Category Archives: caliburn

Monday 10th April 2017 – WHAT A SHAME!

I’ve actually seen a place that I liked today. It had everything that I wanted except for the kitchen of course (one of those really cheap units with the two ancient hobs and the fridge underneath so that the hobs take ages to heat up, they are pretty much uncontrollable, and they melt everything in the fridge).

And so why haven’t I signed for it then?

Two reasons really.

  1. It’s not free until the beginning of July
  2. It’s three floors up without a lift

And that’s that.

There was another apartment to let in the same building, on the first floor but without the terrace and the view of the sea. And that smelt as if the people living there had smoked 100 cigarettes a day for 20 years.

In other words, yet another wasted morning.

bad parking barneville carteret manche normandy franceBut on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly wasted because I did learn one or two things about the town.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, poor parking is a regular theme that crops up, and here, I regret to say, is yet another example of the dismal failure of other selfish motorists to respect disabled parking spaces.

This tells me more about the town than any other factor, and in this sense I’m glad that I’m not moving here.

But before I had left my little studio in Granville for my drive out, I had given the studio a quick clean-around and took some stuff down to Caliburn with me, and then we roared off to Barneville-Carteret to look at these apartments.

And then we roared back.

I finished off the tidying up and passed the inspection with the landlord, and then set off to find a place for tonight. And with what is befitting a holiday resort in the school holidays, there’s not a room to let anywhere in town.

After an hour or so of fruitless searching, we all took to the road and 80 kilometres and 80 minutes later we ended up in Cancale on the other side of the bay.

I had the last room here too – the Hotel le Chatellier – and at €60:00 it looks as if I have made a good choice. It’s quite comfortable and the shower is delicious. I spent half an hour in there.

No breakfast though. It doesn’t start until 08:00 and I’ll be long gone and down the road by then.

Cancale is beautiful. It’s nearly 30 years since I came here with Nerina and it’s changed dramatically in that it’s impossible to park by the sea.And it’s a hell of a climb up to the car parks at the top. And of course, all of the places to eat are at the bottom.

Luckily, on the edge of town was not darkness but a pizza van and we sorted something out. He came, would you believe, from Moisie in Quebec, so we had a really good chat.

Back at the hotel, I found a quiet little corner out of the wind and sat outside and ate my pizza. It really was a nice evening.

So now I’m ready for anything. Including two more ruins to visit tomorrow morning, and my train to Leuven at 11:50.

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Saturday 1st April 2017 – CALL THAT A …

… Division d’Honneur match?

I’ve seen more exciting and more competent teams playing down in Division 2 of the Puy-de-Dôme League than what was served up here at Granville tonight.

La Patriote ST Jamaise were pretty miserable – another team that spent far too long hanging on to the ball instead of playing it out wide or over the top. But as for US Granville, they have to be one of the worst teams that I have seen. Far and away the worst at this level.

They had a red-headed guy playing right-back who was thoroughly, totally and completely useless. He was substituted after 30 minutes and judging by his contributions up to that point, he was on the pitch for 30 minutes too long.

But the centre-forward – a big bulky 20-stone guy that would make Akinfenwa look like a lightweight – I’ve never seen anything like it. He was easily the worst player that I’ve seen on a pitch in a competitive match. He didn’t run after the ball – just a leisurely saunter around when he could be bothered to move – and never looked as if he was going to do anything at all. US Granville could have played without him and no-one would have noticed the difference. Xavier, who used to play up front for Pionsat’s 3rd XI will be the first to admit that he was playing up front to enjoy himself rather than in respect of demonstrating any skill, but I would have had him on the field leading the attack any day of the week rather than this guy.

It goes without saying that, being the worst team that I have ever seen, Granville were 2-1 up at half-time. Two free kicks, two shots at goal, 2 goals. But honours were restored in the second half as La Patriote ST Jamaise scored two more goals – one from a dreadful defensive howler where they all stood around waiting for the keeper to come halfway up field to head a ball away. I hardly need to mention that he headed it just as far as a La Patriote ST Jamaise attacker who calmly lobbed it over his head into the net. And the winning goal was … well … I estimated about three yards offside from my perfect position in line with play.

But US Granville can’t complain. They were dreadful.

I’d had a much better sleep today and a steadier start to the day. With a few things to do (loads of files to update) and then I went for a walk around the market. Nothing of interest unfortunately, and the prices are, well, not what I’m accustomed to paying.

But going for a walk to buy bread, I found a notaire with a few letting properties in the window. One looks quite suitable so I have an appointment to see that on Wednesday.

This afternoon I was chatting to a few people on the internet and then Caliburn and I went off to LeClerc for a look around. Strawberries at €0:90 for 500 grammes and cheap soya cream too – that will make for some exciting puddings for the next few days.

There’s an electromenager bit there too and prices seem to be reasonable. That’s one-up on Montlucon.

Afterwards, I headed for the footy and then came back here for tea.

It’s a late night but it’s Sunday tomorrow so no alarm. Let’s see how well I can sleep.

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Wednesday 29th March 2017 – THE LADY WHO LIVES IN THE SAT-NAV …

… has her head screwed on properly, that’s for sure. Because she’s brought me to another place that was high on my list of places to visit. And so that’s another one crossed off my list.

But first of all, I had a reasonable sleep in a nice comfortable bed even though I was tossing and turning a little for some time during the night. And then after a leisurely breakfast and some work on the laptop, I hit the road.

First stop was for fuel. I found a place selling diesel at €1:17 a litre, which is the cheapest that I have been able to find for a while, and then back on the road I picked up the signs for “Fontevraud”

What’s at Fontevraud is the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, and this is quite an interesting building because the Abbey was heavily patronised by the Plantagenet Royal House of England. Aliénor (Eleanor) of Aquitaine, who was the wife firstly of the King of France and later of Henry II of England was a major benefactor of the Abbey.

In fact, she, her husband Henry II, their son the famous Richard the Lionheart, and Isabella, wife of King John, were buried here. While their tombs are still here though, their bodies are not. The Abbey was pillaged during the French Revolution and the remains were despoiled.

nevertheless, it led to a fine interchange with the guy at the cashier’s desk –
Our Hero – “with the Brexit, will the British be asking for the repatriation of the remains of King Henry and King Richard?”
Cashier – “anything still here is the property of the Abbey and nothing can be moved by anyone”
As Alfred Hitchcock once famously said to Kenneth Williams – “it’s a waste of time trying to tell jokes to foreigners”.

I took thousands of photographs, and when I have more time (because I’m rather busy right now) I’ll come back to edit this page and put them on line so you can see just how beautiful it is here.

And so in the beautiful hot sun, I hit the road and headed north to the Loire. And there, having crossed the river on a beautiful girder bridge, I found a place to settle down for an hour or so to eat my butty and contemplate the state of the nation.

Having gathered my wits, I headed off still northwards towards the coast. If I’m going to be anywhere, it’s going to be by the sea and near the beach. I know a little walled town on the coast with a beautiful beach and with an important ferry service out so some of the offshore islands. I mean – you know me. Whenever I see a ferry it always makes me cross.

And so eventually, after surviving two attacks of cramp in Caliburn, we arrived in Granville, in Normandy. I’ve bagged myself a hotel for tonight and tomorrow I’m going to find a holiday flat for 10 days or so while I plan my next move.

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Tuesday 28th March 2017 – I’VE LOST COUNT …

… of the number of times that I’ve stepped out of my life. Just thrown a few boxes of stuff into the back of an old car, said “goodbye cruel world” and moved on.

And yet, as I sit in my little hotel room in Poitiers, I can reflect on the fact that however many times I’ve done that in the past, here’s another time to be going on with, because I’m doing it again.

I’ve long-since come to the conclusion that I can no longer carry on at the farm. I can’t even drag myself upstairs, never mind a pile of wood, water, food, all that kind of thing. I can feel myself going downhill from one day to the next and if I feel like this now, what am I going to feel like in 8 months time when winter starts? Being too ill to move in minus 16°C with no heat and no mobile phone signal to call for help is not really such a good idea.

And so I need to move on now. While I still can. And so for the last week or so I’ve been packing up boxes of my more important stuff and bunging them into the back of Caliburn. And after a visit to the bank at 17:00, we hit the road.

I’ve not taken some stuff that I wanted, and that’s for sure. The furniture that I had set aside, I’m not up to mountaineering across the barn to fetch it (yes, I’m beginning to realise that I’ve left this “moving” lark a little too late, haven’t I?”. And other things that I dearly wanted to take with me – well, I can’t find them anywhere as far as I have looked.

But a few things are notable by their consistency. I’ve always taken with me my LPs and my guitar (the Gibson EB3 bass) and they are all comfortable in the back of Caliburn. In fact, the guitar was the first thing to go in.

Howeer, to return things to their proper order, I had another good sleep last night. Tossing and turning a little as I seem to do these days, nevertheless it’s really comfortable in my bed. And then a nice early rising and breakfasting long before the alarm went off.

After a nice repose, I then attacked the barn once more, looking for some more stuff (that I didn’t find, of course) and making sure that I had forgotten nothing. And then taking down some more stuff to put in Caliburn.

Once that was all out of the way, I locked up the barn completely and then made a start on tidying up the attic and cleaning everything. I did have half a mind to take a pile of stuff down to the launderette to wash but that can al wait for some other time.

After lunch, Ingrid came round to visit me again and we blitzed the attic, vacuuming it and cleaning it from top to toe. It’s never been looking as nice as it does right now, that’s for sure. Everything else was loaded into the back and we sat down for a breather. THis was the first time that I’ve ever been ready well in advance of leaving. usually it’s all a last-minute rush.

Ingrid and I said our goodbyes and I went to Pionsat and the Post Office to stop my post deliveries. But as you might expect, the Post Office was closed. No idea what will happen about that now as I had dismantled the post box before I left.

At the bank I concluded the business that I had started the other day, and then we hit the highway. Me, Caliburn and Strawberry Moose. Only a vague idea of where we’re going to go. At the moment we are just going to drift around until we find somewhere nice to live. Somethind will turn up – it usually does… "it’s called “Prison”" – ed.

But driving through the mountains of the Creuse I was listening to Carole King singing “You make me feel like a natural woman”. Well, as it happened, I was feeling like a natural woman too, but where I was going to find one around there is anybody’s guess.

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Friday 24th March 2017 – CALIBURN HAS RETURNED!

And I should know, because I had to go and fetch him back. Of course that meant that I had to take back the little Skoda hire car but that’s no big deal.

Caliburn has had his rear end fixed (they even repaired the towing light sockets that I broke about 5 years ago but I didn’t say anything) and not only that, the nearside was stripped bare, all of the rust and stone chips ground out, the bare metal treated with anti-oxydiser, everything stopped, filled and sanded down, and a coat of primer then a coat of paint and then some varnish.

All of that came to a mere €283 – well, my bit did anyway – and I was expecting it to be more than twice that.

It’s true to say that you can see the join between the old and the new paintwork, but I’m not bothered about that. Caliburn is 10 years old and showing his age like I am. I just need him to keep on going for as long as I do without dropping to bits – that’s the plan anyway. Spending less than €300 to keep the bodywork together sounds like a good investment to me.

Last night was not so good. I went off to sleep easily enough but was awake by about 04:30 and struggled to go back to sleep again. By 06:30 I was up and about, and drinking my morning coffee when the alarm went off.

It was cold, damp, wet and miserable too, and so I lit a fire. I’ve decided that I need to keep warm no matter what while I’m here. It’s not as if I’m short of wood, as Terry keeps on reminding me.

I didn’t do much though this morning – spending a lot of time thinking about this and that and tidying up a pile of files on the computer that I have here – the old one with the smashed screen that I use as a desktop computer with added mouse, keyboard and external screen (the HDMI socket of the DVD viewer in fact).

Lunch was the rest of Ingrid’s delicious soup and then gathering my wits, I decided on a plan of attack. I fought (and I DO mean “fought”) my way into the verandah and the lean-to.

And there I really did hit the depths of despair because everything that I had set aside all those years ago – everything from Expo, the crockery and cutlery that I had bought specially – well, it’s all in a lamentable state having been stored in the verandah and the lean-to for 6 years. I should really have unpacked it all years ago, but I really didn’t have anywhere to put it.

Anyway, that really depressed me. I started dumping stuff into plastic bags to take to the tip – piles and piles of it – but that was soul-destroying and I lost all enthusiasm. The freezing cold and driving rain didn’t help matters either. I ended up with nowhere to put anything.

Instead , I went and fetched Caliburn, and then came up here for a warm by the fire and some more of Ingrid’s pepper, lentil and tomato sauce to go with my pasta.

Now I shall endeavour to fight off the depression that I’m in and go to bed. And hope that I can sleep too. It’s been a long hard day and the next four days are going to be even worse.

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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.

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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.

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Monday 13th February 2017 – IT GOES FROM ONE EXTREME …

… to another, doesn’t it?

Saturday night, I had one of the best nights’ sleeps that I have had for ages. Last night was one of the worst. Still awake at 03:00 and a long way from sleep. All of this was very sad.

But go to sleep I did, and I remember nothing of any travels, except the usual 06:00 awakening, the 06:30 awakening and then my 07:00 alarm going off. And they had forgotten to bring the breakfast around this morning so it was very short commons.

Back down here, I went back to sleep and that was where I stayed until 09:30. And having sorted out an issue that I was having with the laptop and some kind of bug that it had picked up, I got down to work. I did some tidying up, a pile of paperwork was sorted, some of which was thrown out and the rest neatly filed away in the binder that I had remembered to bring with me.

For a change, I didn’t have lunch either. I wasn’t feeling hungry. I just ate some fruit as well. And seeing as the cleaner was in here today, I wanted to vacuum the laptops here to clean out the keyboards. He wouldn’t let me use it but did it himself, including the screen which now has four scratches and I’m really disappointed about that.

A little later I went for a walk in the sunshine down to Caliburn. I took a few of the black plastic boxes down there, started him up and ran him for 15 minutes while I sorted out another pile of stuff down there that needs to be dealt with here.

And I found two bank cards for which I had had been searching. That has got me back up and running now, as I have a few things that need to be dealt with.

Another crashing-out was called for afterwards, and then I made tea. Potatoes, carrots, green beans, gravy and the last of my vegan pies. And just for a change it was all cooked to perfection. I still had one of those fresh fruit packs left over from the weekend so that did me for pudding. I’ll be starting on the ice cream and pineapples tomorrow.

So now we’ll have another early night. Hopefully I can do better than last night as I have paperwork to deal with and issues to resolve.

I hope that it works for me.

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Thursday 19th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… day out today for a change.

I’d run out of lunch stuff and so I set off to the Carrefour by the football ground for a good shop. On the way down there I stopped off at Caliburn to see how he was doing, but it was a bit of a struggle to start him up with the cold and the fact that he’s not been anywhere for quite a while.

And so I decided to give him a run up and down the road and that in the end led me out to Kessel-Lo. I went to Bio-Planet for a baguette and some vegan cheese, and then to the Carrefour down the road for a big shop. It was 13:40 by the time I came back. But I’d had a good couple of hours out for a change.

last night was another bad night with me not dropping off until late. And then I was awake a couple of times during the night, finally at about 06:45. Alone again for breakfast and then back down here for a while.

There was no heating this morning – that was what made me go out for a good wander. It would have to be the coldest day of the year so far, wouldn’t it? But later tonight it was fixed and that’s better.

I’ve had a crash out as well this afternoon, and read some more about this Finnish expedition to Labrador. They are spending a lot of time talking about the Inuit and their wanderings around Labrador. It seems that the population insofar as it has been recorded has hovered around the 1200-1300 mark. But a rough count around 1921 came out with just 800 or so – this being just after the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-19 which decimated the population of the Labrador coast and wiped out the villages of Okak and Hebron.

Tonight I finished off my curry and so I have my chips for tomorrow – well, in fact, croquettes. Trying to find oven chips here is next-to-impossible, even in a huge supermarket like the Carrefour. So tomorrow it will be croquettes, beans and sausages and Iam looking forward to that.

Now I’m having an early night if I can. There are quite a few new people here today and I hope that they are quiet.

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Monday 5th December 2016 -DRAT AND DOUBLE-DRAT!

The other week, we discussed the problem of burst tyres on the motorway.

And so it should come as no surprise to learn that it was the turn of Yours Truly today.

Not quite on the motorway – in fact about 400 metres after I’d pulled off at Montlucon. But a flat tyre just the same. There’s a nail in it somehow.

Luckily, if there is such a thing that can be called lucky, regular readers will recall from 2012 when I had a blow-out on the M6 near Stoke on Trent, I’d pushed the boat out and bought three really good Hankook tyres. The fourth was a second-hand cheap tyre that I had bought because of the wheel that was attached to it. There was plenty of tread on it but I didn’t expect it to last very long. Anyway, it’s this one that has the puncture.

There’s a spare on Caliburn and that was a second-hand one that I bought for the wheel (it was the time when I was collecting a second set of wheels for the winter tyres). But when I had a look at it … well … I’ve thrown away better tyres than this. A fair amount of tread to be sure, but standing around for as long as it has has done it no favours. But at least I was mobile with not much effort.

selfish parking montlucon allier franceMy new enhanced mobility took me to the LeClerc supermarket where I stocked up with another big supply of food for Belgium. And while I was there, I had another big laugh at the selfishness of other drivers.

The driver of this car parked it up at the supermarket – and pretty badly parked at that – and walked away – and then turned round to come back and parked his car even worse, straddling the white lines.

The selfishness of people is astonishing, isn’t it?

Having done the shopping, I went off in search of some tyres. I’ve ordered two brand-new Hankooks and they will be delivered on Friday. They will be going on the front, the other Hankook that is still on the front will be the spare, and the nasty spare tyre will be going in the bin.

But I’m not thinking very clearly here. What I should have done was to forget about the new tyres, come back home and fitted Caliburn with his winter tyres on the front. And the money situation is going to be important because on the way down from Leuven, I could feel the other wheel bearing start to tighten up and that’s going to have to be looked at. It’s yet more expense that I can do without.

I had a decent sleep last night and the breakfast at the Premiere Class was quite good. And then I hung around there doing stuff until about 11:00. When they threw me out of the hotel I hit the road and drove steadily down to Montlucon

tacot railway station narrow gauge bourbon l'archambault allier franceI cut the corner off down at the end of the road and came back through Bourbon l’Archambault, and this building caught my eye.

You should all know what it is because I’ve taken you to see a few of these. It’s the old railway station of Bourbon l’Archambault and the railway concerned is the tacot, the metre-gauge railway network that covered the Allier during the first half of the 20th Century.

Built far too late to have a decisive influence on the country’s transport policy and built too cheaply, serving the layout of the terrain rather that the needs of the passengers (one commentator described the railway stations as decorating the abandoned landscape), the only surprise was that they lasted aslong as they did before road transport swept them away

There’s a new chain of budget hotels opening in France – called Ace Hotels. One has been built on the edge of Montlucon and so I went for a look around.

ace hotel montlucon allier franceAt just €49:00 per night, it’s excellent. Certainly the best budget hotel in which I’ve ever stayed. The only complaint is that there aren’t enough of them yet.

My view from the window was excellent, right across the motorway and into the Combrailles at the back. That’s where I’ll be heading tomorrow.

So in the meantime, I ordered a pizza and wasn’t that a disappointment? Overpriced, undercooked and crushed up on one side of the box – someone had carried it vertically.

I shan’t be going to that pizza place again.

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Sunday 4th December 2016 – I’VE HAD A FEW …

… twinges just recently but last night I had a major attack of cramp. Both calves too and I was in agony for half an hour. First time for absolutely months and months and months. I’d almost forgotten all about them.

But eventually the pain wore off and I could carry on with sleeping – until the alarm went off.

I’d been back to Labrador as well during the night. That seems to be a regular route these days. It’s all clearly playing on my mind.

First into breakfast this morning, and all alone too. and my 08:05 I’d finished, been to the boulanger for my baguette and rescued three plastic crates from the skip at the supermarket.

The morning was spent doing some tidying up (which is not like me, is it) and getting my room ready for being away for a week or so. I have to make an effort, I suppose. I did some stuff on the laptop too and an early lunch saw me down the road and at Cailburn by 14:00.

We hit the streets and fuelled up and then had a very uneventful drive down as far as Paris. One thing that I had forgotten is that Sunday late afternoon it’s “red” rates on the péage in the direction of Paris and I really was nailed for that. It wasn’t half painful

The Franciliènne was packed too – end-to-end traffic all the way around and it didn’t clear either. Things only eased off when i left and headed into Melun.

Plenty of room at the Première Classe on the edge of the city and the room was quite comfortable, even though some people in the room above seemed to be having a party. I had a really good pizza brought to me and then I crashed out for an hour or so.

Tomorrow after breakfast I’ll have part II of my journey, back to Montluçon at least. To do some shopping tomorrow evening and find a place to stay ready for part III.

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Saturday 26 November 2016 – IT’S NOT BEEN MY LUCKY DAY TODAY!

I went out for my bag of chips tonight as usual, only to find that the chip shop is closed for its annual holidays this weekend.

But no matter – I went off to Bohan. I’d heard that there was a football match on tonight at 20:00.

I arrived there at 19:30 and found a signpost to the football ground – exactly where I had expected it to be from a quick view of an aerial photograph. I could even see the floodlights too, which confirmed that a night match was eminently possible. But when I arrived, the place was in total darkness. and that’s how it stayed.

I went for a drive up along the river into France and toured around for half an hour, but on the way back I passed by the ground again and – still in darkness.

bohan belgique belgium october octobre 2016I went back to the centre of the town of Bohan and parked up Caliburn in order to go for a wander around and see what was going on. And I was surprised to find that, for such a small town, it was a thriving hive of industry.

There is a small Delhaize supermarket for a start, and then one or two other shops including a boulangerie, and more than half a dozen restaurants, including a pizzeria which was interesting to discover.

I made a good note of all of these. The supermarket is enough to entice me back on Monday to do some shopping instead of going to Alle – it’s about the same distance. And I’ll be able to see the town in the daylight too.

bohan belgique belgium october octobre 2016But my walk did take me to a cafe-type of place stuck in a corner of the square. This was a fast-food restaurant too and they served up some of the nicest chips that I have ever had – and that’s saying something. And so I had my chips after all.

A shame about the football but at least it brought me out of my cocoon and into a new situation and a new town with some good facilities. And as I said – I’ll be back in the daylight to have a better look. Just you wait to find out that Monday is its official day of closing. That’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

Once I had managed to drop off to sleep, I had a really good night. Well away in fact without a single disturbance.

I’d been on my travels too – off visiting my brother of all people and then I had to return because I was taking an exam which consisted of three subjects, for which I was not prepared at all. There were half a dozen of us and as we were glancing through the question paper I suddenly realised that I had left the notes that I needed, along with my house keys, in my jacket which I had left at my brother’s. I had to telephone him to arrange for him to bring them up, but it meant that I would have to leave the room in which case I would be disqualified and have to resit it. But if I didn’t have my notes I would fail, in which case I would have to resit it anyway.
Sometime later I was driving Claude and Françoise somewhere and dropped them off where they had to walk about 100 yards to wherever they were going. They told me how I could work my way back through the village to return to where I had come from, but I wondered why I couldn’t simply do a U-turn and go back the way that I came.

First down to breakfast, and before the staff yet again, and by the time I’d finished I was still alone. But at least the old man who waits on had a little chat to me, which made a change.

And apart from talking to Liz, I cracked well on with my web pages. I’ve arrived in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in Central Labrador and I reckon that I’ll be there for a good few days now. There’s tons of stuff to write about, including how two countries walked in to a third country and built a wharf and an airfield, without even a word to the country concerned.

Later on, I had a shower, washed my clothes for the last couple of days and put on some clean ones. And then seeing as the noxious brat had been let loose in the lounge, I hit the road for my appointment with destiny.

But well-fed and watered, I’m back here now. Another early night, I hope, Then we’ll see if I can have a really good night’s sleep again. I feel much better when I’ve had a decent sleep and I’ve already had a little crash out just now.

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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 – PHEW! I’M WHACKED!

Yes, today was the day that I had to go to the hospital at Leuven.

And how difficult was it to haul myself out of bed at 07:00 to hit the road? You have no idea.

No breakfast of course, but what with having to wash and make myself pretty, it was 07:30 when I finally hit the road. Through the fog, the hanging cloud, the darkness and the drizzle to the motorway and then an uneventful drive all the way to Leuven. uneventful, of course, except for the tractor-trap in the suburbs of the city that slowed everyone up. It took me less than 2 hours all told.

Caliburn went into his hidey-hole and I walked up to the hospital to organise some breakfast. All done and dusted, checked in and in the waiting room long before the due time of 10:50.

I was out by 14:30 too. The highlight, or actually the lowlight of the day was the fact that they have stopped serving bread with the soup. That’s no good.

But apart from that, my blood has gone back up to 10.6 all on its own (although it doesn’t feel like it) and while my water retention has eased, my protein loss has accelerated. So – back in a week.

And as the professor is only there in the morning next week, it means that I have to postpone my eye test too.It’s a good job that I’m going back to stay in the hostel.

The drive back was even more uneventful.

There’s a Carrefour in Leuven as you know so I called there for bread and stuff but I was having a “fruit” moment so I bought a “reduced” fresh fruit salad thingy and a litre of 100% pineapple juice, and scoffed the lot on the car park. And there are grapes for tomorrow.

My route brought me back to Bouillon, which is a soup-er … "ohh, well-done" – ed … place and stopped to take a pile of photos in the dark, falling over the edge of the pavement and badly cutting my right knee.

There’s a falafel place in Bouillon so I had a decent tea as well.

And now I’m back here and seeing how tired I am, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the photos of Bouillon.

I’m doing nothing more!

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Friday 18th November 2016 – I REALLY AM THE KISS OF DEATH

I was in Sedan yesterday evening, with the intention of going for a wander round, and then I saw an advert from the local football club, CS Sedan-Ardennes, talking about matches that the club will be playing in the near future. I noticed that one of the matches would be played tonight.

Sedan had at one time fairly recently played in the French First Division, and had a nice modern stadium on the edge of the city centre. But they have fallen on hard times just recently and are busy propping up all the other clubs in the Third Division. Still, football is football.

The LeClerc supermarket was just around the corner from where I was so I nipped into the LeClerc and stocked up with another pile of tinned food, seeing as it’s so much cheaper there than in Belgium. And not only that, things like the boulghour is half-price compared to Belgium. And so now I have enough stuff to keep me going for the first month when I go back there.

Once I’d finished the shopping and fuelled up Caliburn, I headed off to the football ground and found a fritkot where the owner served me up a big bag of chips and a salad wrap, all for €6:00 which I thought was extremely democratic.

The football ground to which I was heading was just down the road from the fritkot, and when I arrived there, it was in total darkness. But not to worry. It seems that Bird-brain of Britain had confused the address and there’s a street of the same name in a suburb of Sedan and by pure coincidence there’s a football stadium in that street too.

Back into town again and I arrived at the real stadium this time, the Stade Louis Dugauguez. There was some parking in the immediate vicinity which was quite handy and I then had the “hunt the pay-booth”, which was quite exciting.

stade louis dugauguez c s sedan ardennes france october octobre 2016To my surprise, it cost me just €7:00 for admission to the ground. That’s a bargain at any price, and then I had another massive hike around to find the entry gate that I needed.

I took my seat behind the goals just as the match kicked off. The noisy sector was just a couple of sectors away from where I was, and I was in good company. Mind you, I could have had plenty of choice as to where I would sit. A huge modern 28,000 all-seater stadium and there were about 1500 – 1800 of us in total. No more than that, I shoudn’t think.

stade louis degauguez c s sedan ardennes france october octobre 2016As for the match itself, it was rather surprising. Sedan are bottom of the Third Division and US Quevilly-Rouen Métropole, the opponents from Rouen, are third in the table and so I was expecting a walk-over. But Sedan could have won this match at a canter had they tried because they looked quite a good side.

They had by far the most possession and looked quite dangerous going forward. But it’s yet another case of a team that could play all night with no opposition on the field, still be out there right now and still not score. Hand them a stringed musical instrument and they still couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal.

We had one occasion where one of their attackers blazed the ball miles over the bar from 5 yards out of an open goal and another occasion where an attacker, in an even better position, forgot to kick the ball.

As for Quevilly, they didn’t look as good but they scored the vital goal – a free kick round the blind side of the defensive wall and the keeper not being able to hang on to the shot with a Quevilly forward the quickest to follow up.

They also hit the woodwork too with the keeper well-beaten, and missed a couple of other good chances too.

What with my late night last night, I was in bed and asleep about 2 minutes after I went to bed. I’d had the radio on and that awoke me at 00:45 with something noisy, so I turned it off, went off down the corridor,and then back to bed.

And there I stayed, flat out until the alarm went off at 07:00.I’d been a-travelling too, but heaven alone now knows where I’d been on my journey.

For most of the morning I was working on my web site for Labrador. I’m making some quite rapid progress too as far as information goes, but not as far as distance goes. It’s going to be longer than I thought before I arrive at Baie Comeau, but it’s going to be an interesting drive, as well as a controversial one, that’s for sure, because the stuff that’s come crawling out of the woodwork is quite … errr …interesting, to say the least.

After lunch, I crashed out, and for longer than I intended too. It had been a nice afternoon and I was sorry that I missed it. But it’s never too late to hit the road and so off I set for Sedan.

Once the football had finished, freezing to death, I walked back to Caliburn and drove back here. No room on the main car park due to the influx of weekenders, and the lounge was crawling with people – including the noisy brat who was still up creating a disturbance at gone midnight. That’s no way to bring up a 4 year-old.

By 00:30 I was too tired to do much so I called it a night and went to bed.

I hope that I have as good a sleep as I did last night.

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Wednesday 16th November 2016 – HOW STUPID …

… can you be?

I need to leave Belgium for a while for various reasons, and so I checked all around the area of Sedan, which is not too far away from here but across the border, and I found a place that looked absolutely perfect from my point of view. Isolated in the countryside miles from anywhere up a mountain and probably swathed in fog. And bed-and-breakfast at the same price as my hostel.

And here I am gazing across a river and over the river is in France, and here I am, stuck on the Belgian side of it all in the Hostellerie La Sapiniere at Vresse sur Semois.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

So why aren’t I heading back to my house then? The answer is that while my blood count has gone up slightly to 10:0, the protein loss in my body is accelerating slightly and that’s causing them some concern. As a result, they’ve changed my medication and they want me back IN A WEEK to see how I’m doing.

And not only that, they have some more appointments for me in the haematology department in two weeks time, and so I’m stuck here yet again. But I don’t want to be stuck in Leuven – I need a change of scenery;

But returning to our moutons as the French say, the trouble with going to bed early is that everyone else comes in later. And so even if you do drop off to sleep by 22:30, then at 23:30 you are wide awake as people come back into the building. and that’s rather annoying, so say the least.

So having had a disturbed night (for many reasons) I was awake quite early as the alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels too. I had to visit a town that was “just across the border” in some kind of Spanish-speaking area. I’d found a bus that would take me there and so I climbed on board. It wasn’t a journey of 10 minutes either as I was expecting, but one of hours and interminable hours. A woman on board the bus, small and dark-haired, tried to help me out – every ten minutes or so coming to reassure me (although I couldn’t understand what she was saying) and then as we reached the border I suddenly realised that I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going or at what stop I needed to alight, and I had no way of asking either.

There were the usual hordes at breakfast this morning, and we had a major problem with the kitchen area being flooded again. The skylight had been left open and we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

Still, I’d breakfasted and even showered and back in my room again long before 07:55. THat’s something of a record, isn’t it? And once I’d tidied up and packed my rucksack I set off to the hospital, braving the driving rain.

I wasn’t feeling so good this morning either. All of the joints in my legs were aching and I didn’t have the puff to climb the hill. I had to stop on four or five occasions to get back my breath. This is the worst trip to the hospital that I have ever had.

I was there and registered by 08:30 and sitting in the waiting room. I was seen a little later than my 08:50 appointment , and given all of the tests and the like. My weight was stable which was bad news – I want to lose it all and I can’t do this as it’s all to do with the water retention issues that I’m having and that’s one of the issues that I need to resolve – hence the new medication.

By 11:30 they released me from the hospital and that was that. I went down to Caliburn and we all, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I set off for the wilderness.

The weather was pretty miserable – with rainstorms and the like all the way down to the Ardennes. And once I started to climb up into the mountains I was encased in hanging clouds just like home. In fact it made me feel quite at home.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav couldn’t find the hotel, which was hardly a surprise seeing as I was looking in the wrong country. I had a beautiful drive through the Ardennes and ended up in Sedan in the driving rain. I took the opportunity to do a huge pile of shopping at the Leclerc – what with food prices in France being much less than in Belgium – and then tracked down the hotel where I’m staying.

It’s a very impressive hotel from the outside but it’s all very 1960s from the inside. And there’s no internet in the bedroom which is very depressing to say the least. I’ll have to sort this out somehow but I’m quite tired after my drive. I made a butty (because I wasn’t able to check on what the surroundings had to offer) and had an early night instead.

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