Category Archives: brussels

Sunday 13th August 2017 – I’VE A FEELING …

… that tomorrow morning I’m going to be regretting today!

According to the Fitbit I’ve done … errr … 230% of my day’s activity and walked all of … errr … 17.4 kilometres.

Funnily enough, apart from the aches in the back of my legs (mainly from the cramp attack yesterday) I wasn’t any more tired than I might have been on occasions when I used to walk these kinds of distance on a regular basis.

What this actually means, I really don’t know but I’ll find out tomorrow afternoon at the hospital I suppose.

Despite the early night there was some kind of interruption in the building last night. I’m not sure what it was, but I ended up having to close the window into the communal airspace to keep the noise out.

06:20 when I awoke but badger that for a game of cowboys on a Sunday. I turned over for a short while – 08:20 was much more like it.

After breakfast I had a shower, washed my undies and prettied myself up ready for Alison. And while I was waiting for her I was accosted by some young African girl asking me if I were “Luke”. I explained that I was waiting for someone else but if she didn’t turn up and Luke didn’t turn up, we’d go off together.

She had quite a laugh at that which was good. It pays to be light-hearted, I reckon. And she was quite pretty too.

Ohhh yes – I can still chase after the women – even if I can’t remember why!

We’d arranged to meet at the viewpoint by the side of the Palais de Justice where there are some stunning views over the city.

Of course I had brought the camera with me to take some good photos but unfortunately the weather didn’t want to co-operate.

It wasn’t raining, which was quite lucky, but a horrible clammy, misty morning. and that put paid to the photography session.

We took the lift down into the Marolles and went for a prowl around the flea market. It’s been probably 15 years since I last went and there’s nothing like as much stuff – or as many customers – as there used to be.

And the prices – the days when you could find some absolute bargains seem to be long-gone. For one or two things, I had to go for a lie-down in a darkened room.

Mind you, Alison did find some marvellous coffee tables, and one of them disappeared into the back of her car. And had I had Caliburn with me, a second one would have disappeared too.

Something like a semi-globe with an olde-worlde wooden top cut in half and hinged so that you could use the inside of the globe as a storage space. How I would have loved one for my place!

We had a couple of coffees and went for a good walk around, passing once more by the viewpoint at the Palais de Justice.

By now the mist was starting to lift and the weather was looking better. To such an extent that Alison was obliged to divest herself of her jacket.

And I could take a couple of photos from up here too.

On her way home Alison dropped me off in Ixelles.

I went for a bag of chips at the fritkot and then down to the cemetery to pay my respects to Marianne.

But before I reached her plot I stumbled across this tombstone which I must never have seen before.

You need to be a French-speaker to understand why someone with a small mind like mine would find this rather amusing.

But Marianne’s grave is a little overgrown these days – it looks as if her other visitors have stopped coming. Next time that I pass by I’ll have to bring some gardening tools with me and do some tidying up.

From here, I decided to be brave and to see how far I could make it back to my hotel on foot.

And my route took me down the Avenue Buyl where they are once again modernising the tram layout at the junction with the Boulevard General Jacques.

I’ve no idea why they would be doing all of this work though – it was only a couple of years ago that they totally reorganised this junction so they can’t have worn it out already.

My walk continued down the hill and round the corner to the Abbaye de la Cambre.

regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve been here a few times in the past and somewhere around I have a few photos that I’ve taken of it.

But I’ve not taken a photo of it from this angle before so I need to put this right.

There were hordes of people loitering around sunning themselves on the lawn this afternoon because by now the weather was quite nice

And this gave me an opportunity to go for a good wander around at the abbey and look for some spots that might come out really well on camera.

I hadn’t realised just how little I had actually seen of the abbey in the past.

My walk then took me along the side of the “etangs d’Ixelles” – the Ixelles lakes that were formerly park of the River Maelbeek.

This runs through the city from south-west to north-east but was filled in centuries ago. But it’s all very unstable and buildings along its course have been known to teeter and totter.

I lived in one once with Laurence and Roxanne and you could see the cracks appearing.

If you look on any good map of Brussels you can see the course of the river. There is plenty of parkland along its route and occasionally there are lakes.

in Jette, where I lived for many years, there was a huge parkland with all of the lakes that was very pleasant to walk around

In fact I often mused that 500 years ago I could have gone to see Marianne by canoe rather than by bus.

One thing that “foreigners” often say about Belgium is that the Belgians have a weird sense of humour.

My natural response is that the way things are in Belgium you need to have a weird sense of humour to live here, but when you see what the city fathers have done, you can understand why foreigners have this opinion.

It’s not every country where you would deliberately set out to build a set of ruins to liven up your city architecture.

Alison and I had noticed up by the Palais de Justice how they had set up a temporary pie hut and a pile of deckchairs for people to take the sun.

That’s clearly not an isolated incident because here at the Place Flagey we had a similar set-up. And by now we had a really good sun too.

It was turning out to be a nice day after all.

The casual strollers weren’t the only people to take advantage of the deckchairs either.

I hadn’t been there more than two minutes when an impromptu jazz band appeared and started to entertain the crowd.

They weren’t particularly up to much and the drummer was pretty dire but I’m all in favour of live music and I quite enjoyed it for what it was.

It gave me an opportunity to study the architecture too.

I used to have an apartment out on the Boulevard Reyers right next to the champignon – the mushroom-shaped tower that is the headquarters of one of the Belgian broadcasting companies.

Before they moved out there, they were based in this beautifu art-deco building in the Place Flagey. When I came to live here in 1992 the building was derelict and in a very sorry state.

It’s now been restored and they’ve done quite a good job of it. Plenty of trendy cafés on the ground floor and offices above.

Carrying on with my long walk I climbed up to the Avenue Louise – the posh bit of the city and walked all the way down the street towards the city centre.

I ended up back at the viewpoint at the Palais de Justice and by now the weather had cleared sufficiently for me to admire the voew and to try out the telephoto lens.

Of course, you don’t need me to tell you what this load of balls might be, because if anything is symbolic of the city, it has to be the Atomium.

And it does look so much better since they have cleaned it up. At one tile it was looking quite shabby.

That tower there in centre-shot is the tower of the Town Hall of the commune of Molenbeek.

But never mind that for a moment. If you look to the left of it, there on the skyline you’ll see a large block of flats.

it is in fact four large blocks of flats superimposed one in front of another and it’s in one of those where I lived for a very happy 11 years – the legendary “avenue de l’Exposition”

And now, we can’t have a good stroll around the city without bringing some controversy into it, can we?

This is the Mont de Pieté – the Roman Catholic religious charity in the rue St Ghislain that is charged with making loans to less-fortunate members of society who find themselves temporarily financially-embarrassed.

And on the wall is a plaque listing the names of the inhabitants of the local area who were victims of the Nazis in World War II.

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed …it’s all very well these people who criticise the civilians of the occupied countries for what is perceived to be a lack of resolution against the invaders, but they didn’t ever run this kind of risk.

But wait a minute! What’s this?

Not 50 yards away from the plaque on the wall of the Mont de Pieté are these four plaques embedded into the pavement.

These people are also victims of the “barbarie Nazie” but their names don’t appear on the plaque of the victims who lived in the area.

And not 50 yards the other side are some more plaques set in the pavement of yet more victims, and their names don’t appear on the plaque either.

But a brief examination of the family names and of their ultimate destiny tells you all that you need to know as to why they don’t appear on the plaque.

The Catholic Church isn’t interested in anyone whose religious beliefs don’t equate to theirs and certainly isn’t interested in “sharing the suffering of the afflicted” – and that’s what I call a disgrace.

I made it back to my hotel without once stepping on public transport, and found that i’d run out of water. So that meant a trip to the supermarket in the Gare du Midi.

And later on, I went out for what was probably the worst ever vegan burger that I have ever eaten and I won’t be going there again.

But with it being a really beautiful evening by now, I went for a walk along the boulevard to watch the funfair and to try a little “cut and paste” of images taken in the dark.

This image is well-cropped from the original and the results compare favourably with what the old Nikon D5000 would have produced under similar circumstances.

All in all, I’m not too disappointed

But if you want to see what the camera can do with its video facility, here’s a little film.

Again, this is edited down quite considerably from the original (as, in fact, are all of the photos that I take) and once again, I’ve had much worse results from this with other cameras

All-in-all, I’m quite satisfied with this camera.

So that was my day out then. 2002 words, 17.4 kilometres and the exciting thing about it was that I didn’t crash out either. It clearly did me some good although I’m now walking like John Wayne after a week on his horse.

I’ll regret this tomorrow!

Saturday 12th August 2017 – THE LAST TIME …

… that I had to be up and about for a train, I remember saying something about the internal alarm clock. And so itwas this morning.

With the alarm set for 06:00, I was wide awake at … errr … 04:27.

Of course it goes without saying that I … errr … rested until the 06:00 alarm went off. And by 07:00 I was sitting down having had breakfast, cleaned the bathroom and toilet and tipped bleach everywhere (I’d washed the floor last night before going to bed).

Not only that, I’d taken all of the rubbish to the collection point and washed the wastebins too.

The bus was on time more or less and it was all pretty painless. But Brain of Britain has struck again – battery in the camera is flat. So no picture of the train this morning. I wasn’t going to use the phone camera, seeing as we are now in the middle of a torrential downpour. Flaming August, hey?

The train is only as far as Versailles – the Versailles Chantiers railway station. There’s a lot of perturbation on the Paris railway network with the construction of this new metro line so we are having to take the bus.

It took its time too getting to the Vaugirard railway station and then I had to fight my way through the metro.

We started off as we meant to go on, with the new suitcase being jammed in the turnstile and I had to appeal for help from the staff.

But the new suitcase proved its worth – being quite easy to pull along, unlike the previous one. And it’s a much more convenient shape too for passing through the crowds.

But there was a curious incident at Paris Gare du Nord.

Some young guy stopped me to ask me the way to the metro. And a minute or so later, as I was fighting my way through the exit turnstile, my bumbag became disconnected and fell to the floor.

Was someone trying to disconnect it in the crush? I couldn’t see how because they couldn’t have got away, but it was weird all he same.

The TGV was packed to the gunwhales and it shot along at a fair old pace into Brussels. I was soon installed in my hotel – the Midi-Zuid where I stayed with Hannah back in March.

Having fought of waves of sleep on the TGV, I wasn’t so successful here and was out for about an hour. And when I awoke, it was with a severe attack of cramp – so severe that I can still feel the pain in my calf even now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I suffered terribly from cramps in the leg but apart from a brief one about a week or 10 days ago, I’ve not had one for months and months. But this one was the daddy of them all.

I went out a little later for some food, but as luck would have it, I ran straight into the Foire du Midi.

It’s that tile of the year again when the whole of the central reservation of the big boulevard around the city centre in the area by the Gare du Midi is transformed into a giant funfair.

Hordes of people and all kinds of events taking place here.

I fought my way through the crowds to find something to eat – and that wasn’t easy because I found myself in the wrong street – I’m definitely losing my touch.

But having satiated my appetite I went back to watch the entertainment for a while. It’s all good fun and you could hear the screams from across town.

It would certainly put me off my chips being up there with them.

So now it’s an early night and prepare myself for the fray tomorrow. I’m meeting Alison and we’re going for a walk around the market. That should be fun.

Tuesday 13th June 2017 – SO HAVING SLEPT …

… the Sleep Of The Dead until all of about 05:00, I was quickly up and about and under the shower for a good soaking. And having finally attacked the half-baguette and the jam that I had bought the other day, I was ready for anything.

Yes, quite!

Packing was exciting. I’m sure that I’m taking back more than I went out with, not including the two pairs of trousers. And so ramming it into the rucksack and the shopping bag was … errr … exciting. I wish that I had brought a larger bag with me now.

I was out early to the station because there’s a supermarket at the back where I was going to buy some lunch stuff (no tomatoes unfortunately because Bane of Britain seems to have forgotten to bring the sharp knife that lives in his rucksack pocket) but the presence of an express direct to Brussels-Midi on the platform prompted me to change my mind, and I legged it up the stairs mucho-el-rapido.

Early in Brussels, I went to see if I could change my TGV ticket for one on the earlier train. For some reason, the SNCF on-line booking doesn’t recognise the 10:13 TGV and instead books me on the 11:13. That just gives me an hour or so to perform the Traversée de Paris and that’s pretty tight, especially when I don’t have Bourvil to carry my suitcases for me.

Luckily there was a place on the earlier train. One day there won’t be, and that will be the day that there will be perturbations on the Metro or the TGV will run late.

There was still a few minutes to spare so I popped to the Carrefour on the station and bought a baguette, a couple of pears and a bottle of water. It’s going to be a long, hot day.

The train pulled in a couple of minutes early and much to my surprise the door to my carriage was exactly where I was standing, so I was second on board.

And heaving – there wasn’t room to swing a cat, and the poor moggy that was in the carry-basket of the person in front of me had to stay cooped up.

We did have a moment of excitement though, when my baguette slid off the overhead rail and almost fell down the cleavage of the woman in front. She stuck it back on the rack, and bent it too for good measure.

But what’s all this about cleavages just now?

It didn’t take long to cross Paris on the metro, which it never does when you allow plenty of time, and it gave me a good opportunity to go for a little exploration.

There’s a bus from Paris-Montparnasse directly to Charles de Gaulle airport, so I tracked that down and made “certain enquiries”, and the SNCF also has a suitcase collection and delivery service, and that can be extremely advantageous as my health declines. I made “certain enquiries” about that, too.

My luck was in over at our side of the railway station. Here parked up at of the terminus platforms was a nez cassé, or “broken nose”.

These are the typical French SNCF electric locomotives built in the 1970s as part of the modernisation plans of the SNCF. They took the French railways to a new level, tanking along at a good 100 miles per hour without even drawing breath and despite being supplanted by the TGVs and being over 40 years old, most of them are still in service.

But it’s rare to find them over here. Their usual stamping ground is in the North-East of the country. That’s why I was so surprised to see one.

Nothing over 40 years old about our conveyance to Granville though. Not even 40 months old, these things.

It was totally heaving too, at least as far as Avranches, and for some reason I couldn’t make myself comfortable which is a change. And I was drifting in and out of sleep all the way up here. I’m not as young as I was. I didn’t do any work of any description, which is not like me as you all know.

But I was glad for the bottle of water because it really was a hot afternoon in the crowded train.

Bang on time we arrived, and so nice was the afternoon that instead of waiting for the bus, I set off to walk home.

Climbing the hill out of town was a struggle so I stopped for five minutes or so to admire the view. And this gorgeous sailing boat is in here today.

No idea of her name, but she seems to be registered in Granville so I shall have to make some further enquiries. But what wouldn’t I give for a lap around the bay in her?

And this reminds me of the story of the sea captain who bought the land at the bottom of a shallow bay in order to create a colony. But while only a mere handful of people expressed an interest, no-one would board his ship.

They all thought that his barque was worse than his bight.

Back here, I crashed out for a while and then made a quick tea out of tins. I wasn’t going to hang about because I really was tired. It took a lot out of me, these three days.

But at least on the train I can do it in three days. Not a chance of that if I were to drive. And it cost me just €195 for the trip. Diesel would have cost me €160, and then we have the autoroute tolls, a hotel each way at the mid-point and all of the stress.

No, going on the train is the way to go without a doubt.

Sunday 11th June 2017 – THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID …

… for this internal alarm clock thing that we are supposed to have. Here I was, due to get out of bed at 07:00 (and on a Sunday too!) and to be on the safe side I’d even set two alarms, and yet there I was, sitting bolt-upright in bed at 06:00 precisely.

Of course, that didn’t last too long and I was soon back under the covers until firstly David Bowie and secondly Billy Cotton did the business.

30 seconds under the shower was more-than-enough and then we had this urine performance thingy. And that’s a real performance when I can’t make the machine work. In the end, I had to empty away a half-bottle of tomato sauce and use that … "the bottle, not the sauce" – ed. That is really taking the p155.

I’d allowed myself an hour to walk to the station and so 20 minutes later, in the bright early morning sunshine, there I was. I’d even had time to stop to buy a baguette to eat with my couscous for lunch. I’m nothing if not prepared (although I do realise that I have forgotten my sponge bag, and I’ll probably realise that there are a few other things that I have forgotten by the time that we arrive in Leuven).

MY ticket from Granville to Paris for a journey of over three-hours costs me just €20:00 (eat your heart out, you Brits!) and this is the train that I take.

Probably not a year old, they are magnificent and I really enjoy the journey. But typing of a train as it’s clattering over the joints in the track is bollyd dficicltue, I’ll tell you.

Pulled into Paris bang on time (eat your heart … ditto) and the direct Metro to the Gare du Nord was open this time. Mind you, it was a hell of a hike to Line 4 and I don’t fancy that in August with Strawberry Moose in his suitcase.

And it was heaving too – and on a Sunday. Like sardines we were. But 40 minutes saw us at the Gare du Nord. I went outside to eat my baguette and couscous. And it was steaming out there too. It’s a long time since I’ve felt it so warm.

And while I was out there I was harassed by a couple of beggars and amused myself watching a pirate taxi driver try his best to tempt gullible tourists into his car. But I was impressed that the savoir-faire of tourists in the town has improved somewhat.

The TGV was packed to the gunwhales and it was stinking hot in there too despite the air-conditioning. You can’t really open the windows at 220 mph I suppose. And we arrived at Brussels-Midi just in time for me to leg it onto the 15:55 to Eupen, with the guard very kindly holding the door open for me.

I’m now installed in my cosy little room with very thin walls and a loud television next door. And Bane of Britain has done it again – forgetting that it’s Sunday and so he can’t go shopping and now he has no coffee, no water, no nothing.

But after a brief repose (because it’s 32°C here believe it or not) I went for a walk and found a shop open and that helped.

The walk did even more to wear me out and when I arrived back I crashed out definitively until … errrr … 20:40 too. And I have so much to do.

But I did manage to find food and so that’s not too bad, and now I’m going to crash out again.

But this thing about three hours or so to Paris on the SNCF does remind me of the story about the Texan in Ireland, looking at the small size of the fields.
“Do you know” he exclaimed. “I can get into my car and it would take me three days to drive across my field back in Texas”
“I know just what you mean” said an Irishman
“Do you really????” asked the Texan incredulously
“Ohh yes” replied the Irishman. “I used to have a car like that myself”.

Sunday 16th April – I’M GLAD …

… that I was up and about something lively-like, because I had all kinds of issues on my journey today.

But to put things in their proper order, let’s start right back at the beginning.

My sleeping habits aren’t improving any just now – we were back with the early-morning interruptions again, bu nevertheless I did manage to drop back off to sleep again and stay like that until the alarm went off.

But my nocturnal ramblings of the night were quite disturbing. I was trying to do something with my living accommodation – decorating it or something – and every single (and even the married) member of my family was there – standing in the way and generally obstructing me from proceeding with what I was trying to achieve. That really is the story of my life, I suppose, as you well-know.

Breakfast was quickly over and then I set to in the studio, tidying it up and packing things away. Making sandwiches was the plan too, but I noticed that the bread had “turned” and so all of that went in the bin instead. Luckily, and I had forgotten to mention it and I don’t know why, the other day Alison and Jenny had brought me some vegan snacks (which was very nice of them) and so I stuffed a few in my back-pack. They will do fine for the journey.

And so having left my hotel early, I arrived at the railway station early. This meant that instead of taking the 09:29, I could leap aboard the 09:09.

Old, dirty and smelly. But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the train instead. and even though it went via the airport, it arrived at Bruxelles-Midi well ahead of the one that I should have taken. And I’m glad that I wasn’t going to the Costa Stella today because the stations were heaving with holidaymakers.

All of the foregoing meant that when I arrived at Bruxelles-Midi the TGV to Paris at 10:13 hadn’t arrived yet. I’d planned to be on the 11:13 and I wasn’t looking forward to the mad scramble across Paris with the perturbations on the Metro and so, seizing the initiative, I went to blag my way on board the earlier train.

The negotiations took probably longer than the journey would have done, but nevertheless they found a seat for me and we were away. The train was packed too – I probably had the last free seat on board.

Ordinarily the crowd would have bothered me (as you know, I don’t “do” crowds). There were a few things that I had wanted to do in Brussels too and that bothered me too, but I was far more bothered about La Traversée de Paris, and I didn’t have Jean Gabin, Bourvil and Louis de Funès to help me out.

And I’m glad that I caught the earlier train too. Because I took the signposted deviation to Paris Montparnasse thinking that it would be quicker than the route that I had picked out.

And wasn’t that a mistake?

Line 6 came to a shuddering halt half-way down the route and we ended up being decanted into a bus to take us the rest of the way to the Porte d’Italie and the connection to Montparnasse.

I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that is that had I caught the train that I should have caught, I would have been struggling to be on time. As it was, I had enough time to sit and catch my breath and eat a packet of vegan crisps. Struggling on the Paris Metro is not for the faint-hearted and I can imagine that if you are disabled, it would be totally impossible.

That’s not the best of it either, because the line out of Montparnasse is under repair and we ended up being bussed to Dreux. I had a pleasant companion next to me, but I spent the journey with my eyes closed catching up on my beauty sleep.

At Dreux, there isn’t a toilet at the railway station, would you believe. You have to use the publics down the road, and these are pay toilets too. I declined and decided to hold out until I was on the train.

So here’s my train, in the station at Granville. And just look at the beautiful weather that greeted me when I arrived.

The journey had been completely uneventful – the guard didn’t even want to check the tickets – and I had a nice, relaxing journey back here.

I’d been a bit nervous about where I’d had to park Caliburn for the time that I was in Leuven, but he was unscathed and that cheered me up. We all headed out to Jullouville and my hotel for the next two nights.

As for tonight’s hotel, the Hotel des Pins in Jullouville, I’ve stayed in many worse places than this too. The town is a bit miserable too – a holiday resort and not much at all in the way of food. I made myself a pile of vegetables from the tins out of Caliburn – that will keep me going for a bit anyway.

And now it’s an early night. I’ve had a hectic day and it’s taken a lot out of me.

Tuesday 11th April 2017 – I’VE JUST HAD ….

… the most extraordinary proposition put to me.

And no, Rhys, it’s not like that. And it doesn’t involve sheep either.

I went to see two more ruins this morning. And I was quite right too. One was really beautiful, with a magnificent view out to sea and the price wasabout right too. But it was furnished, and furnished too in the worst possible taste, and it was thoroughly filthy. Not even I as a tenant would leave an apartment in this kind of state. We shan’t talk about the kitchen either.

But it was the other one in the same building that really got me. It was another studio – which was superficially larger. But all of the difference and more was taken up by a totally pointless hall d’entrée and I didn’t understand that at all.

And worse was to come. For it had a balcony, which the one at the top didn’t have, but this was on the first floor and it had a stunning view of the car park and the high hedge that screened it from the view of the sea.

But there was one thing that totally shocked me – and it does take a lot to do that, I’ll tell you. There had been transfers or patches stuck on the wall, and it was impossible to remove them. "Don’t worry" said the estate agent. "The landlord will buy the paint and you can paint over them". At that, I turned on my heels and walked out.

Some, if not all of these landlords whom I have encountered, are living on a totally different planet than I am, and I’m sure that it’s not me who is devoid of reality. I expect a clean and tidy apartment in good order and good repair in a respectable building – that’s a prime consideration. But clearly many of these landlords – and many of the tenants too, I shouldn’t wonder – have totally different ideas than I have. Whatever is the world coming to?

So last night I slept the Sleep of the Dead and it wasn’t until the alarm went off that I staggered to my feet. 10 minutes under the shower soon restored me to life (well, sort-of, anyway) and I was glad that I wasn’t having breakfast because I wasn’t hungry in the least. I headed off instead through the fog and mist and the roadworks (of which there were more than just a few) for my rendezvous with destiny.

The esate agent had a bit of a moan about dropping me of at the railway station but then she can’t pick and choose her clients either.

I had a long wait for my train so I had plenty of time to relax and buy a coffee – but then it was worth the wait because it was a very modern diesel mutiple-unit. A bit lightweight and it rolled around quite a lot, but on the other hand the seats were super-comfortable and there were plenty of power points all over the place.

My neighbours were a young woman and her two kids who were pleying an exciting game of cards all the way to Paris. It certainly kept them amused and out of mischief for a while.

Lunch was the baguette that I had bought last night for this morning’s breakfast, together with the bowl of mint couscous that I had bought from LeClerc on Saturday, washed down with sparkling water that I had brought with me. Very acceptable.

The Paris metro was the usual incomprehensible maze, worsened by the fact that one half of the metro station at Montparnasse is cloed for renovation – and it’s the half that I need. Consequently it’s a bit all round the houses to reach the Gare du Nord.

We had an exciting few minutes of security alert as someone had forgotten their luggage in the waiting room, and then we were all ready to board out train – the one on the right of course.

There’s one of these stupid security checks that you have to pass before boarding the train these days – and that’s the kind of thing that gets on my nerves as you all well-know. But at least I had a comfortable seat on the train and I was quite undisturbed.

Imagine my surprise on arriving at Bruxelles Gare du Midi to discover that there was a train for leuven pulling in right at that moment. That involved something of a sprint but nevertheless I leapt aboard, as did another family who immediately discovered that they had leapt aboard the wrong train.

I was okay though and ended up being decanted in Leuven much earlier than anticipated.

Walking around the ring road towards where I’m staying tonight, I noticed this sign on a wall by a door to a building.

Verbond is “Association”, tuin is “garden”, bouw is “building” and cooperatie is “co-operative”. And so I’m wondering if this building is the headquarters of the Association for people who share garden sheds with other people.

My early arrival gave me time to visit the Colruyt supermarket down the road to stock up with breakfast material, which is good news.

And my trip down the road took me past a fritkot that advertised a terrace, so on the way back I stopped for tea. The terrace is hardly the most exciting terrace in the world as you can see, but it was nice to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air

I’m not staying in my usual hostel but in a flat-hotel place called the Condo Gardens. Here I have my own tiny little studio and although breakfast isn’t included, it’s totally self-sufficient.

And I do hope that the bed is comfy because I’m ready for it.

Monday 6th March 2017 – I PAID …

… for all of this effort over the last few days.

Despite the bad night and waking up at 06:00, I was down for breakfast at 07:00 feeling fairly okay. But coming back I was overwhelmed, as if the exercise was too much, and I had to go and lie down, aching all over and feeling really bad.

Nevertheless I made it down to pick up Hannah but I clearly wasn’t on form. We took the main-line train to the European Parliament where she went off for her guided tour. Being young, Canadian and still a student, she needs to make her CV as impressive and completely different from anyone else’s if she wants to have a good job, and so I pulled a few strings the other week and managed to organise a guided tour around the Parliament.

I wasn’t up to it and so I rode herd on the luggage and read a book.

When she returned, she noticed my distress and decided that we may as well go to the airport then rather than a couple of hours later. And so we walked up to Schuman, I picked up my bank cards, and then leapt on board the Express bus (with a certain amount of confusion about the pricing structure).

Once Hannah had disappeared into the bowels of the airport I headed back for the bus to Leuven. There are two per hour, at … errr … 33 minutes past and … errr … 35 minutes past. How about that for planning? And none of them goes via the hospital.

I ended up at the station and I nipped off to find the Ibis Budget, seeing as how I really was feeling bad. But for some reason or other it was … errr … €74 tonight. Why is that?

Instead, I took a bus up to the hospital, liberated my discharge papers, sorted out my medicines, and then headed for Caliburn. And we hit the road.

I’ve ended up in a B&B near Arlon on the Luxembourg border. It’s cheap but good. There’s no food in the vicinity so I had to drive about 100 miles to find a fritkot.

Now I’m off to bed. I deserve it. I hope that I feel better tomorrow.

Sunday 5th March 2017 – THAT WAS A …

… cold and wet day today.

But it was a bad night for me, because although I’d settled down to relax in some kind of comfort, the wind must have changed during the night. There’s an air vent in the bathroom with a cap that’s presumably above roof level, and the wind must have turned to go underneath it because the rattling came right down into the bathroom at about 03:15.

That kept me awake for hours, it seemed like, and I don’t remember going back to sleep after that.

Nevertheless when the alarm went off I eventually managed to crawl out of the bed and into the shower. And then I was downstairs to breakfast at 08:00. Following that, I wandered over to the station to buy a couple of rail tickets.

At 09:30 Hannah came round and we went off to explore the market – there’s a huge market here outside the Gare du Midi on a Sunday morning. But at 11:00 we were on the railway station platform for the train coming from Leuven to Oostende. Alison was already on board, and we joined her for our journey to Bruges.

It had been beautiful in Brussels but by the time that we reached Bruges it was teeming down. Nevertheless we hit the streets and swam up to the city centre.

We had a beautiful day around the town despite the weather. Alison and Hannah even climbed up to the top of the belfry, all 366 steps of it, and I would have liked to have gone up too, but I have to be realistic.

The day ended with us in a restaurant in a side-street. It catered for people with different allergies and our meals were delicious. Hannah and I had coconut curry and Alison had a polenta lasagna.

We arrived at the railway station at the same time as a train to Leuven so we hopped on board. And now I’m back in the hotel. Totally exhausted.

Hannah leaves tomorrow afternoon and then I’m going to sleep for a week.

4th March 2017 – HANNAH’S FITBIT …

… tells me that we walked over 11 miles today. And I’m supposed to be ill too! You would never think so.

Last night was a bad night as far as I was concerned. It took me a while to drop off to sleep and I kept on waking up during the night, like at 03:00 and 06:00. At 07:00 the alarm went off and so I crawled into the shower for a really good soak (I didn’t have the energy to do that yesterday evening) and to wash my clothes from yesterday.

Breakfast started at 08:00 and although I was 5 minutes early, I wasn’t the first person down there. It was a good breakfast too and for a change I managed to eat something realistic.

Hannah was having a lie-in so it was getting on for 10:00 when she came a-knocking on my door, and then we headed off to the metro station at Brussels Midi.

And here we had our first set-back in that there is a cosplay convention in the town and the Metro was swamped with cosplayers. They were holding up all of the Metro trains so that they could set these people on their way.

Our second setback was once we were on our way, the Metro broke down and we had to alight. What we thus did was to cross the tracks to the other platform and go the long way around the circle to the Simonis station.

At the Simonis we took the old Bus 13 – the one that I used to take back home again. We alighted at the woods and went for a tramp therein (he got away unfortunately) but we didn’t have sight of a parrot as we did when Terry and Liz were here in 2011. Our walk took us past my old apartment at Expo and then round the corner to catch the bus 84.

At Heysel we had our third setback – in that the little shopping precinct there where there were all of the cafés, it was closed for refurbishment.

This led us nicely on to our fourth setback – Mini-Europe, which was what Hannah had really been hoping to see, was closed for refurbishment too.

But never mind – there was always the Atmomium. But with all of the people having come out today for the cafés and for Mini-Europe, there was nothing else to do except visit the Atomium. And so the queue was all the way down the street. That was our fifth setback.

And so we went down to the café at the bottom of the hill, and true to form, our sixth setback was that it was closed. We eventually found a café so that we could have a coffee.

A tram took us to the Tour Japonais and the Chinese Pagoda, and that was closed too. Setback number seven.

But never mind, we waled down into town past the Royal Greenhouses, the Royal Palace and the monument to King Leopold, past the Chapel of St Anne and the Riding Stables. We stopped at the Royal church at Laeken, to find that closed too. But it was 13:50 and it opened at 14:00 so we waited.

The caretaker turned up on time and we could see the interior of the church. It’s the first time that I’ve ever been in there too. It’s quite impressive too and I’ll be back at some point to take some photographs.

Down the hill to the tram stop and we took the 93 in the direction of the city centre. But then we had a tram breakdown (the eighth setback) and had to jump on board a bus. We jumped off the bus so that we could walk past the huge abandoned church of Schaerbeek, and then down the road to the old Botanical Garden where we stopped for a drink in the café there

There was an exhibition of photos taken by some Austrian of ruins that he had discovered of the German extermination programme of the mentally-ill children during the Holocaust. as I have said before, it’s quite simply not right that just one group of people has claimed the Holocaust as its own. All kinds of minorities were targeted by the Germans and focusing on just one group devalues the lives of all of the others.

The Metro and a bus took us out past the little apartment that I had at the Place Meiser and to the Tir National where we have been before, to see the graves of the Belgian Resistance who were executed by the Germans.

By now we were hungry so a Tram 25 took us all of the way round to Ixelles and the posh fritkot where I used to go when I lived at Marianne’s. And wasn’t it all delicious there, just as usual?

A bus 71 and then a tram 81 took us to Merode, and a walk through the Cinquantenaire took us to the Rond-Point Schuman where I showed her the European Institution buildings. But I was so disappointed that they were all in darkness. I hope that it isn’t symbolic.

We’re back here now and I’m stretched out trying to relax as I can feel my muscles tensing up. And I need to be fit for tomorrow as I have yet more walking to do.

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.

Tuesday 21st February 2017 – WE DIDN’T HAVE TO …

… clean out the fridge today. When I returned from my day out this afternoon, I found that the fridge had already been cleaned out. Nice and clean and pretty and disinfected – and empty! Next task is to find out where my food has gone, although I do have my suspicions, and I’m not going scavenging in the rubbish bins to find it.

Nevertheless, I sent an irate mail to the hostel manager. being without breakfast on a couple of occasions is one thing – having my lettuce, garlic, olives, a container or two of other stuff and a bag of vegan cheese, that’s going too far.

Last night was another one of these crazy nights where I had difficulty sleeping. Some people having a party in the street outside didn’t help matters much either. But I went off on my travels too, although now I don’t have a clue where I was or what I was doing.

At breakfast I was alone, which suits me fine of course, and then after a little relaxation for half an hour or so, I hit the streets.

Caliburn and I headed out for the motorway (it’s nice to be behind the wheel of Caliburn once more) and headed through the traffic jams – which took us ages – to Brussels and the Woluwe Shopping Centre. Plenty of parking there and there’s the Roodebeek Metro station.

Bad news at the Roodebeek. They have changed all of the public transport fare structure in Brussels. I might have mentioned something about this the other day, but the 10-trip tickets have been replaced by a chip card. The ticket office was closed at the station when I arrived so I had to take a single ticket 5 stops up the line to the Merode Metro.

I had a lengthy chat with the people at my Health Insurance Provider. They didn’t give me too much hope about things, and the help for setting up of the on-line claiming system could have been better. But I’ll have a play around with this tomorrow and see where it takes me.

One of the people that I saw told me about the Association for retired people. She said that they might be able to help me too so I went round there. But they didn’t give me too much help either. I’m a little pace or two further forward I suppose, but not too much.

One the way between offices, I happened to go past the building where a former girl-friend of mine 20-odd years lived. I stuck my head in the door and the concierge was cleaning the foyer of the building. She told me, much to my surprise, that my friend was still living there. So I left a note in her post box. Whether she contacts me or not I don’t really know, but I have two chances, don’t I?

For lunch, I went to IKEA and had a salad, followed by a fruit salad. There has to be a walk around the shop of course and I didn’t buy anything exciting. Just a few storage boxes and some perfumed candles. Mind you, I saw some more stuff that I would like to have in my living accommodation, so I shall be having a good thing.

Back here in the pouring rain and I had a crash out for half an hour.

Tea was chips, beans and sausages followed by soya dessert. Now I’m having an early night – tomorrow I have some scanning to do.

Sunday 5th February 2017 – NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK …

… these men are doing in here?

Yes, well done that man! This is indeed a public urinal and it’s the first one that I have ever seen that has glass doors – never mind glass doors from the outside so that everyone passing by can see what is going on inside. It’s the kind of thing that you will only ever see in Belgium.

Of course, I refrained from using it. I didn’t want to give everyone here at the Schiervelde an inferiority complex.

It made me think, which is a rare event of course. Do you remember the time that we were at a football match at Breda in the Netherlands and we encountered the P155-house? It seems that football clubs in the Low Countries have these eccentric arrangements.

And while we are on the subject of the Schiervelde, I wonder if you can guess what this apparatus is, out here on the car park.

I did ask on my social networking page and eventually someone, Josée in Montreal, came up with the answer. It’s a couple of bicycle racks. Bicycles are the big thing in Flanders and in the Netherlands (the idea that cycling in the Netherlands is so popular because it means that you don’t have to pay bus fare is totally wide of the mark) and the facilities for them are overwhelming.

And while we are on the subject of bicycles, I saw an electric unicycle with the rider perched thereupon. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera for that, which is a shame, but that has set the wheels in my mind going round and round. How easy would one of those be to carry on a bus, train or even an aeroplane?

having had my curiosity aroused, I had a look around on the internet for them, and I could be seriously tempted by one of these.

But let’s all start with last night. And this was one of the worst nights that I have had for a while. I went to sleep fairly early which was a surprise, but I kept on waking up, and for no good reason too. Just after 04:00, I had another sit-bolt-upright awakening, and couldn’t go back to sleep for ages after that.

I’d been on a lengthy travel too, and so being wide awake at that time of the morning, I switched on the laptop and typed it out. And when I came to read it later in the day, I had quite a difficult job of understanding the gibberish that I had written.

But here goes, and I hope that you can understand it all better than I can. I’d started off by being involved in quite a serious wrestling bout which went on for ages – and although no-one was hurt, it was quite intense and overpowering experience.
From here the action cuts to Percy Penguin who was going on and on about how she had to be in Italy today – a Friday. And then the penny dropped – there was a music concert taking place and I’d invited her to come with me. However I couldn’t go so I’d asked a friend to take her but I’m not sure he had remembered. However, in the end off she set. I couldn’t now remember where she had to go but it ended up being somewhere in the Plains of the USA (which looked to me as if it was right on the edge of the Denver plateau but that didn’t click with me at the time while I was asleep). Where she thought that she needed to go turned out to be a kind of small saloon with just a handful of people and no music concert either, so it was clearly the wrong place to be. My friend who took her couldn’t hang around and needed to be on his way but he couldn’t leave Percy Penguin there. While he was trying to resolve this issue in his own mind, he was hit on the head with a bottle. Nearby, Matt Dillon, the marshall from Dodge City in Gunsmoke (I’ve very recently downloaded all of the Gunsmoke radio episodes and been listening to them) was investigating and he suddenly realised that the venue where Percy Penguin needed to be was UNDERNEATH where she had been dropped her. He therefore had to get there to take her to the correct place but he was caught up in some kind of work of his own meaning he couldn’t go quite at that moment. And so in the meantime Percy Penguin was effectively on her own in this place.

And if you can make head or tail of all of this, then good luck to you.

After breakfast, I had a relaxing first part of the morning, and then hit the streets.

On Saturday there had been quite a bit of noise in the Kruisstraat round the side of the building and I’d been meaning to pop outside and see what they were up. But somehow I’d never got quite round to doing it.

But you can’t miss it now, can you? It’s a huge crane. And I wonder what it’s doing here. I suppose that I’ll have to wait until Monday to find out. I hope that they aren’t going to start pulling the roof of this building and leaving me out in the cold.

Once I’d organised the photograph I set off for the railway station at the other end of town, passing the electric unicycle (that I mentioned earlier) on the way.

At the station I picked up my ticket for Roeselare, and set out on my most adventurous SNCB rail trip to date. The first leg of my journey took me from Leuven to Brussels, and thence to the Gent St Pieters railway station.

It was a beautiful, comfortable modern train with carriages that are on lease from a railway company in Stuttgart, Germany. And the equipment puts British railways to shame. Rail travel is certainly the way to go in mainland Europe. I mean – it’s the popular Oostende train, and yet there were seats for everyone.

As we pulled into Gent we were held up by signals, and looking out of the window where we were stopped, I noticed a pile of people having an outdoor barbecue in the street.

This is the kind of thing that you can do in Europe (if you obtain a licence from the local council and you are brave enough to confront the weather) and this is why living in the real Europe is so attractive to me.

I couldn’t ever imagine returning to the UK, that’s for sure. If this ridiculous national suicide called “Brexit” starts to affect my residence position here, I’ll be applying for French nationality, that’s for sure.

I’ve been through Gent St Pieters on the train a few times, and changed trains here once too, but I’d never been outside to actually see the railway station building.

There was a brief 10 minutes before the Antwerp – De Panne train came in and so I went outside to take a photograph of the building. This is the best that I can do because I was in quite a rush as you can imagine, and in fact as I climbed back up to my platform, my train was already pulling in.

I’ll have to go back for a prowl around inside the building some other time

At Lichtervelde, as my train in, a train was pulling in at the opposite platform from the other direction. I knew that there was no time to waste here and so as the guard alighted from the train, I asker her is this was the train to Roosendaal. “Platform 5” she said – but I’m sure that that wasn’t right so we had quite an argument about it.

And while we were arguing, I noticed that the train was displaying a list of subsequent stops, one of which was mine. So not bothering to argue any loner, I leapt aboard and the train almost immediately set off.

There was a scrolling display inside the train too (it was a big, ultra-modern double-decker train) and there was my destination as clear as day. And so the guard came up to me, to presumably check my ticket.

“Look – there you are” I said. “This IS my train!”
She had a look at my ticket. “But you said Roosendaal, not Roeselare. Roosendaal is the Antwerp train”.

It’s a good job that there wasn’t a dining car on board – I would have ordered a portion of Humble Pie.

At the railway station, I noticed that there was a fritkot across the Square. I hadn’t had lunch and so a packet of fritjes sounded like a good plan. I could eat them as I trudged out to the football ground.

The football ground is miles outside the town, the opposite side to where the railway station is.

I peered through the doom and gloom of the rain as I walked. We have the usual walled, moated city with the walls all demolished and the moat mostly filled in, but there was some of what I imagined the moat to be, and it was on my way out to the ground.

It’s certainly impressive, and I wouldn’t mind one of the apartments over there overlooking the water. I could be quite happy there.

I eventually made it over to the football ground, and found myself at the Visitors’ end, which is the far end of the terrace over there.

I didn’t fancy that end, and so I had to carry on with my trudging because it’s quite a hike to reach the other side of the ground. It involved passing through the Exposition Centre’s car park and there was something going on in that building so there were hordes of people around

Hordes of people outside there might have been, but this was another ground where they ended up by announcing the crowd changes to the teams before the kick-off.

And the ground brings back many happy memories of the 1970s in British football. The ground has only been party modernised and there are still a few open, uncovered standing terraces. But there was no-one on them, which is hardly a surprise in this weather.

The grandstand behind the goal, which was where I was going to sit, was a huge affair with plenty of room in there for a large crowd. Rather a waste of effort if you ask me – but never mind.

One corner of the stand was full of kids – aged between about 8 years old and 12 years old. It looked quite strange to me, but as the players left the field after the warm-up, the purpose of the presence of these kids became clear.

Once the footballers had left the field, the girls sitting in the corner of the grandstand took to the field. It seems that Lierse SK isn’t the only team in the Belgian Second Division to have cheerleaders. They have them here at KSV Roeselare too.

Not the sort that would drag me out halfway across Belgium of course, but I’m all in favour of engaging the youth of the community in activities of the local football club, and more teams should take advantage of the opportunities available, to provide entertainment for the fans and to engage with the kids.

And, much to my surprise, they could dance too!

That makes a change because cheerleading has gone right downhill since the halcyon days of American college sport in the 1950s and the standard of dancing has dropped dramatically. These girls here at Roeselare could give seven or eight years to college cheerleading teams in the USA back in those days, but they certainly wouldn’t be out of place or let themselves down.

The boys from the corner then put in an appearance on the field and formed up with the cheerleaders into a guard of honour to welcome the teams onto the field ready for the start of the match.

The players’ changing rooms by the way are underneath the grandstand where I was sitting.

In case you are wondering, by the way, KSV Roeselare play in black and white. OH Leuven were in their change strip of all red

KSV Roeselare have a mascot too, but I’m not quite sure of what he is supposed to be. I wasn’t sure whether or not he was a snow leopard. It felt cold enough for him to be out and about on the prowl.

Further enquiries of the locals revealed that he is in fact a snow tiger and he’s new to the club, having arrived in December. There’s a competition being run to give him a name, and I’m sure that many visiting supporters could think of a few that might be appropriate

So having dealt with all the preliminaries, we could then turn our attention to the football.

And this was yet another match that was really exciting. For the first 60 minutes OH Leuven were well on top and looked as if they would win this match at a canter. For once, their two wingers were creating havoc down the wings and the KSV Roeselare full-backs didn’t have much answer to them. With Kostovski ploughing his way through the centre of the defence like a tank, the result should never ever have been in doubt. Had the surface not been so slippery and had the wingers been able to keep their feet, we should have had a cricket score before half-time.

And so with all of the play being up in the KSV Roeselare half, it comes as no surprise to anyone to learn that it’s the home side that takes the lead.

A poor clearance from the new OH Leuven finds a KSV Roeselare attacker who traps the ball and volleys it back over the keeper into the net.

As simple as that.

But ten minutes later the OH Leuven side equalise. And as I predicted, it came from an attack down the wing and the ball played quickly into the centre, right into the path of the onrushing Kostovski. Kostovski completely mishit his shot, which is probably why the ball went into exactly the opposite corner of the goal towards which the KSV Roeselare goalkeeper was diving. But they all count.

At half-time, the boy and girls came out again- the girls dancing in the centre circle and the boys playing a 6-a-side football match. The snow tiger appeared on the pitch too, to go round and wave to the OH Leuven supporters.

I went off to have a coffee in the bar underneath the grandstand that runs down the side of the pitch.

And much to my surprise, it was pretty good coffee too. I’m not used to good coffee at a football match, that’s for sure.

The second half got back under way again and we were treated to more of the same – at least for the first 15 minutes or so. And then two substitutions swung the game around.

Firstly, for some reason that I have yet to understand, OH Leuven took off one of the wingers. And from then on, their attack became rather aimless.

Secondly, KSV Roeselare brought on a new striker. Judging by the reception that he received, he must have been something of a local folk-hero. And he lived up to his reputation too. We had a ball into the penalty area from the KSV Roeselare right-winger, a bit of football tennis in the OH Leuven penalty area between the attackers and the defenders, and this substitute guy stuck out a foot to poke it into the net.

And that’s how it stayed. The best that I have seen OH Leuven play, and still they manage to lose.

I don’t usually like to comment on the refereeing of a football match if I can help it, but in this match there were quite a few bizarre decisions (or non-decisions). And for once, OH Leuven was on the beneficial end of the majority.

We had a blatant push in the penalty area from an OH Leuven defender, we had a blatant back-pass to the OH Leuven goalkeeper that went unpunished, a throw-in that was clearly given the wrong way, a few dubious free-kicks awarded and all of that. And still they couldn’t win.

They can be very disappointed with that.

I trudged back through the driving rain to the railway station. And much to my surprise, I was early.

There was a direct train to Brussels (via Kortrijk) due imminently and so I decided to take it, even though the itinerary proposed by the SNCB was to go back the way I had come.

It was an old slow, uncomfortable train but at least I had a good seat where I could relax, read my book and listen to the music on my telephone.

There are four trains per hour out to Leuven from Brussels Gare du Midi on a Sunday night. They are at something like 56, 04, 12 and 14 minutes past the hour (don’t ask me why) and my train arrived at 16 minutes past. That meant a wait around of 40 minutes. I went off to the Carrefour and bought some raisin buns, a can of ginger beer and a pear for tea, and had an argument with a couple of young boys who were trying to push down the check-out queue.

When the train pulled into the station, I found that it was the train that I would have caught had I gone in the other direction from Roeselare to Lichtervelde – a nice clean and comfortable modern train – so I can see why it was preferred. My early train had saved me nothing.

I ate my bread and pear, and drank my ginger beer in comfort, and that took me all the way to Leuven where we were decanted into the rain.

As I walked back to the hostel in the pouring rain, I reflected on my journey today.

If you look at a map, you’ll see the distance that I travelled on the railway today. It’s a good half-way, if not more, across the country and the travelling (not the waiting) time was in the region of two and a half hours each way – 5 hours in total.

And if you look at the ticket, you’ll see the price that I paid for the privilege of my journey. €21:20 – or about £19:00. It makes a total mockery of the price that you have to pay to travel on British trains.

I couldn’t even make a saving just by buying diesel to travel by Caliburn out to Roeselare. No wonder that Caliburn has hardly moved since I came back here from France in December.

And so that’s your lot. I’m off to bed.

Now if you’ve made it right down to the end of what is easily a new world-record 3300 or so words of where I got to today, you deserve some kind of compensation. I’ve told you that I really enjoyed the excellent dancing of the young KSV Roeselare cheerleaders.

What I’ll do then is to post you a little video of them dancing so that you can enjoy it yourself. This is what real dancing is all about.

I’m pleased that the football club is engaging with the youth of the community, and encouraging the youth to engage with the spectators. Attach a kid to your football club and you have him or her for life.

Too many of these organisations forget that kids have different ideals and aspirations, and fail to engage with them. And when the old fogeys die out, they find that there is no-one to take their place.

How many times have we seen that in an organisation?

So hats off to KSV Roeselare for giving me a good day out, to the brats for giving me such entertainment, and to you for having read all of these 3330 words.

Tuesday 25th October 2016 – I WENT TO RESCUE CALIBURN …

… from the garage today. And I had to lie down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

Mind you, I knew that it would be expensive so in the end I was prepared, I suppose. And it wasn’t just a case of the new bearing either but with it being a front-wheel drive, the disc is cast into the bearing housing so that needed to be replaced too, and that meant new brake pads as well.

Not only that, discs and brake pads are only sold in pairs and so I had to end up having the parts for the other side too, so they will go into store for the next occasion.

Finally, there were some bushes that were worn on the anti-roll bar which I’ve been meaning to do. But seeing as how they had Caliburn up on a hoist, I set them on the task. It may as well be done sooner rather than later and they have all the facilities.

I’d had a late night but a reasonable sleep, but even so I wasn’t all that happy about crawling out of bed. I’d been on my travels too during the night but as seems to be the norm these days, all memory of what I had been doing disappeared immediately.

After breakfast, I legged it out to the railway station with a nice brisk walk and as luck would have it, I walked into the station just as an Inter-City train to Brussels pulled in. And as I alighted at Bruxelles-Nord, a train to Namur, stopping at Bruxelles-Schuman, pulled in. Things like that don’t usually happen to me. Having left here at 08:00, I was sitting in Caliburn at 09:45.

Having fuelled up with diesel, I went off to IKEA to see what they had to offer. I have a cunning plan, as I mentioned yesterday, and IKEA plays a role in this. I’ve made quite a few notes about what I’ll be needing, but I also did a little shopping too. They had some cheap white-china plates and bowls – €0:49 each, a medium-sized saucepan of decent quality – €4:99, and a nice pyrex oven dish – €1:99.

As well as that, I bought a few cardboard boxes because I’ll be needing them in a couple of weeks time when I go back to France.

Best news though was at the restaurant. I had a bowl of chips, a plate of salad and a coffee, all of which would have entitled me to a decent discount had I had an IKEA family card. I have one, but I’d left it in Caliburn I wasn’t all that bothered by it. But when the cashier asked me if I had a card, and I told her my story, she gave me the discount anyway. That was nice of her.

This afternoon in between bouts of somnolence I did some more work on the web pages that I mentioned yesterday. They aren’t ready yet to go on line – there’s plenty more work to do, but progress is progress after all.

I had a beautiful tea tonight. Kidney beans, boulghour and vegetables, tomato sauce and chili powder with pasta. Just for a change, I had the chili powder just about right and it was delicious. And once the argument in the building dies down (another one of the tenants has been too close to the barmaid’s apron) I’ll be having an early night again.

It’s (hopefully) my last full day here tomorrow. Thursday I’m back in the hospital and then we’ll see what happens. I’m heading back to France regardless as soon as I’m released (now that I’ve had Caliburn’s wheel bearing fixed) but for how long, I’ve no idea.

Wednesday 19th October 2016 – AND YET MORE B*****DS!

Someone has driven into the back of Caliburn this afternoon, the b*****d.

I was on my way into Brussels at lunchtime and hit a traffic queue in the Avenue Cortenberg, so I stopped. But the car behind me didn’t, and that was that.

But to keep things in the proper order, at least my neighbours were quite quiet last night. I’m not sure if those of last night were still here but I hardly heard a peep from anyone at all.

What wasn’t so good was the couple of interruptions that I had had during the night – interruptions for reasons that any man of my age will thoroughly understand.

But at least I’d managed to go on a few little voyages during the night too.

I was in New York last night. But not the New York that most people know, but the New York that we have visited on several occasions during our little nocturnal rambles. The New York of even more immense skyscrapers than it really has, and high-rise motorways and soaring bridges. And I was trying to explain to someone about what might be found in a 100-kilometre radius of the banks of one of the river. And even though I say it myself, then considering that I was deep in the arms of Morpheus I was doing really well with my explanations, although I suspect that my 100-kilometre radius was being stretched quite considerably.
Having had another interruption, I was then away with some of my family. And I wish that they wouldn’t involve themselves in my little nocturnal rambles. We were travelling somewhere, and somewhere by aeroplane too and so we needed to be at the baggage check-in pretty quickly. But could I heck convince my family of the urgency and the need to get a wiggle on, and they were taking their time and dragging things out. One member of my family went off in an old soft-top 80-inch Land Rover to fetch some more family. But he wouldn’t hurry up at all. Never mind the baggage check-in – he didn’t arrive back with us until take-off time. It was therefore quite evident that we had missed our plane for our holiday.

After breakfast, I carried on with my website, updating it with stuff that had happened while I’d been in Canada, but my heart wasn’t really in it. And so I had an idea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there’s a wheel-bearing on Caliburn that’s not so good and needs attention. As I’m going back to France next weekend (I hope), if I have it done there, I’ll be stranded without transport. And who knows how long it might be. But here though, with public transport, being without a vehicle is no big deal and it means that if I have it fixed here I won’t be inconvenienced and I’ll be much more at my ease for going home, and going a-wandering too.

There’s a little garage in Brussels that used to fix our Fords at work, so I rang them and booked Caliburn in. And then I hit the road. Having been off the road for two months, the wheel-bearing was squeaking even more, so it was just as well that I was going to have it done.

And then we had the issues with this Belgian … errr … driver – using the term quite loosely. And in the pouring rain too. What a performance.

Caliburn is still mobile so I dropped him off at the garage, and then I walked round to the Social Services department of my former employers. I had a few questions to ask them. Most of them I forgot to ask, yet the one that I did ask, I had what could well be described as “a disappointing reply”.

I walked up to the Schuman railway station and caught a train to Bruxelles-Nord. There was a train already there going to Leuven but just as I put my hand on the door, it pulled out. I had to wait 20 minutes for the next. And while I was waiting, I had some more disappointing news about Caliburn’s wheel bearing.

It was now rush hour and the train to Leuven was packed. And then I had a rather wet walk back to here.

But poor Caliburn. What a tragedy. I hope that the accident is nothing serious.

Monday 10th October 2016 – SO HERE I AM …

… or, rather, here’s my aeroplane. On the hard-standing at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Miles from the terminal of course because I imagine that Air Transat can’t afford the terminal fees.

Not that I’m too bothered of course. I have to pay my own air fare and anything that whittles the price down is fine by me. Remember that my return flight to Canada had cost me less that 40% of the fare of a blue-chip flagship carrier and you can’t say fairer than that.

Our plane was an Airbus 330, registration number C-GKTS. And although she may not look it, she is over 20 years old. Built in 1995 for Dragonair, an airline in Hong Kong, she was bought by Air Transat in 1999. Her build number is 111

I’d had a bad night on the aeroplane. Despite being reasonably comfortable, I couldn’t drop off to sleep and so ended up reading my book for a major part of the flight. The in-flight entertainment was total rubbish. It was dreadful on the way out, and there was exactly the same selection on the way back.

The food too was rubbish, but then I’d expected that. I had my bag of hot cross buns to keep me going.

There were only two immigration officers on duty at the Terminal when we arrived but luckily I was one of the first off the bus, so I didn’t have to wait too long. Mind you, it was a different story for the baggage. It took ages to arrive and mine was one of the last onto the conveyor.

From Terminal 3 I had to go off on my merry, mazy way to the interairport tram that would take me to Terminal 2 and my TGV to Brussels. And here I had some good luck. My flight had been bang on time, which was totally unexpected. So unexpected that when I was making my travel arrangements 6 weeks ago I had booked myself on the 16:07 train to Brussels in order to give myself room to manoeuvre in case we were delayed.

But there was an earlier train to Brussels, leaving at 13:07, and it was now about 12:20. Down at the SNCF offices I managed to blag my way onto this one (I had to pay a supplement of €13:00 but who cares?). That was an unexpected stroke of good fortune that doesn’t happen to me very often.

The train was bang on time, which is what you might expect in France, and I found myself sharing a table with a guy from Lille and his 4 year old daughter. We all had a good chat as far as Lille, and then I was on my own all the way to Bruxelles-Midi.

There was even more good news at Bruxelles-Midi. There was an inter-city train leaving for Welkenraedt in less than 10 minutes. They stop at the main Brussels stations and then express to Leuven, and that suits me fine.

There was plenty of room on the train so I could spread myself out, and I was quite comfortable on my trip to Leuven.

At the station, I took the lift up to the footbridge and that is on the same level as the entrance to my hotel. That’s much easier than having to struggle up several flights of stairs with my luggage.

The IBIS Budget Hotel is quite new. The rooms are tiny but it’s clean and friendly and just €59:00 a night, which isn’t too bad for a city centre hotel. It’s right next door to the station and the bus station, there’s a fritkot across the road and a supermarket down in the basement underneath. What more could any man desire?

First thing that I did when I arrived was to have a nice hot shower. As for the second thing that I did – well, I don’t remember. I crashed out completely. Totally out of it.

I was awake enough in the evening to go across the road to the fritkot. He did me a nice veggie-burger and chips and that filled a hole. The first hot food that I had had for several days by the way.

That was that, really. I’d had a hectic few days with little sleep and I wasn’t feeling too well either. The bed looked quite comfortable and so that was that. I was well away.

EPIC HALL

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