barquentine.

She was built in Leith, Scotland in 1932 as a training ship for the Belgian Merchant Navy and made many successful and well-known voyages, but was impressed into the British Royal Navy in World War II as a depot ship for submarines.

It took four years for her to return to service after her demobilisation and she needed an extensive overhaul before she was considered fit enough to resume her training duties.

From 1960 she was moored “off-duty” first at Antwerp and later here in Oostende as a part-time museum. She was laid up permanently in 2013.

But never mind the Mercator for the moment. This yacht caught my eye too.

And not for the least of the reasons being that she seems to be out of Dover – not the Dover just across the English Channel but the “Dover DL” which seems to indicate the Dover that is in Delaware, across the Atlantic from here.

So what she is doing here I really have no idea. But judging by the moss and the general debris scattered about on her, she’s been here for quite a while and won’t be sailing back home any time soon.

Back on the promenade and they seem to be digging it up everywhere. and how!

With it being a Sunday there’s no-one around to ask what is going on but part of the promenade had an underground car-park, so maybe they are planning to extend that. Parking here in Oostende is very tight in the summer and with all of the alterations that seem to be going on here, there will be fewer and fewer spaces. And so a few more certainly won’t go amiss.

But then, of course, parking is expensive here. And I paid just €21:00 to come here on the train. so I’m not sure why people coming to the seaside to lounge on the beach need to come by car anyway.

Back at my hotel I had a … errr … little rest for an hour or so and then went back out onto the streets – well, the Zeedyke actually – and headed west along the promenade, grabbing a bag of fritjes from the fritkot on the corner here.

Quite a walk too – much further than I was expecting in fact. but I did go past a couple of vehicles belonging to one of my former employers. The happy (and not-so-happy) times that I had there between 1979 and 1992 with the taxi business in between and around of course.

But how times have changed. When I started there in 1979 we had Ford R1114 lightweight coaches with Plaxton Supreme bodywork. But just look today at the kind of vehicle that is being used on coach tours. Mercedes engined three-axle heavyweights.

I don’t know how people today would have managed with some of the trips that we had to do back in 1979 in the equipment that we had.

Eventually I arrived at my destination – the Versluys Arena, home of the Koninklijke VoetballKlub Oostende.

Having missed my football last night, I wasn’t going to miss another and this evening KV Oostende were at home against STVV – the Kononklijke Sint Truidense Voetballvereniging.

I don’t recall having seen either of these teams before and I’ve certainly never been to the Versluys Arena so that sounded like a good plan.

I was crammed into the “away” end with the St Truiden supporters one of whom was dressed as a Canary. It’s the nickname of the club aparently, due no doubt to the yellow and blue colours that the team wears.

The match itself was very interesting. STVV had much more of the possession in the first half but they didn’t have the technique that Oostende had. KV Oostende were certainly the better team.

The trouble with modern football is that the aim seems to be “possession” – the longer they can hang on to the ball the better. And just like every other match that I have seen, the quick ball out wide to the wingers just doesn’t seem to be an option. They seem much more willing to pass the ball back to the goalkeeper.

At half-time though, KV Oostende were 2-0 up. And just to prove my point, both goals were scored by passes “over the top” of the defenders to players running into space.

During half-time the heavens opened and we were treated to the torrential downpour to end all torrential downpours. And the second half was played in conditions into which you wouldn’t have sent out a dog.

To everyone’s surprise (the STVV supporters and probably the players too) STVV pulled a goal back. A shot from about 20 yards out took a wicked deflection off a defender and ended up in the far corner of the net with the keeper helpless to do anything about that one.

And then, with 5 minutes to go, STVV scored a most unlikely equaliser with some good passing play where a ball broke kindly foran unmarked attacker.

And in the remaining time, STVV had two excellent chances to score a winner but their attackers were unable to make any contact with the ball.

By now the rain had eased off a little and I set off on my wet and weary walk home along the promenade.

I didn’t get very far though before my attention was grabbed by this gorgeous machine.

It’s a Mercedes 220 Ponton – the Ponton being the first modern post-war body styling from Mercedes and which ran from about 1953 to the early 1960s before being replaced by the W series models (somewhere down on the farm growing in a hedgerow I have a Mercedes W123 240D).

Not exactly my favourite Mercedes – I adore the pre-war and early postwar models of course but I would settle any day of the week for one of these and I’d be glad to take this home with me in my suitcase.

My long and tiring walk home brought me past the Royal Villa of King Leopold II. He was probably the most famous King of the Belgians (the King isn’t “The King of Belgium” but “The King of the Belgians”) and under whose rule there was an opulence that has never been matched either before or since.

And he had his Royal Villa, or Summer Palace, behind that wall on the Promenade at Oostende.

I slunk into my hotel and gave myself a really good shake so as not to traipse the rain with me into the hotel. I had intended to watch a film before going to sleep but with my fitbit telling me that I had done 227% of my day’s activity and walked a total of … errr … 17.7 kms today, I decided that an early night would be a better idea.

Friday 3rd March 2017 – PHEW!

I’m totally exhausted!

That was a horrible night, that was. It took me ages to go off to sleep and I forget how many times that I awoke. I had a rather disturbing voyage during the night, and you don’t want to hear about it as you are probably eating your tea by now.

A shower brought me round and then down to breakfast. I was second down but at least my window seat was free. Not that it did me much good because there was no-one walking by. I wasn’t all that hungry either.

Back up in my room I had a chat with Alison and Hannah on the internet, packed my new suitcase (which is actually bigger than the old one) and hit the streets. The old suitcase was consigned to the vuilnisbakje at the hotel, which is a shame because it would still be useful for storing stuff, but it can’t be helped. I don’t want to drag that about with me everywhere.

At the railway station I had a stroke of luck as well. I’d bought my ticket for the 10:08 train to the airport, changing at Gent St Pieters, but as I rounded the corner into the train shed, they were just announcing the departure of the 09:40 direct to Brussels. That made much more sense to me as it gave me many more airport options – and so I leapt aboard.

That was an easy route into Brussels, to be sure, without changing trains – or even seats – and I was in good time too. I could dash across to the hotel – the Hotel Midi-Zuid – where I’ll be for the next few days.

My room wasn’t ready, which was no surprise at all at 11:00, but they had a consigne where I could leave my luggage. And that was what I was really after. Having done that, I headed back to the Gare du Midi and hopped on the next train to the Airport at Zaventem.

I had to wait for a while but soon enough my niece’s daughter Hannah appeared. She’s from Canada of course but she’s on a student exchange right now in Madrid. There was a cheap flight opportunity to Brussels this weekend, and this is the reason why I’ve been hanging around.

We were on the train back to Brussels and back to the Hotel Midi-Zuid. Hannah’s room was ready but mine wasn’t, but never mind. Hannah was soon down, and we went off for a walk.

Our route was the old coach driving route that I used to do around the city centre, but with a couple of short pedestrian refinements. Stops for a couple of coffees here and there, a visit to the odd museum or two, and then a meal, and we were back here by 21:00, totally exhausted and I’ll pay for this effort, that’s for sure.

So I’m going to have an early night to give my legs a chance to ease off. I’ll have a shower later to help me to relax and then I’ll feel so much better. But right now, I’m putting my feet up.

Thursday 2nd March 2017 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

… having had a decent, long walk or two during the day yesterday was that I was in no fit state this morning.

It took me a while to go off to sleep, and I was flat out until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. Firstly, I was the adviser to a Politician who bore a most remarkable resemblance to a certain new Transatlantic Politician. I was dismayed with his plans and decided to resign my position, but I felt that many of the plans had been designed with that aim in view. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to hang around.
A little later, I was back on the buses – working for a coach company that was based in a town that bore more than just a passing resemblance to Middlewich. Two of our coaches, carrying football supporters who had been to watch Northwich Victoria, and they pulled into our yard. By the time that I had caught up with them, they had been parked in a really difficult position in an alcove and I was amazed at how the drivers had managed to park them there. Only one coach was able to go on to drop off everyone so some folk had to be left behind, and this led to all kinds of confusion and anguish in the depot amongst the passengers.

Two families were ahead of me at breakfast, and one of them was sitting in my place right in the window. I had to sit somewhere else.

Back up here, I had the opportunity to go to meet Sean in Gent but I wasn’t up to it and was obliged to decline. instead, I had a good relax on my bed for a while.

After all, the weather wasn’t fit for anyone to be outside. The wind was whipping up quite a storm and there was no-one on the promenade.

You can see exactly what I mean by looking at how the waves are pounding away on this ship as it was trying to negotiate its way into the harbour. And there weren’t any other ships around in the vicinity as there usually are.

It really was rough out there.

But I couldn’t stay in my stinking little pit all day – I had things to do. And it was on my travels that I saw the aforementioned ship, the Bellini coming into port.

She’s another Luxembourg-registered ship, and stands much more chance of sailing up the Moselle River because she displaces just over 2000 tonnes. She’s a chemical tanker and was built in 2000.

But I can’t understand how it is that just recently Luxembourg has now acquired a merchant marine.

It is rather reminiscent of the story about when Austria joined NATO and was introducing its officials to the other members. One of the officials was described as “our Minister of Marine”.
“Don’t be silly” said Solana, the NATO President. “Austria is a landlocked country. How come it has a Minister of Marine?”
“Well,” replied the Austrian President. “Bulgaria has a Minister of Culture, Belgium has a Minister of Justice, so we are going to have a Minster of Marine”

I had a look around the other hotels here to see what the prices might be like, but there was nothing that might give me much of a better deal, and I ended up at the Delhaize to buy lunch. Grapes were on special offer, two punnets for the price of one and that was cheap too, so I stocked up.

On the way back I went for a prowl around the shops to look for a new bag to replace the suitcase on which the handle broke on the way here.

I ended up in a shop called Kruidvat, and this all caught my eye. Weigh-your-own sweets, but with allergy labels. When did you ever see that? I had to buy 100 grams as a gesture of solidarity.

They also had a suitable tote bag thing with wheels. The cheapest that I had seen, and it looked it too, all at €12:99. But needs must when the devil drives so I liberated an example. If it does me until I return home (where I have a choice of several) it will be fine.

Back here, I was dismayed to discover that they hadn’t cleaned my room. but not to worry – I made myself some butties seeing as it was lunchtime. Baguette, tomato and vegan cheese followed by a bunch of grapes.And then I … errr … closed my eyes for a couple of minutes.

At 15:30 a banging on my door awoke me. The cleaners wanted to do the room. I went out for a coffee – to that good place where I was yesterday, and watched the people on the promenade (because the wind had eased) being blown all around.

After that, I had a good walk and was back here for 17:00 in my nice clean room.

This is my restaurant from last night, the La Margarita where I had my good Italian penne last night.

But I’d noticed the one next to it. This certainly wasn’t here last November, so today I went to check it out. And sure enough, it’s a Syrian restaurant called the Damas and advertises falafel.

As a result of this exploration, I decided that this would be my port of call for tonight.

And wasn’t that a good decision? Here’s my falafelschotel and this little lot cost me all of a mere €8:50 and if there is better value for this anywhere in Oostende, I’d love to be able to find it.

The people who run it are Syrian refugees from Aleppo, and it nails the lie that these people are coming to Western Europe to sponge off the State.

Hard-working people who can cook meals like this should be welcomed anywhere and everywhere.

So there’s no-one on line to chat to tonight, so I’m off to bed for an early night. My hectic weekend starts tomorrow at about 12:30 so I want to be on form.

Wednesday 1st March 2017 – THE TROUBLE …

… with having had a really decent sleep during the day is that during the night it’s very difficult to drop off again. And so it was last night. Took me absolute ages.

But having said that, once I’d gone I’d gone, and until about 06:00 too. I had a quick look at the time, and turned over back sleep again until the alarm went off.

Breakfast here is at 07:30 but I still managed to haul myself out of bed early (no cacophony to accompany me, for which I am grateful) and stuck myself under the shower to liven myself up.

First down to breakfast (although I was almost immediately joined by others) and fruit salad, bread roll, orange juice and coffee. One thing about the breakfasts here, leaving aside the choice and the amounts on offer, is that everything is so fresh and tastes delicious.

And so it ought to be, given the price that one has to pay to stay in here. Of course, I’m not paying anything like the price indicated on the door, being stuck in my tiny little room in the garrett, but I’m not complaining for a moment.

What I was complaining about though was the internet. Sometime during the night it had crashed and they hadn’t been able to fix it. That left me hanging out on a limb for a while as I have so much to do here.

By 09:00 nothing had happened and so I decided to go for a walk along the promenade. It was grey and miserable, quite windy too, and there weren’t many people about.

We mentioned yesterday the story about the redevelopment of the promenade. Here, we have yet another old building from the Belle Epoch that has bitten the dust. It wasn’t as spectacular as the Villa Maritza, but there you go.

In fact by now, most of my old haunts from my spells in Oostende in the 1970s and early 80s have disappeared. All of the cheap hotels that used to be here have been swept away and replaced by blocks of holiday flats. One cheap hotel that I’d noted when I was here in 2013 had gone by the time that I came back here last November.

Not that it’s particularly relevant to this particular part of the discussion , but here’s a view of the corner of the promenade that I took this morning.

You can see another Belle Epoch villa here today, hemmed in by the more modern blocks of flats, and I wonder how long it will be before it’s gone too.

But there’s an exhibition of photos along the promenade showing us how Oostende looked 70 years ago just after the end of World War II and I noticed this photograph on display. It was taken from almost exactly the same spot as my photograph, and you can see how the corner looked back then, and compare the difference.

You might have noticed in the previous photograph the orange object on the promenade. There are actually about a dozen of them and they clearly have some kind of significance, although whatever it might be has so far escaped me completely.

It’s not exactly what I would call “artistic” but then what do I know? My idea of a sculpture is the column and statues to the right, a war memorial to the natives of the area who lost their lives at sea. It’s a shame that its site has to be cluttered up with these modern … errr … items.

I told you yesterday about the fish market here in Oostende. That’s it there, the white building with the blue wavy roof. I went for a look inside but there were only two stalls open and the choice of fish available wasn’t overwhelming. Not really worth photographing.

I reckon that the dock behind it was the old fish dock, but it’s used these days by the Police and the Customs authorities – people like that. It’s where their boats are anchored, or moored, or tied up.

When I was here in 2014 I stumbled across a ferry that I hadn’t noticed before, in all the years that I’ve been coming to the town. The deep-water port goes deep into the town and there isn’t a pedestrian way across the entrance. It’s a long walk around to the other side.

That’s the reason for the ferry, anyway.It’s only a small ferry, with room for 50 seats on board, and I took a photograph of it from the far side of the port entrance, with the town in the background. And also with the old ramps from the days when there was a ferry service across to the UK.

It’s always a bad idea for me to see a ferry, because I end up in a bad mood. In fact whenever I see a ferry it makes me cross. Especially when it’s a free ferry, and today is no exception. It always brings out the sailor in me.

Of course, that’s the reason why I was able to take a photograph from the other side of the port entrance – I’d piled on aboard the boat. As indeed you might expect.

You’ll notice by the way the booths on top of the quay to the right. It was some kind of market day going on up there.

It’s been months and months since we’ve had a real “Ship of the Day”, but you can’t go sailing across a port (even if it’s nothing like as busy as it was 50 years ago) without encountering a ship or two.

We’re in luck today, because here we have the Simon Stevin, registered in … errr … Luxembourg. Just imagine sailing this ship up the Moselle. She displaces 35,000 tonnes and was built in 2010.

She is actually a pipelaying vessel, and that will explain her presence here. With the expansion of the wind farm out on Thornton Bank, they will be needing extra cables laid to the shore.

The Simon Stevin would be the ideal vessel to be involved in a task like this.

The Simon Stevin isn’t the only big ship in the port either. We also have the Willem de Vlamingh in here too, and she’s likewise registered in Luxembourg.

She is your actual cable-layer and was built in 2011, displacing 6800 tonnes.

So here we are – some of the benefits that the wind farm has brought to the town of Oostende

As if that wasn’t enough, the harbour pilot boat was setting out of the docks and heading out to sea.

The entrance to the port is somewhat complicated and so a harbour pilot is necessary for certain boats that want to enter here. And so it looks as if there’s one of those standing offshore needing help to come in.

I couldn’t see anything hanging around outside, and nothing had come in by the time that I had left. I’ll have to go round later on this afternoon or maybe early tomorrow morning to see if anyone else has come in to join the party.

We saw in an earlier photograph – the one that I had taken of the Promenade in the 1940s – all of the fortifications that covered the shoreline of this part of the world. All of them built by the Germans in World War II

There are still plenty of them left, dotted all over the coast and we have seen plenty of them in the past. The eastern side of the entrance canal to the deepwater port is still littered with them even today and in all of the time that I’d been coming to Oostende I’d never actually been for a wander around them – until today, that it.

The port of Oostende had been a German submarine base in World War I and had been the subject of what was the precursor of the later commando raids of World War II. Not only that, the beaches here would make an ideal landing for the Allied armies coming to liberate Europe in 1944, what with the major port of Antwerp only just down the road.

Hence the German were quite nervous about the coastline around here and had used labour from the prison camps to construct these massive fortifications, as well as many others of all different types which have long-since disappeared.

What many people don’t realise though, because it was another one of these wartime secrets that wasn’t put into the Public Domain until the great release of wartime records in 1994, was that the Allies knew absolutely everything that there was to know about the Atlantic Wall, and they didn’t even need to send someone to look at it.

The company that had contracted to build it was a Belgian company, from the rue des Atrebates in Brussels. But what the Germans didn’t realise what that the company was actually owned by a Russian emigré called Leopold Trepper. And he had a part-time employment as a spy for the Soviet Union, leading a group called the Rote Kapelle or Red Orchestra

It was one of the greatest triumphs of espionage in World War II but because it was a Soviet triumph, it never received the acclaim that it deserved.

But the work was done thoroughly, and the vestiges are very difficult to remove. We’ve seen when we were in France a few years ago that one of the gun emplacements near the Atlantic Wall suffered a direct hit from a blockbuster bomb, and all that it did was to tilt the concrete.

That’s why many of these places are still here. Explosives are really the only way to remove them and it’s far too dangerous to destroy them in a congested area.

The Atlantic Wall isn’t the only set of fortifications here at Oostende. We have another exciting pile of stuff buried in the sand dunes.

Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to go over to it. It was all fenced off and I couldn’t find an obvious point of entry, and so I can’t tell you exactly what it is.

I shall have to make further inquiries.

We saw the new harbour wall when we were here in November. We walked the whole length of the other side of it in order to have a good look at what they had built, and I was tempted to go for a walk down this side of the harbour wall today, but the weather was conspiring against me.

There were some people out there trying to walk down there, but they weren’t having a great deal of success.

And you might be wandering what that bow of a ship is doing set up on a plinth out there

A closer inspection reveals that it certainly is part of the bow of a ship, and the colour gives you a clue – that it might be something to do with the Royal Navy.

It is in fact part of the bow of HMS Vindictive, a cruiser that has a very important claim to fame in the history of Oostende.

The British were concerned about the U-boats operating out of the port after its capture by the Germans during World War I, and so they launched two raids on the harbour, sinking ships in the entrance canal to the docks.

HMS Vindictive was one of those that was sunk here, in the raid on 10 May 1918, and when it was cut up for scrap, the bow section was preserved as a monument.

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and we have thousands of photographs going back to 1970 of ships sailing up and down here.

As ships have grown larger and larger, there are fewer and fewer of them, but the size means that you can see them easier even when they are away on the horizon, especially if you have a 305mm zoom lens.

I’ve no idea what kind of ship that this might be, but it’s certainly a big one and it seems to have an on-deck cargo. There’s plenty of accommodation on there too, so I’ve no idea what it might be. I know that there’s a car transporter that takes passengers with it and sails from Hamburg to South America, but that is probably not it.

No prizes for guessing what this ship might be. The initials of the owner – MSC- painted on the sides gives the clue away, because we have seen dozens of these in the past sailing up the St Lawrence River on the way to Quebec and Montreal.

It’s a container ship of course, and a huge one at that. And it’s empty too. And that’s a symptom of the world’s reliance on China for its manufacturing industry and that the world has nothing to send back in return.

We saw all of this with Japan in the 1970s and how it led to the collapse of manufacturing industry in the UK. Now, the rest of the world is suffering, and this is the Brave New World into which the Brexiters have plunged their country, with no colonies and noallies to back them up.

With the telephoto lens still on the camera, I could take a photograph all the way down the beach in the direction of Zeebrugge. But you can’t see much down there because of the wind whipping up the sand all the way down the beach.

We were brave, those of us out there, but at least I had done what I had intended to do, which was to have a good visit of this part of Oostende. It’s hard to think that I’ve never been out here, in all the years that I have been visiting the town.

Now I can head back to civilisation.

Parked up at a wharf near the ferry is a sailing ship, the Nele.

You might think that she is an ancient ship but she was built as recently as … errr …2005, but to a design of a traditional Oostende masted sailing ship.

It’s possible to go off for a mini-cruise on board and I did admit that I found the idea somewhat tempting. But I imagine without any doubt that I’ll be back here some time or other, and so I can make further enquiries.

I’ve not quite finished yet over here.

We’ve seen the wind farm out there on Thornton Bank. That’s about 30 kms offshore and in order to bring the power onshore they have a huge submarine cable.

Outside their offices they had a couple of metres of cable on display, and so I went over to take a photograph of it. It’s interesting because NALCOR in Labrador have laid a cable under the Strait of Belle Isle and are planning another one under the Gulf of St Lawrence to Cape Breton, so I was curious to see what a submarine cable looks like.

It will be of interest to the Brits too. Having sold their electricity-generating capacity to the French, one of these will be laid across the Channel sooner or later to run British electricity across to France in the same way that the Compagnie Lyonnais des Eaux runs British water from Kent across to Northern France through the pipeline in the Channel Tunnel in times of drought.

Back on the other side of the canal I went to the Delhaize to buy some stuff for lunch. They had grapes on offer too so that was today’s fruit issue resolved, wasn’t it? And back here, I crashed out for an hour as soon as I got in, which meant that I was rather late for my butty.

This afternoon I had a few things to do, and then went out for a walk. And here I encountered yet more of Belgium’s world-famous customer service. I went into a café for a coffee, and sat and waited for a waiter.

And waited.

Eventually, a waiter appeared, and cleared a few empty tables – and then disappeared. Eventually, he came back and I ordered a black coffee.

And waited

And waited.

Eventually I picked up my coat and left, heading for the café next door. I’d beens een by the waiter, placed my order and had it put on the table in front of me long before the other waiter in the other café had brought me the one that I had ordered.

I came back to the hotel for a warm, and then wandered off for tea. I know a nice Italian restaurant here that is cheap but good value, and they served me up a delicious penne all’arrabbiata, nice, hot and spicy.

So I’m going to try for an early night, and see how I am, and how the weather is, tomorrow. I hope that it’s a nice day and that I’m feeling up to some exciting moments.

Tuesday 28th February 2017 – COLD, GREY, WET, MISERABLE AND WINDY.

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about Oostende, because that’s where I am right now. And this is the train that brought me here from Leuven – a nice comfortable modern and clean express train. And we didn’t have a derailment either.

Having been liberated from the hospital for the next 6 weeks, and having things to do around Belgium this coming weekend, there’s no point in going home. I may as well go and find the seaside for a few days.

As seems to be the custom these days, one really good night is followed by one that is really bad. And last night was no exception.

By the time that I’d finished everything that I had to do, it was almost midnight, so I didn’t listen to the radio at all but simply switched off the laptop and settled down for the night. I’m not sure whether I dozed off at any time, but I do know that at 05:00 I was up and going for a stroll down the corridor – and hasn’t it been ages since I’ve had to do that?

I must have gone to sleep after that because the alarm awoke me at 07:00 as usual. I just about made it to breakfast where I was joined by my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder friend up to his usual antics, and my Dutch/Russian friend who wanted a long chat – but he must be joking.

This appetite thing is getting to me too because I decided that rather than throw most of my breakfast into the rubbish bin as I seem to have been doing these last few days, I’d just have a slice of toast. And if I’m off my food you know that something is really wrong;

After a relax, I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to the aforementioned Dutch/Russian guy and hit the streets, in the direction of the railway station.

And once there, I had a choice of two trains for me, the 10:19 changing at Gent St Pieters on the stopping train, or else the 10:34 direct to Oostende. Only 15 minutes difference so I chose the latter, which is just as well because at that moment my suitcase fell apart. Rather, the dragging handle broke off and that rather defeats the purpose of bringing it instead of the big shoulder bag that I usually take with me. I knew that there was a reason why this lives in the back of Caliburn – now I remember why, that it’s not up to all that much. I have a couple of others at home but I’m clearly going to have to buy another one before I go much farther.

This time I’d come prepared, with the big Nikon handy. On the way out of the station we took the same track as the other day close to the carriage sidings and I could take a much better photograph of the front bit of that ancient multiple unit that’s parked up here.

And it looks even worse at a higher resolution, the poor thing. It really does need a good home

That’s not all that there was that was exciting over there.

There’s some kind of ancient carriage parked up there too. With a rear platform like that it looks something like out of the wild west that we encountered in New Mexico when we were on our travels over there in 2002.

I don’t recall seeing photos of anything like this on Belgian rails, but you never know

We took the high ground out of Leuven and passed above where the railway derailment had been on the 18th of February. You can see quite a bit of debris still by the side of the line, and the new ballast where the track has been relaid.

When I passed by here the other day on my way to Lokeren I hadn’t been quick enough to photograph it – but today I was ready with the Nikon and so I could add it in.

The weather was really confusing today. When we arrived at the railway station it was cold and wet, with a gale blowing that threatened to whip off my cap.

But then the clouds blew away, the sun came out and although the wind didn’t drop, it wasn’t too unpleasant. And then the clouds came back, and brought the rain with them again.

And round and round we went.

We were not the only things that were going round and round either. There’s a wind farm just offshore here at Oostende and the weather was such that they were going round and round too – like the clappers in fact.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m a big fam of wind turbines and I’m really surprised that, with all of this wind energy freely available, that other countries don’t take advantage of it.

I can count on on hand the number of commercial wind turbines in New Brunswick and Labrador – all of this free energy going completely to waste.

How long is it since we have had a Ship of the Day? You must have noticed the big one out near the wind farm, and so I cropped a part out of the photograph and blew it up. I can do this kind of thing despite modern terrorism legislation.

I’ve no idea what kind of ship it is, but the flattish front makes me think that it might be some kind of ro-ro freighter, and the load that it’s carrying is suggestive of railway wagons.

However I don’t know of any rail-freighter operating around here since the closure of Dover Western Docks.

We can have another Ship of the Day while we are at it.

As you know from our previous visits to Oostende, fishing is the big thing here since the ending of the Oostende Ferries. We’ve visited the big fishmarket and seen the outdoor stalls. The fish is mostly fresh out of the sea, due to the fishing fleet that’s based here in the port.

Here’s one of the aforementioned on its way out to sea. It’ll be back here in the small hours and its catch will be on the market shortly afterwards

While you admire the rear of the Casino, having seen the front last time I was here, I headed off to my hotel.

It’s the same one as last time, the excellent and impressive Hotel Imperial, and I have the same coach-driver’s room that I had last time, stuck down in the corner. Last time that I was here it was a dark red – today it’s a light blue with yellow and green stripes

It was about 12:30 when I arrived and the receptionist, efficient, polite and as curt as ever, told me that check-in time was 15:00 and if I would like to leave my bags in the luggage store in the basement and come back then, she’d register me in.

And so I went off for a butty and then had a good walk along the seafront in the biting wind and watery sunshine to find a café. A nice hot mug of coffee was definitely on the cards.

Having dealt with the food and coffee issues, I went to continue my walk along the promenade. I ended up at the Villa Maritza – one of the last vestiges of the Belle Epoch along the seafront here in Oostende.

Originally known as the Villa rosenda, it dates from 1885 and was the home of the manager of the casino at the turn of the 20th Century.

In the 1980s it was abandoned and threatened with demolition, but was bought by the local council. They used the upper floor as offices while a restaurant occupied the ground floor. Now it’s undergoing a process of renovation.

I made it to the beach too, but didn’t stay out there too long what with the wind. It really was savage. But finally it was time for me to head back to the Imperial and book myself in.

What I didn’t like was the booking clerk looking at me. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”. No wonder that there was no silverware on display and there were no young and nubile serving wenches loitering in the vicinity. Anyway, I headed up to my room

First thing that I did was to unpack my stuff.
Second thing that I did was to have a beautiful hot shower and to wash my clothes – and of course I had some clean ones from the launderette on Sunday.
Third thing that I did was to lie down on the bed and to close my eyes for five minutes. My eyelids were terribly heavy.

A couple of hours I was out for, and a good couple of house it was too. It mush have been a good walk that I had had, that’s all I can say.

Both Liz and Alison were on line so I had a good chat with both of them to pass the time of day in pleasant company, and this tookme nicely up to tea time. There’s a nice little fritkot across town and that’s where I decided to aim for.

That wasn’t as easy as it might have been, seeing as by now the rain was absolutely streaming down. I had the usual joke with the night porter about
“How can you tell when it’s summer in Belgium?”
“Well, the rain is usually much warmer”.

Of course, having gone all of that way, I discovered that the place was closed tonight. That was rather odds-on wasn’t it?

Instead, I walked back to the fritkot down the road from here and had a falafel butty for tea instead. Wasn’t quite the same but this really wasn’t the weather to go about exploring.

Instead, I found my way back to my hotel room and called it an early night. I was pretty well exhausted after my long day out and the distances that I had travelled.

And it’s not looking good for the weekend when I need to be on my best behaviour, is it?

Wednesday 9th November 2016- AT LEAST THE WEATHER …

… didn’t let me down today.

I was expecting the sun to be out and that we would have brilliant weather today seeing as I was leaving Oostende today. But instead, it was pouring down and windy just like the rest of the time that I had spent here.

As soon as the alarm went off I was up and about, even before the reminder. And I’d had a really good night’s sleep too, with nothing to disturb me whatever. A long time since I’d had such a deep and satisfying sleep, even though there was only six and a half hours of it.

after a quick shower and a change of clothes, I was downstairs for breakfast. First yet again although I was soon joined by others. And once I’d finished, I was back upstairs, packed and out of the door by 08:40.

I had plenty of time to wait for my train at the station, although it was cold there in the temporary waiting room. I wasn’t half pleased to be on the train. It was bang on time too and really comfortable, so much so that I cracked on with the work that I’ve been doing on my website.

It was still pouring down when I arrived in Leuven, and after gathering my wits I went off to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I don’t need, and that was a long walk in the rain. And one thing that I did was to find the fleece lining for my rain jacket. I’d been freezing in Oostende.

Bang on time at the hospital, and I was quickly organised. They plugged a catheter in and took a blood sample. And my blood count is stable, as is my protein loss. That’s a surprise. I only wish that the blood was stable at 12.2, not 9.7.

And then – they forgot me yet again. And after reminding them, they finally got back to me at 17:45. It seems, in what can only be really bad news, they need to take two-weekly controls of my urine and kidneys for the next … errr … three months at least. And that’s before we start talking about the blood situation – for which I have an appointment next week.

You’ve no idea just how dismayed I am by all of this.

At least there’s a room free at the hostel and so I’m now back there for a week. And who knows? I might even be able to go home again after my appointment next week if there’s a fortnightly pause. But I want a place of my own. I can’t go on like this living out of a suitcase in a hostel room.

Alison came round later and we went out for a meal and a coffee. And a guided tour of Leuven as a new one-way system that’s been installed led us everywhere except where we wanted to go.

Now I’m off to bed. Thoroughly depressed, thoroughly fed up.

and if my next blog is from Mars or Uranus or somewhere like that, don’t be surprised. What is happening in the western world has filled me full of dismay for the last twenty years and the news this morning has made me want to emigrate to another planet somewhere.

Whatever is the world coming to?

Tuesday 8th November 2016 – I HAD A BIT …

… of a bad day today.

Not the night though. I had a really good sleep and knew nothing whatever about anything at all.

I was up and about before the second alarm went off, and after a shower and a shave I was down at breakfast even before opening time. A few minutes later I was joined by a crew of workers who seem to be staying here. It disturbed my solitude considerably.

I was back up here soon enough and then I started to have a little crisis. Nothing serious, but I couldn’t concentrate and I couldn’t focus on what I wanted to do. This might not seem significant, especially if I were to say that it’s rather like I’ve been for the last year or so, but it’s a considerable step back from the more dynamic me that has resurfaced over the past week or so.

I had a phone call too. They want to change my medication so we can do that tomorrow.

At 10:30, I struggled out of my room and went right across time to the Delhaize for my baguette and some grapes, and then a walk back along the promenade. I was tempted to go into one of these holiday letting agencies to see if they had any studios to let at a decent price. But I ruled that out when I saw the prices. Even off-season in the middle of winter it’s cheaper to stay in this hotel, and staying at that hostel in Leuven is a bargain. It looks as if I might be stuck there for the foreseeable future if I have to stay in Leuven.

After lunch, I crashed out for a good hour or so – really out of it too – and in the middle of a conversation with a friend too. and it was a struggle to bring myself round. And I certainly didn’t feel like going out for my afternoon coffee. And that’s how it’s been all day.

This evening, I had a major disappointment. That pizza place I visited on Sunday was advertising pasta dishes and they looked absolutely wonderful. I’d set my heart on one of them and I’d saved it for tonight as a farewell to Oostende. How I was looking forward it too and so I went round there tonight for my pasta … and it was closed.

Drat and double-drat!

I ended up with a salad bap and a bag of chips instead and it’s nothing like the same.

So now, being fed up and disappointed and not too well, I’m off to bed. I hope that I feel better tomorrow for I’m hitting the road for Leuven tomorrow.

I wonder what will happen at the hospital?

Monday 7th November 2016 – I WASN’T …

… the first down at breakfast this morning.

Just for a change, I had a good sleep with just one trip down the corridor, and was still asleep when the alarm went off. I’d been a-travelling too, but once again, don’t ask me where I went to because once again, it all disappeared immediately after I awoke.

Plenty of time for a quick shower and shave and then downstairs for breakfast bang on 07:30, to find that while I was the only person in there, several of the tables,including my favourite, were littered with dirty crockery and cutlery. I had to sit somewhere else

At about 10:30 I went out into town for my daily baguette. And as I came to the pedestrian zone, this sign caught my eye. It lists everything that you are not allowed to do in the city, as far as local by-laws go, and the penalties that you can incur.

So “use of alcohol in a public place”, “leaving litter”, “urinating” and “letting your dog foul the street” can cost you between €59 to €250.

“Being drunk in public”, “Being under the influence of drugs”, “fighting” and “the bearing of arms” will result in a court appearance.

And so you have been warned.

Americans like to brag that they invented the shopping mall – undercover shopping galleries – but that’s far from the truth.

The first undercover shopping gallery dates from the Middle Ages and is in Brussels – we’ve visited it on several occasions during the past. And here’s another Belgian shopping gallery, in Oostende. You never saw an American shopping mall looking as nice as this.

And why is shopping in North America so boring? Well, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall.

I walked all the way down the pedestrian street to the docks to see what was happening down here. But never mind that for a moment – have you noticed the sky? We have a pile of blue sky there and not a cloud in the sky.

And do you remember that pile-driver that we saw in the pedestrian street on Saturday? Going past it this morning, I noticed that it had grown a little higher and there were a few extra bits attached. It’s now a crane.

Crossing over the road, I took a photo of the docks looking the other way. The sea is down there.

Also down there is the station building, although the trains don’t stop there now. They pull up about 50 yards short – you can see the modern roof of the train shed on the right-hand edge of the photo.

The building was also the interchange for the cross-channel boats. Oostende was formerly a very important cross-channel ferry port and in the period 1846-1997 all of the passengers passed through the 1913 building there or through a previous building on the site.

Having been to the Delhaize to buy a baguette and some grapes, I went for a walk along the promenade again.

When I was here in 2014 there was a great deal of building work being undertaken hereon the beach. And now, they seem to have finished it. They have erected a huge new sea wall here as you can see on the left of the photo. There was a walkway along it and so I reckoned that I would go for a walk down to the end.

From halfway down the walkway on top of the new sea wall, there was a really good view of the sea front.

I first came to Oostende in the mid-1970s and anyone who hasn’t been here since those days won’t recognise it at all. It’s changed quite considerably since the 1980s when I spent several happy weeks here with Nerina and again when I was driving coaches for Shearings. Almost all of the places that I knew have been swept away.

The port of Oostende had declined considerably over the last 20 years. The port down there used to be heaving with ships and there was always something going on.

However ferries no longer leave here for the UK since Transmanche Ferries went into liquidation in 2013 and the port installations are slowly declining. There’s just the odd cruise ship that calls here now – we saw one of those in 2014 – and there’s the odd ship laid up in there every now and again.

This is really all that you can hope to see today unless you are very lucky. It looks as if it’s a fishing boat, heading out of the port on its way to the North Sea.

Fishing is quite an important part of the way of life of Oostende and a great deal of fish are landed here. I talked about the fishmarket here when we went for a walk around the town on Saturday. It’s one of the major attractions of the town.

Here’s another shot of the sea front here at Oostende. Again, it’s all totally different from 20 years ago.

There’s a monument there – a huge one of a sailor looking out to sea and is a memorial to all of those who set out to sea and never came back. As for what are hidden by the orange covers, I really have no idea. I imagine that I’ll have to come back in the summer for a better look.

But you can see what Oostende is so popular with holidaymakers and tourists. The beaches really are magnificent.

The new sea wall, upon which i’m standing, will shelter this beach, hopefully from the wind and definitely from the rough waves, and this will encourage more tourists to visit here.

By the way, the entrance to the port is just there to the left, with the harbour entrance light on the end.

Here’s the new harbour entrance, with the new sea wall just here where I’m standing and on the other side of the entrance is a nice, new harbour entrance light that looks as if it’s made of concrete.

The entrance looks rather narrow to me and I suppose that it’s a good job that ferries and large ships no longer sail into the port. It doesn’t make for comfortable manoeuvring

So here I am, right down at the end of the harbour. I can’t go any farther than here and so i’ll have tu turn back.

But you’ve noticed in one of the earlier photos we had a beautiful-ish blue sky, and you will also notice that the further around we have walked, the more the weather has closed in.

As I was out here at the end of the sea wall, the weather finally broke and it started to rain heavily. That put an end to my walk and I headed back to the hotel. I’d been out for two hours, which is pretty good going just recently.

By the time I returned to the hotel I was soaked and thoroughly fed up. I’m not having the best of the weather. I made my butty and then attacked the next stage of my website – to write up what happened on my trips around the Trans-Labrador Highway in 2014 and 2015 – and hoping that I might be able to make another trip in 2017 if I can to see what further changes have been made since my previous visit.

But that wasn’t all I did – or didn’t, as the case may be. I ended up crashing out for half an hour too, as well as having a chat with Liz on the internet.

I went out for coffee at 17:00 but do you know – not a single cafe on the front in the vicinity of the hotel was open. Well – one was open but the barman said that it was closed. I had a coffee in the lounge in here instead.

For tea, I went to a falafel place that I had discovered while I was on my travels. It was pretty good too although, like everywhere else in Oostende, it’s more expensive than in Leuven.

So now, I’ll have an early night. Tomorrow is my last full day here and I have things to do.

Sunday 6th November 2016 – HOW MANY …

… Epichalls do you see in this photograph?

The lift here in the hotel is lined with mirrors and you can make some quite interesting images using all of the reflections if you feel like it. I mean, I’m always feeling like it and so I went to take a photo as I was going out for a walk.

I went out early for a loaf of bread. There is a boulanger in the vicinity but as you might expect, it’s closed for the holidays. But the Spar supermarket in the town centre is open and I could buy a baguette in there.

I’d had a really good night’s sleep last night. I had to leave the bed just once and how I wished that I didn’t have to leave it at all. I’d had some exciting travels too but just like all the time recently, everything disappeared as soon as the alarm went off.

I had a lie-in too. The alarm was set for 07:00 and a repeat at 07:15 as usual, but I set the snooze function for an extra 10 minutes. I was still first downstairs for breakfast too, and excellent it was yet again.

I said that I was out for a walk this morning, but it wasn’t a walk that I had, but some exercise. Get it out of the way early. A brief 50-yard dash down the promenade after my cap which had blown off in the gale-force winds. It was wicked out there today.

You can probably tell that, not only from the waves out there but also for the lack of people on the promenade. It was deserted this morning.

The sun came out while I was out there in the wind, and so I ended up going for a walk on the beach. Hardly a soul about as you can see, but there was something exciting going on out there offshore.

I’ve no idea what it was, but there was an orange rescue launch out there together with some kind of tug or similar boat that was spraying water everywhere. Maybe it was some kind of fire-fighting exercise, I dunno. But the camera on the phone is no good for this kind of thing in this kind of weather.

I carried on along the beach which was deserted despite the sunshine. The kiosks were locked up, as you might expect.

But just there further down on the left are the Royal Galleries. They were built at the turn of the 20th Century on the orders of King Leopold II during the Golden Years of the Belgian state and was intended to be part of a royal palace. Nowadays though, the complex is a luxury hotel, a room in which is well out of the pocket of people such as you and me.

Ther’s also the huge skyscraper block of apartments down there, and how I would love to have a studio right at the top of it.

I’ve had a busy, and successful day on the website today. And now, there are five extra pages loaded, one, two, three, four and five, all about the final 40 kilometres of Highway 138 on the border between the Province of Quebec and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was quite an amount of work.

It’s a fairly controversial stretch of road, but nothing like as controversial as the 300 or so kilometres that the Quebec Government hasn’t built. You need to read what I’ve written to find out what is going on. It’s certainly a rather sad story.

I went back out later in the late afternoon for a coffee. Braving the howling gales and driving rain. It was definitely wicked out there this evening.

And to finish off the day, it’s Sunday so it’s pizza night. I found a tiny backstreet pizza place and I had a few slices of vegan cheese left. The pizza was delicious but once again, no-one in Belgium knows how to make a proper pizza base.

So now it’s early-night time. Only three more sleeps here and then it’s back to Leuven. And who knows where I’ll be after that.

Saturday 5th November 2016 – AND SO, WHAT WAS THE VERDICT?

While you admire the Kursaal Casino across the roads and the UFOs that are circling around it, I’l fill you in about the breakfast.

i was actually the first down this morning and they weren’t quite ready for me. But once it was organised, I ended up with muesli and fruit salad followed by fresh baguette, bread rolls and apricot jam. It goes without saying that there was as much coffee and orange juice as I cared to drink.

While you likewise admire the sea, which is 50 yards down there past the Ambassador hotel, I’ll reassure you about the breakfast, to say that what I had was just a small sample of what was on offer. The tables really were groaning under the weight of it all.

If it weren’t for this restrictive diet that I’m on, I wouldn’t need to eat for a week after all of what I could in theory have for breakfast.

All in all, here’s once very happy and contented bunny writing out his blog.

I had an excellent sleep last night once I’d dozed off. I had to leave the bed once and that’s all, and then I was wide awake at 06:40. I’d been on some exciting travels too but, true to force, the memory of them didn’t last all that long once I was awake.

By the tile the second alarm went off, I was in the shower having a good scrub – and then first down to the breakfast.

I went out and about somewhere round by 11:00. On shopping duty.

There’s a huge pedestrian street that runs right through the centre of the town and this is where you find all of the shops. I mentioned that this week is Toussaint, school half-term, and there are kids everywhere. It goes without saying that we have a fair here in the square. It brightens up the place, even though it isn’t a patch on the old Traction Engine Rallies at Bishop’s Castle.

The pedestrian centre was cut in two with diversions signposted apparently (I couldn’t see them). There’s some demolition going on, and this huge piledriver is here ready to do its stuff.

The diversion took me past the Hotel Cardiff, and I seem to recall having stayed here at one time about 30 years ago. Back in those days it was something of a dive but that was a long time ago. Judging by the reviews, it’s undergone a huge programme of renovation and it seems to be a popular place with loads of good reviews.

My ramble took me down to the harbour and through the market. And then I crossed the marina to the other side and the Delhaize supermarket.

From there, there’s a good view of the Onze Lieve Vrouwe College, the College of Our Beloved Lady. This would appear to be a High School of some description and judging by its name, is atached in some way to the Catholic Church in a similar way to the Sacré Coeur schools

I stocked up with salad stuff and a baguette for lunch, as well as a bag of really delicious red grapes, and then wandered around to the top end of the marina near the swing bridge to take a photograph of the scene.

But you can see the weather that we are having today. There are a pile of heavy grey clouds over there to the left of the photo. Even so, the view really is quite attractive

I walked back along the water front. It’s famous for the seafood market – you can’t move without tripping over a pile of fish and other items of edible sea stuff. I have no idea at all what wulloks are, and having stuck my head into the pot, I don’t really think that I want to know. I do know that I won’t be eating any.

But there have been loads of changes along here since I last visited. My favourite hotel has disappeared and been replaced by a block of flats. But I did check out a few other hotels instead just in case I ever need one in a hurry.

Round the corner from the canal onto the seafront. And almost immediately I was blown backwards by the wind. It really was wicked.

It’s hardly surprising that there weren’t so many people out there today, and those who were were having something of a struggle to walk along the front.

Cycling was difficult too, even for those who are eight to a machine like the people over there on the right of the photo.

By now, adding insult to injury, it started raining too. That was me thoroughly fed upso I headed back to my hotel, which you can see just down there.

They hadn’t made up my room, which was annoying, and so I decided to make my butties, having bought a knife while I was out. As soon as I had whipped out my baguette the cleaners turned up so I had to repair to the foyer, where the sofa was one of the nicest upon which I’ve sat.

But half an hour later my room was ready so I could go back and eat my butty. And to carry on with my web pages about the end of Highway 138 in Quebec. And the good news is that they are nearly finished.

At 17:00 I knocked off for the day and went onto the promenade to a cafe for a coffee. And the wind by now was violent and it was raining quite heavily. I was worried that the cafe might blow away.

One thing that annoyed me about it was that although it offered free wi-fi, it only applied for half an hour, which was a bit miserable.

And oooh!They joys of predictive text. I sent a message to Liz saying that I was “having a coffee in a cafe on the sea …” – and the predictive text suggested “… floor”. I know that the weather was bad, but not that bad.

On the way back, I was blown down the hill by the wind and found myself staring at the Kursaal Casino again. This time it’s all lit up and it looks rather nice from the outside. Not that I have any intention of going to see the inside.

Later on, I went out for tea to a falafel place that I had seen earlier when I was wandering around. The meal wasn’t too bad either and it wasn’t too expensive. And that makes a change.

Now I’m going to have another early night, and see if I can be first down at the breakfast again in the morning.

Friday 4th November 2016 – OOOH LOOK!

I’m at the station at Leuven again aren’t I? And I’m about to hit the rails.

I didn’t have to stagger very far from my hotel – just down the steps and into the tunnel. There’s a ticket machine there, and it wasn’t working so I had to go to the booking office and make my reservation. And then a quick dash round to my platform where the train for Kortrijk was just pulling in.

Mind you, I wasn’t going to Kortrijk – not at all.

I had something of a restless night again last night – woke up with the bedclothes all over the floor at one point. But a nice hot shower soon put me right.

A glance out of the window wasn’t all that promising. The weather looked rather miserable but never mind. No sense in hanging around. And so I made my excuses and left. Mind you, I do have to say that at €49:00 the Ibis Budget did all that it said that it would. The rooms are small and pokey of course but they are scrupulously clean and tidy and everything works like it should.

I have no complaints whatever and would happily stay there again

Here’s another train and it has ANTWERPEN CENTRAAL displayed in the headboard. But I’m not going to Antwerp either.

I alighted from my Kortrijk train at Ghent St Pieters station, crossed over to the next platform and stepped into the train that was waiting there, having just come in from Antwerp. And now here I am, taking a photograph of my train after we arrived at … Oostende.

I walked through the streets of Oostende to find my hotel, which is out by the Kursaal Casino.

And don’t you think that people are taking this craze of photographing and filming even the most banal and uneventful moments of their private lives to post on the internet is going far too far? And this craze for miniaturisation – can things go any smaller?

And personally, the way that the world is going, I’m surprised that it’s closed.

While you admire the beautiful sunny weather that we are having here in Oostende, let me tell you a little about my hotel.

It’s called the Hotel Imperial, quite an upmarket three-star hotel just 50 metres from the seafront. It’s quite an expensive place normally, and it looks it too, but it does have a few rooms usually reserved for coach parties (as I remember from my coach-driving days with Shearings) up in the garret – tiny but well-appointed and I negotiated a good deal – €300 for five nights, breakfast included.

The walk-in price for the room would have been … gulp … €160 per night.

and I’m lucky that there even was a room free too. It’s Toussaint, the Belgian schools’ half-term holidays and the town is pretty crowded, as you can tell by looking at the promenade here.

The hotel where I was hoping to stay, right on the edge of the docks, is fully-booked, as are many of the other places too.

But I’ll tell you much more about what the Hotel Imperial is like when I’ve had a good go at the breakfast tomorrow. The first breakfast is always a key moment in anyone’s holiday.

I went to grab a bag of chips and to join the crowds on the promenade for a walk in order to inhale the ozone. But the weather was quite nasty as you can see. There was a wind, a misty haze and light drizzle. I didn’t stick it out for long, as the old ecclesiastical gentleman once said to the thespian. I came back to my room.

I did some work on my website, fell asleep, chatted to a friend and all that kind of thing, and then went for tea. Food is much more expensive in Oostende rather than Leuven, and it’s nothing like as well prepared. I had a disappointing vegetarian durum tonight, and I’ll have to do much better than that tomorrow. I do recall complaining about the food last time that I was here.

So now it’s an early night in my comfortable bed. I’m looking forward to a good sleep and a first-class breakfast.

I’ll tell you tomorrow if I received it.

Wednesday 7th May 2014 – I MUST HAVE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP …

… despie the howling gale that was blowing in around the badly-fitted double glazing units.

During the night, I was back in the UK (well, it’s not all that far from here and you don’t need a ferry for your nocturnal perambulations anyway) with the long-suffering Nerina and I couldn’t take her somewhere on the following day (a Monday) as I’d promised Maria, a Greek girl with whom I was quite friendly when I worked at the EU, that I would do something for her at some place that she had told me and which I knew, but which has now gone out of my head once I woke up.

Nerina wanted to know what it was, and I thought that it was a motorway service area and so probably I had to pick her up off a coach or something. Anyway, our phone wasn’t working properly – when people called us, the phone didn’t ring – so one of us had to stay by the phone (nothing in your dreams is logical, is it?) and I had promised to take Zero to the adventure circus on the Sunday night, so poor Nerina drew the short straw, again.

I took Zero to the circus and right at the end they opened the mudbath for the children. After a couple of minutes of vacillation, one girl leapt in fully clothed, up to her knees, and once she was in, all the others followed suit.

I was then interrupted by another friend, someone from waaayyyyyy back, asking me why I hadn’t done the shopping, to which I replied that I was booked up until Tuesday morning, and what did he need that we didn’t have? He replied “well, wine, of course” – something that brought a smile to my face.

Meanwhile I had lost sight of my charge and had to chase around looking for her and eventually I found her all cold wet and muddy, wrapped in a big fluffy white towel. I had to wash her and shower her off to get her nice, warm and clean again.

So despite all of the excitement of the night, I was once more awake before the alarm went off so I managed to have a good hour or so on the computer before breakfast. Downstairs at breakfast though, I was joined by a coach-load of British tourists and I had forgotten how much I hate the “little England” provincial attitude of the aforementioned, even if it was my bread-and-butter for 13 years in the late 70s, 80s and 90s. I’m glad I don’t have to mix with them today.

Still, never mind. The Hotel New Astoria didn’t let me down. The bed and breakfast that I had for €45 plus local taxes has to be the best deal that I have had on my travels these last few years, despite the company.

Having dealt with the issues of breakfast etc I went for a wander around. I’d seen some kind of ship working just offshore last night in the doom and gloom and lo! and behold – here she was again. Quite an old ship by the looks of things and probably a dredger too, she’s called the Pinta.

Presumably named after one of the three ships – the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and not after an old Milk Marketing Board advert. And anyway, she looked as if she was old enough to have accompanied Columbus on his travels

On my way back to the station area I found, much to my surprise, a free ferry that crosses the harbour to the other side. I’ve not noticed that before and I wonder why not because I’ve been to Oostende dozens, if not hundreds of times.

As you know with ferries because I’ve told you before, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross, especially if it’s free, and so here I am sailing, or rather, dieseling, across the harbour. No sense in missing out, is there?

The other side of the harbour is also somewhere else that I’ve never visited and, once more, I can’t think for the life of me whyever not.

It’s quite historic over here and all kinds of things are happening, or are on display, or are simply “there”. Like this old barque called, incidentally, the Oostende moored here at the foot of the lighthouse. There has to be a story about this kind of ship and I wonder what it might be.

And, more to the point, why it isn’t moored up with the Mercator, another historic survivor fro the days of sail.

You don’t need me to tell you the story about all of this, do you?

Oostende was one of the more important ports along the coast facing the UK and the Germans had something of a fragile hold here. The ports along the coast, Oostende and Zeebrugge, had been raided in force in World War I and the unsuccessful landing at Dieppe in 1942 showed that the Allies had not forgotten the importance of these ports in World War II.

The Germans thus fortified them as part of the Atlantic Wall defences that I showed you a couple of years ago, and the fortifications still remain.

From this side of the harbour I managed a closer look at Larkspur.

There was no-one around who really knew what was going on with her – I asked a couple of people and they each gave totally different answers – but there was a couple of people in industrial safety clothing on the deck and I noticed a few rubbish skips present at the scene.

From my untutored eye it looked like they were gutting the ship of anything that was of high value in preparation for sending what remains of her to Turkey or India where she will doubtless be turned into a couple of thousand baked bean tins.

What a sad end.

After a marathon hike around the docks (because it is) I made it to the station for the 14:45 train and that had me back in Brussels by 16:00. I picked up Caliburn, did a few bits of shopping, had an excellent falafel supper at that place near Marianne’s and now I’ll be settling down for the night.

I hope.

-2

EPIC HALL

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

Category Archives: Oostende

Wednesday 18th April 2018 – AND AN EARLY START …

Tuesday 17th April 2018 – SO THERE I WAS …

Monday 16th April 2018 – I’M PAYING …

Sunday 15th April 2018 – I’M MOVING ON …

Friday 3rd March 2017 – PHEW!

Thursday 2nd March 2017 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

Wednesday 1st March 2017 – THE TROUBLE …

Tuesday 28th February 2017 – COLD, GREY, WET, MISERABLE AND WINDY.

Wednesday 9th November 2016- AT LEAST THE WEATHER …

Tuesday 8th November 2016 – I HAD A BIT …

Monday 7th November 2016 – I WASN’T …

Sunday 6th November 2016 – HOW MANY …

Saturday 5th November 2016 – AND SO, WHAT WAS THE VERDICT?

Friday 4th November 2016 – OOOH LOOK!

Wednesday 7th May 2014 – I MUST HAVE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP …

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