Category Archives: Nerina Hall

Thursday 16th November 2017 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

…Shepherd’s delight
Redsky in the morning, Avranches is on fire.

We were treated to a most glorious sunrise this morning – one of the nicest that I’ve seen for quite a while. And so I snapped a photograph of it through the window. It was rather too cold to open it.

It’s the kind of thing that can cheer me up. We’ve said before about how Ancient Man worshipped the sun and it’s seeing things like this that helps you to understand why.

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had another bad, congested night. It took hours to go off to sleep and I was awake quite early on.

But I’d been on my travels too. Back to the back garden of Vine Tree Avenue where I was ill and the place was all overgrown. And who should come along to help me (in reality to do it for me) but Guus and Lieneke.
And later I was with Nerina and I was itching to show her the waterfall that I had discovered out in the wilderness. She agreed to come, and this meant descending into the bowels of an emigrant ship past all of the desperate people in there, and then going down through the holds and bilges. I could see that Nerina was unhappy about it and I was doing my best to encourage her and urge her on. I knew that it would be well worth the effort once she got to see it, but it was hard to motivate her.

After breakfast I loitered around for a while to give my tablets an opportunity to work and then I hit the streets.

From my vantage point by the drawbridge I can look down on the harbour and see what is going on.

And we can see what Combattant is doing down there right enough. There’s a lighter now moored up alongside and that has a digger on board. I’d heard about a project to dredge the harbour and it looks as if they are making a start.

As an aside, I did once hear a story about dredging in the Port of London where a dredger pulled up a car that had been in there for 30 years – and still had the occupants in it.

Grima was still down there too. She had unloaded her cargo of scrap – it was one of these mini-Ford-Transits –
and was busy loading up a pile of stuff to take back to Jersey.

But what caught my eye was the pontoon tied up to the side of the boat. It made me wonder what was going on down there and so I resolved to go down for a look on my way back.

At the moment, I was off to LIDL.

It was a struggle for me to get up the hill. I clearly wasn’t feeling much like it at all, being ill as I am. But eventually I made it up there and picked up a loaf of bread and some pastry. I fancy having a go at another pie

I had a slow walk back down to the harbour for a look at Combattant.

The lighter by her side is called Ar-Mor. That’s an old Celtic word for Brittany and means “Land of the Sea” or “Land by the Sea”. Until comparatively modern times Brittany was known as Armorica.

There was a crewman working on the Combattant and we had quite a chat. He confirmed that she was here to dredge and would be here a few days. That explains,
by the way, her erratic port movements.

Down the dockside to the Grima and I soon found the reason for the pontoon. We have a frogman in the water having a good look at the underneath of the ship.

Talking to the skipper, it seems that there’s something blocking one of the water outlets – and while we were chatting, the frogman pulled a huge pile of seaweed out.

And here’s an interesting thing – to put a diver in the water in the port of St Helier costs a minimum of £1,000. Here in Granville, it’s simply an hourly charge. And that’s the reason why he was having it done here

We had quite an exciting chat too – putting the world to rights, and as he was doing that, a lady went aboard. Subsequent enquiries revealed that he has a licence to carry 12 passengers, and that there are some cheap hotels on the Quayside at St Helier. Now doesn’t that conjure up all kinds of interesting ideas for a weekend away?

But the most interesting part of our discussion was when I mentioned that I had a Ford Transit van. He occasionally needs the odd pallet of stuff collecting and no way of doing that, and so he eagerly wrote down my phone number.

After lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so and then did some tidying up on the shelves again to make even more space.

Tea was delicious tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so it was a tin of ratatouille with pasta. And doesn’t the ratatouille taste better with a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of chili powder?

I’ve been for a walk tonight and now I’m hoping for an early night and a better sleep.

12th November 2017 – I’M DRENCHED.

I was going to say that I’m all wet, and no-one would disagree whatever with that comment.

It’s Sunday today and so I had a good lie-in. I’d been on my travels too. With Nerina in fact, roaming around the streets to the south side of Hungerford Road in Crewe looking for a supermarket calle Macksie’s where we were going for lunch. I had a vague idea where it was – somewhere off to the north of Hungerford Road but I couldn’t think of where it might be and no-one else whom we asked knew either. We ended up in a Court listening to a couple of cases and Nerina was showing her boredom. I could understand that because what we had heard to date wasn’t exactly setting our lives on fire, but there was one case coming up that would be intensely interesting and I was really looking forward to it.

It was about 08:30 when I came to life (such as it is) but more like 09:20 when I crawled out of my stinking pit. A late breakfast which meant that there wasn’t much of the morning left.

Just for a change, I tidied up the shelves a little in the kitchen and made much more space. There’s actually some empty spaces there now and I reckon that I can do even better than that too.

Never mind lunch – at 13:00 I hit the streets. US Granvillaise are playing Vierzon, one division below, in the French FA Cup, kick-off 14:00. Despite the howling gale-force wind I walked up there – and lost half of my biscuits to the gale.

The two teams were quite evenly matched, but the wind made a mockery of the match. Granville scored an early goal, but Vierzon had two corners, two gusts of wind, and consequently two goals scored direct that eluded the entire defence.

Early in the second half Granville had a corner which the defence could only scramble out from under the bar and which was knocked into the net by a lurking Granville forward. And 5 minutes later, a Granville attacker took advantage of a gust of wind to curl a shot in around the keeper.

After that the wind dropped and we had a torrential downpour that soaked all 816 of us in the crowd. We were drenched. And the match petered out into a 3-2 win for Granville.

But Vierzon were panicking and losing their cool, with the result that quite a few of their players found their way into the referee’s notebook. And With a lopsided notebook like that, it’s no surprise that a couple of Granville players found their way in too – and for some quite inocuous offences too.

After the match I dripped my way back home in time to see the second half of the TNS v Queen of the South match on the laptop.

Pizza for tea of course, and the pepper makes it taste even better. That was followed by Apple crumble and ice cream too.

And now it’s an early night again. Back to work tomorrow, if I haven’t caught flu again, that is.

Tuesday 7th November 2017 – I’M NOT …

… feeling much better today either.

Despite going to bed early I couldn’t get off to sleep. It was 00:30 and I was still awake. I was still awake at 04:30 too, although I must have been asleep at one point. And I was still awake at 06:00 when the alarm went off.

No possibility of me getting out of bed though. I went back to sleep and it was getting on for 08:00 when I finally crawled out.

During the night I’d been on my travels too. To Oostende where I started off taking a female friend. We went to see a huge cruise ship that had arrived, and although it wasn’t easy to see. There was a tower block in the distance and I was explaining that behind it in the past would have been the huge pile of coal that fuelled the steamships that called here.
From there on, I was with a female partner – it might even have been Nerina – and I was skinning a cat in the same way that you would peel a mushroom. But halfway through the proceedings the cat appeared to recover consciousness. I couldn’t continue and had to pass the cat over to my partner to complete.a

I managed breakfast and then spent the rest of the morning vegetating on the sofa. I did manage to crawl off at one point. I have some Vick vapour rub somewhere – I know that I have because I remember buying it in Leuven – and I wish that I could find it.

Lunch was a struggle. I wasn’t hungry but I do have to eat. It took me quite a while to swallow my sandwich. And then I crashed out again for a few hours on the sofa.

I made tea tonight. I had lentils on the boil for quite a while. In the meantime I made the usual onion, garlic and spice base. In went the mushrooms, the lentils, a tin of mixed veg and some soya cream. I didn’t eat much because I wasn’t hungry. And there’s enough left over for another four meals, all of which went into the freezer.

So now I’m sitting with my feet up. I’ll be in bed very soon if I can clear my nose. A good sleep will do me good, I reckon,

8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

Monday 26th June 2017 – I SEEM TO HAVE ACQUIRED …

… a washing machine. And it’s sitting in the back of Caliburn right now.

Terry rang me up – and at 08:30 too. “Doing anything? I can’t get the dumper to start”

Actually, I wasn’t in the mood right then and there. If you had been through what I had been through during the night you would not have been either.

I had had a dreadful night, and there was a time round about 02:00 where I thought that I would never ever go to sleep. So much for the early night that I promised myself.
But I must have done at some time or other because I had a visitor during the night.

I’m not sure why Nerina came to visit me but, as this little girl who was in my room at the time remarked, she was wearing a black cloak – and there were various references to all kinds of famous fictional characters. The meeting at first was quite acrimonious but after quite some time it mellowed and in the end we finally agreed to a division of our assets. But not our physical assets – agreement was reached over that years ago – but all of the paperwork. And there we were, during the night, dividing up all of the paperwork sheet by sheet, regardless of whether the division made any logical sense for the accounts or the correspondence that were involved.

Ohhh, how I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did, and managed some breakfast -and while I was vegetating over a hot mug of coffee the telephone went. Fetching it back, I answered it and it was Terry.

I had a few things to do – like updating a couple of entries on the blog (I am determined to do some of it every day) and having a shave and a shower – and then I hit the road to Roncey.

Terry was right – the dumper wouldn’t start. But I made it start by pouring some drops of neat petrol down the air filter. Fired up a treat but it wouldn’t run on.

So knowing that it fired up, then it can’t have been an electrical or mechanical fault – must be fuel. Plenty of fuel in it and it was going down the fuel lines into the carburettor and the float chamber was full.

Here we were interrupted.

Liz has an old washing machine that only works on one programme and which rattles about the floor of the bathroom like a jive dancer on sherbet dabs. But having had a good month at work, she’s bought herself a new super-duper mega-washing machine and it came today. We signed for it and spent an hour mauling it into the laundry room and installing it.

What a beast.

And the washing machine is awesome too.

“Right, let’s sling the old one into the trailer. I’ll run it down to the dechetterie this afternoon”
“Why?” I asked. “Has it finally handed in its chips?”
“Ohh no” said Terry. “It still works like it always did – maybe more rattly these days – but it’s no use to anyone now we have this one”.
“I can think of someone who will have a use for it” I said. “Let’s sling it in the back of Caliburn”

I know that I decided that I would only have new things here in this apartment, and a new washing machine is high on my list of things to purchase, but you’ll remember that the other day I told you that I wasn’t going to spend any more money for a while and go to have a good time in Canada instead.

So it’s the launderette for me then for the rest of the year and that’s extremely inconvenient for all kinds of reasons. So any old washing machine that will keep running for 6 months or so will be a big bonus for me. It’ll save me €50:00 down at the launderette as long as it keeps on going.

Back to the dumper, and with fuel getting into the float chamber, it was time to take off the carburettor.

The carburettor is held on by just two bolts. But if I were to tell you the performance that we went through in order to gain access to the two bolts, and then to disconnect all of the throttle and choke linkages, you wouldn’t believe me. It was like that stupid Hyundai Trajet that I did two years ago – all assembled onto a subframe on a bench and then fitted into the framework, so you can’t get at anything.

That took us to lunchtime.

After lunch with the carburettor in my sweaty little mitt I went to take out the jets – but they are fixed in – can’t be dismantled. So I had to work out where all of the air passages were and use a compressor to blow them out backwards.

Sure enough, I eventually discovered a passage that was blocked and so with a fine wire I probed the orifice and eventually cleaned it out. And then a few more blasts of air to make sure.

I checked the float to make sure that it wasn’t holed, and then reassembled the carburettor. And then, I had to stick it back on the engine – which was even more interesting than taking it off.

The good news was that with the first pull (it’s a recoil starter) of the starter it fired up correctly. And Terry and Liz (who was by now back from work) reckoned that it was running better than it had for quite a while.

Liz made a gorgeous tea and afterwards we sat around in the beautiful evening sunshine chatting about this and that.

And now I’m home. And with a washing machine too. Terry and Liz think that they might be on their travels at the weekend so they will pop by and help me bring it upstairs and install it. So this weekend I might even be able to do my own washing. And isn’t that progress?

It’s looking more like home every minute.

Saturday 2Ist January 2017 – PHEW!

I’m exhausted!

I’ve just seen the most exciting football match that I’ve seen for years!

So after yesterday, I had something of a disturbed night. But that’s really no surprise what with everything else that had been going around here just recently.

And it was disturbed for a variety of reasons, not the least being that I was off on my travels again. And for quite a while too.

I started off in Labrador but I don’t remember very much about what I was doing there.
But I do remember being back at my house in France and there was a huge queue of 4×4 quads passing up the track in front of my house making a great deal of noise. But a large tractor went out of control, demolished the stone wall at the back of my house and went bang into my wooden verandah. I went out to see what happened and to chat with the tractor driver who was sitting on a big old red tractor of the 1920s. The verandah was shaken but didn’t seem to be damaged, but the wall was in a state and it occurred to me that this damage made a convenient exit for me to go out there and load up the Escort van which I was still using. So while I wanted him to repair the wall, I didn’t want him to do it quite then.
From there I was back in the UK on the road between Whitchurch and Oswestry. I’d driven past some kind of tall cylindrical brick building like a water tower, followed by a huge brick blockhouse kind of place in a rhomboid shape flanked by two outer towers – used as a big ammunition store. It was set in a very dirty and untidy pig farm, which would prevent visits, that’s for sure. Just after this was a kind of bluff about 30 feet high with a house on the peak, and here I met Nerina. We had quite a lengthy discussion, which revolved around shopping. I asked her if she went to the market at Whitchurch or the market at Oswestry. She replied that the Whitchurch market had closed down and she went occasionally to Stoke on Trent on a Friday evening for her shopping. We ended up going for a walk around Oswestry to the shops and I was telling her about France – how LIDL had opened a branch in St Eloy and how it didn’t matter because at St Gervais (which was actually Commentry, but never mind) they had opened not just a LIDL but an ALDI so we still weren’t shopping in St Eloy, although not that that would matter too much to her because she had never been there anyway – I was confusing her last night with Laurence.

I struggled into breakfast where I had company for about 30 seconds – another lodger stuck his head around the door just long enough to gulp down a glass of orange juice – and then I came back down here to chill.

As the day brightened up, I decided to go for a walk to the shops. But this involved going down to Caliburn to pick up the shopping bags that I had left there by mistake the other day.

I could have gone on down to the Carrefour had I thought on, but instead I walked back towards the town in the freezing cold weather and headed towards the market and the Delhaize supermarket

Instead of going straight on down the Kapucijnenvoer and up the Brusselsestraat, I took the short cut through the maze of narrow streets, cutting off the corner.

There is a great deal of “Old Leuven” that either escaped the ravages of the German Army in 1914 and 1940, Allied bombing in 1944 and the extremes of modern architecture that did more damage to British cities than the Luftwaffe ever did.

As well as that, when the city was rebuilt after all of the damage, it was rebuilt in many cases as it used to be, not as modern architects thought that it ought to be.

Loads of little alleys, loads of little archways that really bring out the medieval flavour of the city. You can imagine just how this city must have been 120 years ago – how wonderful it must have looked.

It’s certainly a much more interesting way to come into the city centre than straight up the Brusselsestraat.

That’s the Brusselsestraat there – down the end of the Predikherenstraat there. And unfortunately, that’s not managed to escape the ravages of modern architects.

Luckily, when the architects and rebuilders turned to the Predikherenkerk, we had something that resembled very much what it was supposed to have been.

This is said to be the oldest Gothic church in the city and dates from 1234. It was originally the church of the Dominican order and the resting place of some of the Dukes of Brabant.

It was badly damaged during World War II, and restoration began in 1961. it wasn’t finally completed until 2008

My trek then took me down along the Oudlievevrouwstraat and over the bridge across the River Dyle. Unfortunately this area hasn’t escaped the ravages of the second half of the 20th Century and a huge pile of new apartments has sprung up overlooking the river.

I must admit that despite the rather bland appearance of the buildings, I wouldn’t mind a little apartment in a block just there, as long as there was a view of the river to comfort me.

Back here to warm up again, I had a coffee and a sit in front of the radiator for a while. And a brief search on the internet for nothing particular produced some astonishing results.

During the “unavailability” of my grandparents, my mother and her sister were boarded, when they were small, with a family in Palmers Green, London and later in Birchington, Kent during the 1930s. We’d kept in contact with them until they had died in the 1950s and 60s and even been to visit them as small children, although I don’t remember very much. My brother was actually named after one of the “cousins”.

It had come up in a discussion that I’d had the other day, and so in a fit of idleness I typed in the family name of one of these people. Much to my surprise, I found several pages on the internet that related to this family. Not only did this bring back many happy memories, I ended up having an on-line conversation with someone from those days.

The world is a surprisingly small place these days, isn’t it?

Another thing that I did, which I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, is to go through all of the till receipts in my wallet. Some of them have been there since I was in Canada.

Amongst the things that I found were a couple of receipts for medication, and a €20 note. That cheered me up, and no mistake.

After my butties and a little chat with Liz on line, I walked up into town and to the railway station. I’m not going to sit around here and be miserable when I can be miserable somewhere else, and it’s usually football at weekend isn’t it?

And I remembered why I had packed an oversize pair of the sports trousers that I usually wear. They had been in my Canada stuff and I’d brought them back here for some reason or other.

Before setting out, I slipped them over the normal-sized pair of trousers that I usually wear. They fitted perfectly and I was comparatively warm, considering that it was minus 3°C

Loads of places that I would have wanted to visit, like Eupen playing in the First Division, or even Hasselt in the Third Division, but Belgian football has staggered kick-off times, and the bizarre thing about that is that all of the matches that I would have liked to have seen, even OH Leuven’s match at Royal Antwerp, finished too late for me to catch a train back home again.

It would have to be Lier and Lierse SK with their cheerleaders.

What a shame!

At the railway station at Lier were three locomotives parked up in a siding, so I went over to have a look at them.

The two on the right, 6291 and 6317, are two of a class of 136 lightweight diesel-electrics built to a style of my former employers, General Electric. They date from the early 1960s.

The one on the left, 7798, is one of a class of 170 heavy shunter-freight locomotives built in the early years of the 21st Century by the German company Vossloh.

I was there in plenty of time and so I went for a walk around the site of the old ramparts of the city.

They have long-been demolished and little remains now. Nothing whatever at the site of the Antwerpsepoort – the Antwerp Gate. But it was here on 5th October 1914 that the British Army’s rearguard, guarding the retreat to Antwerp, erected a barricade and held up the attacking Germans long enough. for the rest of the Army to escape

I was expecting much more of a crowd seeing that the visitors today were Cercle Brugge. But the popular side was packed out anyway, and they made a lot of noise that contributed to the tremendous atmosphere.

I was in my usual place to the left of the goal with all of the other old fogeys, where there was a good view of the cheerleaders. I mean, there have to be some compensations about coming all of the way to Lier in the freezing cold.

As the cheerleaders withdrew from the field they stopped for a moment at the foot of one of the stands so I was able to take a quick snap of them.

It’s all blurred and out-of focus but the camera on my phone isn’t really up to all that much in these kinds of half-light conditions when you are snapping away in haste. And of course, you can’t take DSLRs into public venues in Belgium so this photo will have to do.

Liz asked me how the cheerleaders performed – well, I couldn’t tell you that from first-hand experience but you can see some of their dancing in this video clip just here that should give you some idea.

Not the best cheerleaders that I have ever seen but I just appreciate the effort that Lierse SK has taken to entertain the fans. If for some reason I can’t get out to see OH Leuven I’ll gladly come here and spend my money and I’m sure that I’m not alone.

I can still chase after the women, even if I can’t remember why!

As for the football itself, the two teams were evenly matched. As the first half wore on, Lierse gradually grew in confidence and took control, but Cercle Brugge looked dangerous on the break, especially down the right wing. However, as I have said on many occasions at this level of football, the teams are far too slow to play the ball forward, dwelling on it for far too long and finding the brief opportunites closed down.

Half-time was 0-0 but Lierse had hit the post and the bar, and had a couple cleared off the line too. Cercle Brugge had missed a sitter, open goal from 5 yards out, right in front of where I was sitting. A no-score draw it was, but boring it was not.

After half-time, the teams came out with much more of a purpose and the battle raged from end to end. Everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats as the pendulum swung from one side to the other. The slippery, ice surface was a wild-card in the match too, with players losing their footing at vital moments.

And sure enough, we had a goal. And to the surprise of almost everyone except those who follow this rubbish, it was Cercle Brugge who took the lead. For once they played the ball in early from the wing and caught the Lierse SK defence flat-footed.

And if you think that the game had been exciting up to this point, the two teams upped a gear and we were pinned to our seat as the tension mounted. We probably had the best 30 minutes football that I had ever seen from this point on.

Lierse SK equalised with 15 minutes to go, and Cercle Brugge can consider themselves to be quite unlucky to concede this goal. A Lierse SK player went down on the edge of the penalty area, no more than about 15 metres from where I was sitting, and I had a clear view of it. To me, it looked clearly as if the player had slipped on the frosty surface but not only did the referee blow for a foul, he booked the Cercle Brugge defender. I had a good look, and the linesman certainly didn’t flag for a foul and he was closer to the action than I was too.

From the free kick, the ball went straight to the head of a Lierse SK attacker, totally unmarked at the far post, and he didn’t miss from there.

The final 15 minutes continued at this roaring pace and when the final whistle went, the teams received a standing ovation from some of the crowd. And quite right too because it really was that good a match. And it was a shame about the equaliser – it meant that I didn’t get to console any of the cheerleaders.

I came home in the sub-zero temperature and caught my train at Lier. It’s the Liege train that I catch and I have to change at Aarschot. The train is at 16 minutes past the hour and there are only a couple of weekends when the 20:16 train doesn’t run, aren’t there?

By the time that I returned, I was cold and tired. But I’d had a really good day out and I was feeling a little better than I was yesterday.

I’ll pay for this day out of course, but ask me if I care.

And you wouldn’t care either after having to sit here and read over 2360 words, you poor people.

Tuesday 27th December 2016 – I’VE HAD A BAD …

… day today.

And I’ll tell you how bad my day was if I just mention that today I was invited to go for a good walk around the Ardennes with a quite attractive Canadian lady from Montreal- and I was obliged to decline the opportunity.

With having no neighbours, once I managed to drop off to sleep (which was not very easy) I was asleep until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too – to the border country between England and Wales where I was to meet a businessman whom I know, but instead I fell in with his wife. We discussed all kinds of things that related to her husband’s business and I could easily identify an opening for my wife. After all, she had worked for the Tax office and the DHSS (which of course she hasn’t) and this opportunity was made for her. In fact, another opportunity raised its ugly head during the discussion which would have been ideal for a friend of mine – the one whom is often described on these pages as “The One That Got Away”. As a result, Nerina and I were on a bus heading into the centre of Oswestry and I pointed out to her where to alight – at the Adecco Employment Agency. The only slight problem with that though is that whoever I was wasn’t Nerina, and neither was it “The One That Got Away” either. No idea who it was, actually.

So after breakfast and my chat with my neighbour, I sat down with the new laptop and had a play with my 3D program. And I’m pleased to say that the speed and capacity of the new laptop mean that I can do so much more, and do it more quickly too, and that’s why I bought it in the first place.

I did make it out too – but only just to the supermarket on the corner for some bread for lunch. And now I’ve run out of lunchtime stuff (except the lettuce) so it’s a big shop tomorrow.

This afternoon I worked on my website and crashed out for well over an hour too. I was right out of it for about half an hour too when I awoke. i’m clearly not too well.

But by the time I went to make tea I was feeling much better. And we had a huge chick pea and potato curry. It was absolutely delicious and there’s enough for another three nights too. I followed it up with Christmas pudding and custard and that’s delicious too.

Now I’m going to have another early night – I hope that it’s yet another good one.

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

When I awoke this morning, bright and early, I went out to grab the cereal and soya milk from the back of Strider. And by heck, I wish I hadn’t!

Winter has definitely arrived, that’s for sure. Just look at this lot outside. It’s just like back home in the Auvergne isn’t it, with the hanging cloud, the cold and the freezing fog that has blanketed the Appalachian Mountains round about here on the edge of Kedgwick.

I had had a bad night last night despite just how comfortable it was in my nice big bed in my nice big room.

I’d crashed out by about 21:00 but I was tossing and turning all over the place and was really uncomfortable. Somehow I was tired and completely fast asleep and somehow I wasn’t, and I’m not sure that you’ll understand what I mean. But anyway, I was wide awake at 01:00, with the radio still playing, so I turned it off and this time I managed a decent sleep, until about 05:00

I’d been on my travels too, with the welcome return of Nerina, who hasn’t set foot in these nocturnal rambles for quite a while. We were at my house, in its usual state of papers all over the floor and we were looking for some papers that really ought to have been there but weren’t and this was all becoming far more complicated than it ought to have been. At he same time, Zero was at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up. She was being her usual cheerful self and we were discussing smoking. She said that she had tried a cigarette once, so I smacked her bottom for her.

When I sat down to breakfast I found that I had forgotten to fetch the spoon so I ended up eating my breakfast cereal with a fork and trying my best not to crash out again. I’m clearly not well at the moment.

Still, I can’t sit around here all day moping about the bad weather. I need to be moving on despite the fog. And this time, I didn’t forget to go and take a photograph of the night’s lodgings just for the record.

I’d been low on fuel too last night and there was an Irving’s next door – one of the reasons why I had stopped here – so I went off and fuelled up. I now have 97 Air miles after that – isn’t that good?

When I was on my way in the other direction 10 or so days ago, I’d stopped at the supermarket in town where I’d discovered baguettes on sale at half-price. I popped back in there on the way past this morning to see how the land lay and, sure enough, baguettes were on sale again. And so with what I had bought yesterday at Matane, that was lunch organised.

On the way through St Quentin the other day I’d noticed that there was a railway station in the town, on the old abandoned Canadian National railway line between Campbelltown and St Leonard.
There were a few railway artefacts on display outside, and so I’d pencilled the station in for a visit on the return trip and so here I am.

The little locomotive had caught my eye and I wondered if it really was a narrow-gauge locomotive that had been rescued from a mineral line somewhere. But in fact it was built in 1985 out of scrap and recycled materials by a couple of Canadian National employees from Campbelltown.

That wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye either. What do you reckon about this?

It’s a platelayers’ trolley but enclosed (a necessity given the severe winters around here) and with a petrol engine rather than a pump-action handle, which is a bit of a cheat. They were used by the track maintenance crews during their duties, which included fire-watching because sparks from the steam locomotives setting the forests alight was a real problem.

So much so that it will come as no surprise for any regular reader of this rubbish to realise that the station building here at St Quentin is not the original one. That, just like any other building here in Canada, caught fire and burnt down.

However, the most exciting exhibit here at the railway station must be this weird machine.

I’m not sure of the proper name by which this machine might be known, and I certainly have never seen one of them before, but I think that it’s magnificent and I definitely want one of these.

There were lots of other stuff actually inside the station, which was by the way not only a museum but the local tourist information office and the offices of the local Chamber of Commerce.

There was some kind of collection of railway wagons here too and so I went for a browse.

This caboose caught my eye – and not just because it’s a caboose but because of the message that’s on it. It reads “Dessert tout le Canada” which, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s any “crudely” involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) as “serves all of Canada”.

However, that’s clearly a spelling mistake. It should read “Désert tout le Canada” which means “Abandons all of Canada” – which is certainly true these days.

This is why I have to mess around on buses and rely on Rachel to pick me up in Florenceville when there’s an abandoned Canadian National railway line that passes at the bottom of her garden and an abandoned Canadian National railway station right next door to the tyre depot.

By now the hanging clouds had gone, the sun was out and I was coming out of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful day now so I headed to St Leonard and the Saint John River to find a place to eat my butties.

I found a nice place to park up for my lunch – the car park for the Rendez-vous des Artistes in St Leonard. It was closed up so I didn’t think that anyone would mine.

What appealed to me about this place was that it had a good view over the river and right by one of the few remaining railway lines in New Brunswick. And I thought that I had heard a locomotive whistle too and so I prepared the camera, but nothing came by while I was here.

That over there across the Saint John River is the town of Van Buren, which is in Maine, USA. I was sitting right by the border crossing on the Canadian side of the river admiring the view and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

And I wasn’t alone either. They say that there’s one in every village, and the one in St Leonard sought me out for a chat. He was speaking French and what with his accent and a speech impediment that he had, I couldn’t make out one word in every ten that he was uttering.

Nevertheless, we put the world to rights for half an hour and then, in the words of the reporters of the long-gone and long-lamented “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Back up the hill and I hit the highway southwards, and aren’t I grateful for speed limiters and cruise control? I set the speed to 108kms and settled down for the drive back to Centreville, and it was then that I noticed in my rear-view mirror a County Mountie slowly closing up on me. But with the speed limiter I didn’t have too much to worry about in the normal run of events. He eventually passed me, having a good glance as he went by, but with the cruise control in operation he had no reason to pull me over and he eventually pulled away in front.

I was having visions of David Crosby and his
“It increases my paranoia”
“like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car”
“But I’m not giving in an inch to fear”
“‘cos I promised myself this year”
“I feel like I owe it to someone”
and reckon that it applies to me – I certainly owe it to myself, that’s for sure after all that I’ve been through this year.

I tracked down my mailbox too. And talk about a local postal service – my mailbox is about 7 or 8 kilometres from my plot of land. It’s astonishing. How I’m supposed to go and get my post in the middle of winter is totally beyond me.

But there was some really good news for me. Regular readers of this rubbish might recall that the motor insurance on Strider was cancelled about my head last year when we had the driving licence issues. There was a cheque in my mail box for the refund of the cancelled policy, minus the time on risk value, and this was not far off the total premium of the new policy. The cheque had timed out and so I took it back to the brokers in Florenceville and they wrote out a new one.

Waving that around in my sweaty little mitt, I went to the Scotia Bank and paid it in. I did a few more financial manoeuvres … “PERSONoeuvres” – ed … there, and now I reckon that I could keep on going over in Canada for a good while if necessary.

Back at the tyre depot I met up with everyone, had a coffee and a chat, and then we went back home to Rachel and Darren’s. Rachel made a lovely tea and we had a good chat, and then I crawled off to bed at some really early, ridiculous time.

This six weeks gap between treatments is evidently too much, but I’m not complaining. Despite the health issues that have now caught up properly with me, I would never otherwise have come here and I wouldn’t have missed my trip to Canada for the world.

Tuesday 5th July 2016 – I HAD ANOTHER REASONABLE NIGHT

I didn’t even have time to watch a film last night before I’d gone off into the Land of Nod. I was well-away with the fairies. Only two trips down the corridor as well, and not only that, I was on my travels too. I was driving a coach along the A51 northwards somewhere around Barbridge and I was completely exhausted. Nerina said that she was in no fit condition to drive and if I needed replacing there was someone else on the coach who could drive. But I didn’t know what this person was like and so I resolved to keep on if I could – after all there was only 10 miles to go.

Someone woke me up from the kitchen this morning at 06:44 and so the blasted bells didn’t bother me too much. And I’d breakfasted (and a good breakfast too) long before 08:00.

I had a good chat with someone on the internet for an hour or two and then went off to buy a baguette for lunch. I went to the supermarket on the corner just here seeing as how I didn’t need anything else, but I also bought a packet of garlic powder and madras curry powder. I’m here for 11 weeks so I may as well try to make my meals appetising to some degree during that time.

I’ve spent all day (or what was left of it because I had rather a long lunch break) on the blog, doing some updating. And one of the entries ended up being something of a mega-project. I’d had a day out on the 4th July 2011 and wrote all of … errr … 250 words about it and posted two photos – out of about 30 that I had taken. And so I sat down and re-wrote it completely.

I spent all afternoon doing it, including doing a pile of research, and there are now over 6 times as many photos and almost 6 times as many words and you can read all about it here. It’ll keep you all out of mischief.

Liz came on the internet too a little later and so we had a good chat. I might be having to go on a little train journey sometime soon. It’ll be good to change the scenery a bit.

And talking of a change of scenery, I might be having an evening out tomorrow. Anderlecht are warming up for their matches in European competition and they are coming here tomorrow night to play a match against OH-Leuven. Depending upon how I’m feeling, I might have a stroll down the road. I shan’t expect the local side to do very much but it’s ages since I’ve seen a good football game and I could do with an evening out.

For tea, I finished off the other half of yesterday’s meal and had to have my spicy cake with no custard seeing as how I’ve run out. I’ve run out of spicy cake now but that doesn’t really matter because I’m eating out tomorrow night if I go to the footy.

So I’ll have a nice quiet relax and then I’ll be off to bed again. And I hope that I’ll have another good night again.

But before I go – here’s a thing. We’ve all been told by the UK Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer how evil it is to borrow money and spend our way out of recession. And yet today, the Bank of England has issued instructions to the UK Banks to ease their “special capital requirements for banks, potentially freeing up £150bn for lending” and “to provide more lending to households and businesses”.

There has never ever been such a dramatic U-turn by the British Government as this, and it shows you just how much of a panic the Government is in as the British economy is melting away because of the Brexit.

Strangely enough, the National Press hasn’t picked up yet on this – presumably because the Papers don’t want to spread even more panic. But it’s totally amazing, the depths to which this Government is sinking as it tries to shore up the sinking economy.

And the Pound dropped today to its lowest level against the Dollar since 1985. The UK is on the run, big-time.

Wednesday 8th June 2016 – YOU MISSED …

… all of the excitement here this morning. A lorry was delivering to the front of the hospital across the park from here, and because it’s all so tight for manoeuvring, the only way that he could leave was to drive 20 metres the wrong way up the drive, reverse back around a corner, and then go back the right way.

That’s exactly how I would have done it and this was indeed what he was trying to do, but some old woman in a car coming up the drive had deliberately blocked him in, refused to move, and told him to go out of the hospital via the exit – totally oblivious to the fact that it’s too tight for him to turn his lorry around the corner.

And there she sat, and there the lorry driver sat (not that he had much choice in the matter) until Yours Truly and someone else intervened . And then, instead of reversing 20 metres backwards, she pulled forward and blocked off the turning down which he needed to reverse. And we were back once again in the impasse.

I tell you – you can’t make up stories like this in Belgium, can you?

But we’re back with our old sleeping habits, so it seems.

Not exactly 100% though, because I did manage to stay awake to watch the whole of a Boris Karloff “Mr Wong” film. And then I couldn’t drop off to sleep straight away – must be my guilty conscience I reckon.

But then I awoke sometime during the night to go for a ride on the porcelain horse, and the 05:00 dawn chorus finally managed to arouse me from my slumber and that, I reckon, was that.

I did manage to drop off to sleep again at some point because I was on my travels with Nerina. We were at some place down the east coast of the USA and I’d arrived at the hotel which I had booked (in advance, not like me) to stay the night, and I was parked up at the side of the road on rather a wide verge waiting for Nerina to appear. She came along eventually, via the golf course, where she was playing a round of golf. Not that I know anything about golf, but this golf course was weird. There weren’t greens as such, but what would normally be the “green” was gravelled over with tiny loose chippings and the “hole” was a small, narrow trench that conducted the ball to where the hole would be. But Nerina was clearly enjoying herself. Away in the distance on the skyline was another complex, of buildings, hotels and a huge amusement park and this was where I had arranged to stay for the following night (none of this sounds like me, does it?) which pleased Nerina even more.

I’d switched the mobile phone off yesterday and had forgotten to switch it back on before going to bed, so that accounts for the reason that I didn’t finally awaken until 08:45, and it was a grey, miserable, overcast day that greeted me this morning. Nothing like the last two days that we have had.

That patisserie that I mentioned yesterday – it was closed today too so I reckon that we can rule that place out for the rest of my stay. I ended up at the Delhaize further on for my baguette. And I’ll have to go back there tomorrow too because my shredded lettuce mixture stuff has gone off and I need to buy some more. A small pack is only €0:51 in there.

After lunch, the weather brightened up considerably and it was a lovely, warm summer’s afternoon while I was in here working (with windows that don’t open either). But tonight I went out to Caliburn and cooked the second part of my meal. And with it being so nice, I sat outside in the evening sunshine and ate it.

Exactly the same meal as last night, in fact, and it tasted just as beautiful. But tomorrow, I’ll have to try something else. Maybe a ratatouille with tinned mushrooms, or chick-peas perhaps. That sounds like a plan.

It’s a gorgeous evening, with the late, low suns streaming into my little room. I’m going to settle down now and watch a film or something, and see where I end up tonight.

Friday 27th May 2016 – IF ANYTHING …

… my night last night was even worse than the previous one. I was awake for ages before going to sleep and then I awoke again at about 03:30. every time I tried to go to sleep something or someone brought me back round again and that was annoying.

None of the foregoing though stopped me going on a wander. I started off with my old rock group and we were practising in the concert room of some workingmen’s club somewhere. The club opened at 18:00 but the concert room didn’t open until 19:30 so we were able to hire it for that 90-minute period every so often. Things were a bit shambolic and anarchic and it was clear that we weren’t getting on too well together but we had to persevere.
From here we went on to the house of someone whom I know in France. There was agroup of us there and two of our number, the lady owner of the place and her friend, went out for a walk. They hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes when there was the most astonishing thunderstorm and the heavens simply opened. I’d never seen so much rain in all my life. The house leaked like a sieve and the rain roared inside. The two people outside came running back and we asked them whatever possessed them to gooutside when the weather was threatening like this. I wanted to go into the next room but a stream of water cascading down the walls and down the door made me unwilling to open the door but someone else did so and we were thus able to leave the kitchen and go into the living room. But as we went inside, the daughter of the house (who was already in there) shouted “you should see the water going into the bucket”. What was happening was that there was an avalanche of rainwater falling down inside the house, bouncing off the stair rail and going straight into a sink at the back of the living room. But the whole house was inundated, soaking wet, and everything was being ruined.
A short while later, I was at another house and suddenly a couple of people arrived, one of whom was Nerina. They had been to the shops and bought tons – and I do mean tons – of stuff and they were unloading the car and dumping the stuff everywhere. Our task was to take it where it was supposed to go. I remember that there were four huge picture frames but what was in them I do not know because they were wrapped in Christmas gift wrapping. I had two of these and was taking them to another room, but trying to fight my way out with all of the rest of the items and everyone else in the way was proving to be much more difficult than it ought to have been.

The dietician came to see me this morning, and brought one of his drinks to show me. But even though it has no milk as such in it, it’s jam-pack full of milk proteins and so that’s no use to me unfortunately. Apart from that, he doesn’t really have too much of an idea as to where to go from there.

And the doctor came too. She was dismayed when I told her that just half an hour earlier, my “stomach trouble” had reappeared – and in spades too. I did think yesterday that it was too early to go crowing about it. But she tells me that they have decided against the chemotherapy that I’ve been having. They are going to give me some other sort of treatment. However, it does have all of the same side effects such as the shivering and the fever and it’s every three weeks, not every four, so I’m not sure how much further down the road we are going to be with this.

I have a horrible, nagging suspicion that my illness isn’t going to respond to anything really and that I’m going to be stuck like this for ever. seeing them bring another pochette of blood to me this afternoon did nothing to allay my fears.

The spinach that I ordered for lunch came smothered in a creamy kind of sauce which was clearly no good for me so it looks as if I’ll have to abandon my idea of a varied diet and stick with the mixed veg, rice and extra carrots for now.

In case you are wondering, it’s true that I’m feeling pretty disillusioned right now. Not with the hospital, which is doing everything that it reasonably can do to help me out, but with the way things are working. I was hoping that by now I would have shown some kind of improvement and would slowly be starting to get on top of everything, but it’s clearly not working out like I wanted. All of this is generally making me feel quite miserable and when I look back on all of the things that I was doing a year ago, or four years ago, or 10 years ago, it’s beginning to drag me down to think that I might never be doing that again.

So this afternoon I sat quietly (or as quietly as I could – only two visitors per patient are allowed at the bedside at any one time and so a huge family that has just come from Africa to see a relative is all crammed in the day room and as they rotate two-by-two they are creating something of a carnival atmosphere in here and I’m in no mood to enjoy it) and read a pile of stuff on the internet.

Still, tomorrow is another day. It’ll be quieter because there are no ancillary staff members on duty, but I don’t expect it to be any different.

Monday 9th May 2016 – WA-HEYYYYYYY!

Yes, folks, I’m free!

I’ve been expelled from the hospital this evening, and I definitely heard at least one nurse say “if he comes back, I’m leaving!”.

Apparently everything is as it should be (but I forgot to ask about the blood count)and there’s no reason now for me to stay. I promptly gathered up my things and cleared off. You’ve no idea just how pleased Caliburn and Strawberry Moose were to see me, and we all quickly headed off into the sunset (well, it wasn’t THAT late, but it’s a nice piece of prose).

Earlier on in the day when I’d gone down to make my cheese butty, I went to the reception desk. Seeing that I was trailing a perfusion drip machine behind me, these seemed like a good time to go and negotiate the car-park situation – no-one could doubt my bona fides with all of that – and sure enough, I was given a free pass.

But when our Three Mustgetbeers went to use it at the exit barrier we succeeded in jamming up the machine completely. And by the time that someone came to unjam it (I had beaten a hasty retreat by this time) there was a queue a mile long at the barrier. Ahh well!

I nipped to Sint Pieters for the stuff that I had left behind and ended up having something of a “discussion” with the woman in reception. I’d parked Caliburn on the ramp outside the door of the hospital and my intention was to mention it to the receptionist in case she was wondering whose it was, and to say that I would be back in two minutes.

As simple as that, hey? But as you know, in anything in which I am involved, the facts are quite often different and the explanations that I was forced to give (all in Flemish too) took a darn sight longer than two minutes. It would have been quicker to have said nothing at all.

And it was all a waste of time too because they had cleared out my part of the fridge and everything had long-since been binned, including about €20-worth of sliced vegan cheese! I’m furious about all of this!

I did however stop at a huge supermarket on the edge of Leuven for a pile of shopping, including at long last, a decent pair of headphones instead of these rubbishy in-ear ones that are falling to pieces already, and then I made my way out (and I do mean “out”) of town into the countryside to the campus at Pellenberg where I’m staying until Friday.

But let’s return to the events since the last time I spoke to you all. I’ll tell you all about Pellenberg tomorrow after I’ve had a good prowl around.

When I went back into my romm last night it was absolutely stifling in there. So much so that I came back out here and watched a film on the laptop until about 22:30. And by then, it was much better back in the bedroom.
Memo to self – close sunblind first thing in the morning to keep out the heat

I slept a little better too, although the night was full of awakenings. Nothing like the previous one though, thank heavens, and I don’t recall the night-nurse (except for one occasion but I was awake anyway so that doesn’t really count).

I’d had some mega-rambles too and some of these (the bits that I remember anyway) are quite impressive.
Further memo to self – remember to charge up the dictaphone

I started off with a Sherlock Holmes adventure and it really was an adventure too. Nothing at all like Conan Doyle’s books but a huge Gothic horror ramble too that took us through the by-wys and alleyways of London, haunted houses in the countryside, graveyards and the like. Something very much akin to”Sherlock Holmes meets the Son of Dracula”. It was loosely based on a Sherlock Holmes story something like “The Engineer’s Thumb” but I don’t now recall exactly which one it was.
From here, we went on to have another cameo appearance from my Greek friend Maria. I was in Northampton, in a fourth-floor apartment looking out over a T-junction and one of the roads, the road to the right, was labelled something like “take this road to a better future”. This inspired me somewhat so off I set. But when I arrived down at the junction, the traffic lights changed to red. “This is an auspicious start” I thought to myself. But eventually I could continue along my way and I did notice that the road looked no different than any other street heading out of town. We did however come to a kind of sales room where there was an auction taking place. I arrived just as the last lot was being sold off – a 1940s-type of motorcycle and there were only two bidders. The price wasn’t all that high either but as usual, I had come totally unprepared, with no money or anything and so I had to pass up the opportunity. I did make a mental note, though, that I’d be back with plenty of cash if this is the kind of thing that goes on around here. And it was here that Maria put in an appearance too. It’s been … ohhh … 14 years since I’ve seen her in real life (but only about 2 weeks on here, I reckon) so we had plenty to discuss and tons of news to exchange.
But by now I was back home (wherever that might have been) in a rural environment with Nerina. We had an appointment in half an hour and I’d been working so I was dirty, and this is when I discovered that the hot water had been turned off, so no bath. I had to light the boiler and hope that 15 minutes would be enough to at least heat it up so that I could have a quick plunge. But that didn’t work out as it should so we cancelled that, and I missed the appointment in the end. But then I started to tidy up outside the house – trimming the edges of the driveway and in the end the place looked beautiful out there (I wish that I could do this at my house) so I carried on inside. There were all kinds of weeds and the like growing on the floor of the bedroom so I attacked those too and by the time that I had finished, the bedroom floor was so clean and shiny with nice brown parquet floor. It looked so beautiful. Even Nerina and a third person (I can’t remember who he was now) who was with us passed a comment and I felt so proud.

That took me up until 06:00, and by 06:45 I’d polished off the orange left over from yesterday, drunk some water and performed my toilet. And at 07:00 I was in the comfy chair in the day room, beating the sun by a good 10 minutes. Now that I’ve worked out how to make the comfy chairs recline, it was my intention to stay there until either the laptop battery or the coffee machine ran dry, whichever was the first, but I had failed to take into account the persistence of the nurses who did everything in their power to disturb me, such as giving me medication, changing my perfusion, taking my temperature and blood pressure, taking my weight (I’ve gained 1kg, by the way).

That’s not all either.

The doctor and the professor came in for a lengthy chat with me and this was followed by the girl from the Social Services department to discuss accommodation for me. It seems that a place has been found for me at Pellenberg until Friday morning for when I leave here, which (as you have seen already, I did today).

Later on, I was told that I had to go for an ear examination. The appointment had been arranged at 13:30 but was at Sint Rafaël across town so I needed to go there. This meant being picked up by the shuttle at 12:30. So at 13:00 I boarded the shuttle, having been pushed in a wheelchair about 20 miles around the campus here, had my appointment at 14:00 (and I have a hearing loss in the treble ranges of my left ear and telling jokes to foreigners, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once said, is indeed “a total waste of time” because the doctor sat there pasty-faced when I explained that that was probably why I play bass guitar) and then had to wait for the shuttle at … errr … 15:00.

All in all, it was 15:45 by the time that I arrived and had they been more organised, told me earlier that I could leave, and disconnected me from the pipes and tubes, I could have waked there and back in half the time.

But the examination itself was horrible. I had all kinds of stuff including, at one stage, a camera, stuffed up my nose and in my ear and I felt dreadful.

And upon my return, I found that I had a new room-mate too. So it’s a good job that I was leaving, wasn’t it?

It was on this note, starving to death and totally fed up, that I went off to make myself a cheese butty. And you know the rest of the story.

Sunday 8th May 2016 – I WAS A BIT PREMATURE …

… in my thoughts that I could turn of the air-conditioning in my room. By the time that I went back there at the end of the day, the thing had started up again and that was that. The night-nurse had a play with it later but he could only manage to slow it down rather than switch it off and so that was that.

It didn’t make a blind bit of difference though because firstly, the one right outside the door started off full-tilt a little later and secondly, we had an “incident” during the night. I’m not sure what it was but a group of family members which had stayed well-past the end of official visiting hours until the small hours of the morning suddenly upped sticks and went outside the room and two nurses came down, who promptly closed the security curtains around everyone else’s room entrances. One can only speculate.

I was awake until long after 01:00, again at 04:00, again at 05:30, again at 06:00 and I gave it up for good at about 07:00. By 07:45 I was encamped in the window seat in the day-room although with much less sun than before and with a nice pleasant breeze blowing in through the open door. But judging by the grief-stricken faces of the German-speaking family in there this morning, my speculation about the events of last night can only be correct. And later on, a nurse confirmed it when I asked her, although she was clearly unhappy to tell me.

I’d been on my travels too for quite a while during the night (so it can’t be the antibiotics that’s causing those then, can it?). I started off at home with my mother and my elder sister and we were as usual having a dispute. I needed everyone’s co-operation (and the chances of that every happening in our family were about zero, as anyone who has ever read any of this rubbish will realise) to be somewhere at 14:00. It was now 12:45 and nothing had happened and everyone seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. In the end I stormed out of the house, went off to a group of people – long-haired motorcyclists whom I knew – and we promptly all came back to my family’s garage-cum-service station (because last night that’s what we owned and that’s where we lived) and smashed the place and everything in it to smithereens and then burnt it down to the ground in an orgy of anger and destruction. It didn’t solve the problem of course but you’ve absolutely no idea how much better it felt.
Later, a friend and I were actually involved in the running of some kind of informal garage service. We’d taken over a derelict site that was still in working order (not the family one of course) and set ourselves up in business. I was dishing out the fuel from these dilapidated petrol pumps but I couldn’t let the cars go (there were only three of them anyway) because my colleague hadn’t come back with the paperwork that I needed (as you all know, I have a “thing” about recording fuel consumption, mileages and so on). When he did finally put in his appearance he had forgotten to bring the stuff with him so my plans were all of a waste of time. But then a car (a black Capri) appeared and asked for fuel, and an air line because the front offside (a RHD car) tyre was flat. My colleague said that the wheel bearing on that side had gone and needed to change it. The driver stuck his head over the wing of the car and asked if we needed to take the wheel off so I replied in the affirmative. He said “to blow the tyre up?” to which I answered that I thought that he was talking about the wheel bearing – you don’t need to remove the wheel to blow up the tyre.
A short while later, I was off a-wandering on the bank up to the railway station at the top end of Winsford. I don’t remember who was with me but one person might well have been Nerina (although I can’t be sure now) and the other was someone who was something of a long-term unemployed man who had to scratch around to make a living (reminding me very much of someone whom I used to know in Crewe in the early 1970s). We were walking up the bank and an aeroplane – a huge Guppy-type thing – passed right over our heads and descended even lower, passing over a village in the valley at less-than-rooftop height as it went into land at Manchester Airport (this is a good flight-path, I can tell you). The plane itself was painted white and belonged to the parcels carrier whose livery is white with dark red stripes and a kind of script writing (and whose name I will remember as soon as I press “Publish”). I asked our companion whether the planes flying as low as this overhead bothered him, to which he replied that these don’t, but the two that come over at 10:30 and 16:00 are devastating. We ended up back in his house and Nerina (or whoever) went into the kitchen to make food or something. The guy had been out for a while and came back, counting a sum of money which I reckoned to be about £120:00. This seemed to be his share of his “dole” money after his rent and other stuff had been paid. He told me that if I were to look in my jacket pocket I would find “a couple of quid”. This was intended to be for whoever was in the kitchen, for everything that she was doing for him, and he would be grateful if I could pass it on to her at a convenient moment.

Alison said that she would come to see me so I wandered back to my room to get prettied up ready for her visit – after all, I have to look my best, don’t I? And in my room I found a banana and a bottle of lemonade too. It’s like a hotel here and I’m so lucky.

When Alison turned up, she brought a few surprises with her. Such as, a pot of almond-based ice-cream, two cans of fiery ginger beer, two packets of dry toasts, one pack of rice cakes, two soya vanilla desserts, some strawberries, one partridge and one pear tree. The ice cream disappeared without trace right in front of her eyes and after she had gone, one of the vanilla desserts, the strawberries and some rice cakes went as well. And after she went, I went and made myself another cheese butty. My appetite is back and raging, isn’t it?

It was lovely to see Alison, though. A bright, cheerful, smiling face to match the sunshine outside. She stayed for almost two hours too which, at the price of parking here at the hospital, shows a major sacrifice. We had plenty of time to discuss my latest plans which, as you know, change with the weather (or, more likely, my state of health).

And if you think that that food was enough to be going on, that really isn’t all. My favourite little nursey, hearing that I couldn’t eat the bread on offer, went off and toasted a couple of rounds for me which was really nice of her. She even brought me an ice-cold bottle of lemonade afterwards so I must be clearly in her good books.

But apart from all of that, what else have I been up to today?

The answer is “loads and loads”.

I’ve finally been in the right frame of mind to have a huge attack at updating my blog.

You might remember that when I brought my blog in-house in 2013 all of the tags and links were missing, and the photos didn’t set right. I started a little plan of attack to correct it, which I have continued in a desultory kind of fashion but today I crashed right on, did the whole of April 2012 and some of July 2012 too (May and June need “special consideration” for which I need to concentrate). I just hope that I can maintain the momentum for the rest of the site.

So now I’m going to prepare for an early night. If I am being ejected tomorrow, I need to be on form. And furthermore, I need to know where I’m going to be living too because the girl at the Social Services was absent last week.

Good job that I have the fold-up bed and single quilt in the back of Caliburn, isn’t it?

Thursday 5th May 2016 – ONE THING THAT I HAVE LEARNT …

… from these most extraordinary nocturnal rambles that I’ve been having is that when you lash out in the middle of the night, you really do lash out.

There I was, in Stalbridge Road in Crewe having a crafty little doze at the side of the road in Caliburn when someone’s hand sneaked in through the open window to grab a small box that was on the passenger seat beside me. I grabbed hold of the hand, broke a finger, exited via the door of Caliburn and gave this person a resounding kick up the backside, which sent my perfusion support, side table and empty bottle of Sprite flying across my little hospital room – and hurting me on the foot in the process.

And so we learn. And this might also explain a few of the cut and bruises that I find upon myself every now and again.

This wasn’t all that happened in the night either. Nerina and I were walking along Rope Lane in Shavington near to the Vine Inn, disagreeing with each other as usual, when this monstrous kind of animal turned up and started harassing me. I chased it away much to Nerina’s disappointment, but this animal quickly showed us why it was so monstrous and as you are probably eating your breakfast right now, I won’t go into details.

As for my day today, this morning was as usual. Dozing in bed and going to the bathroom was how I spent much of my day. And in answer to a question posed by a keen reader, I have been weighed this morning, and I’ve lost 8 kilos. I don’t recommend this illness, whatever it is that I have, as a weight loss remedy however

By though lunchtime, we were off again, and I do mean off. The meals came round and the very smell of the cooking is enough to set me off again and so I beat a hasty retreat into the small common room here.

A nurse brought me another Sprite (last night’s was delicious and I enjoyed it so much) and here I stayed until about 15:30. And strangely enough, I felt so much better and that three hours was probably amongst the most pleasant that I have had since I arrived here last week.

Eventually though, I needed the bathroom and so off I went back to my room. However, the atmosphere was quite oppressive all the same and so by 17:00 I was back again in the common room. I stuck it out for about two hours before I had to go back to the bathroom and by then I had come apart again and I was so depressed.

But at least one thing is clear, and that is that there’s some kind of odour or atmosphere in my room and that’s what’s making me feel like this. When I’m elsewhere (like in the common room) I feel so much brighter and so much more alive, and so I’m going to decamp to there tomorrow as soon as I awake, and see how I feel. If it doesn’t work, then I’m no worse off but I reckon that the change of scenery – any change of scenery – will do me good.

My room-mate left hospital today so I’m on my own tonight. I’m looking forward to a decent night’s sleep (at long last) which will make me feel even better, but I bet that something will come along to muck it all about.

Thursday 14th April 2016 – TODAY’S THE DAY …

… when I find out if the first lot of chemotherapy worked or not. I hope that it did, because I don’t want to go through too much more of it. Horrible, nasty stuff!

And so I celebrated by finding the toaster (in the cupboard under the sink), and had toast for breakfast. and a second mug of coffee too, seeing as how it was so nice. I dunno who makes the coffee at this place but they can come and make it for me any time they like.

I needed it too because I’d been well away on my travels during the night. It was something of a disturbed night, tossing and turning and waking up, and so much of what happened and where I went to has long since disappeared into the mists, but what I remember of it was all pretty exciting enough.

I started out with Nerina yet again and we were on our travels in Europe. There was a magnificent site that, to me, could only be an Iron-Age hill-fort but no-one else seemed to agree with me, and some of it had been demolished. I took Nerina to see it and gave her something of a lecture about it, explaining that it was maybe dating from the Visigoth or more likely, perhaps the Merovingian era (although neither lived in hill-forts, but we mustn’t go letting facts get in the way of a good nocturnal ramble now, must we), and that regardless of any rumour or speculation (because the Merovingians have always throughout history been treated as something quite different, even by the Church, and some have even speculated that they might have been spacemen) were just another unknown wandering Eastern tribe that finally collided with Western “civilisation” during the great Western migrations. And I pointed out loads of things that related to the hill-fort that had caught my eye. I didn’t realise it at the time that my “lecture” had drawn quite a crowd and a family came over to me afterwards and asked me to give them a guided tour. I explained that I knew nothing and was merely interpreting, as an amateur, what I was seeing, but they were most insistent.
A little later, I was in Crewe, right down the end of West Street by where Barlow Brothers scrapyard used to be, and I had a pick-up that was towing a trailer. I was out of the vehicle doing something on the verge when a huge lorry went past and the draught sucked my pick-up off down the road. I was sure that I’d applied the handbrake and left the pick-up in gear, but there it was – going off down the road. I ran after it but it was long-gone, and suddenly it burst into flames, going faster and faster down the street. A horse of mine (now, what would I be doing with a horse?) leapt off the trailer and ran back towards me. It was on fire, and quite badly too by the looks of things, but a passer-by threw some water on it and doused the flames. I had a look at the horse and although the hair was charred, the skin looked okay and so I debated as to whether I should call a vet as I put it back in my back garden. But my pick-up was long-gone by now.
And even later, I was driving along a dual-carriageway, “my” side of which was under heavy repair and the road was limited to one lane and was in dreadful condition, so most vehicles were driving the wrong way along the outer lane of the other carriageway. I attempted to do the same but was cut up by a big van so had to continue trudging along, and at the next break in the central reservation, the same big van cut me up yet again. I ended up at my doctor’s, on the second floor of a tall terraced house, right by the side of this dual-carriageway and by now the road had deteriorated into one massive construction site and vehicles were picking their way through it as best as they could. Some young boy in a souped-up American sports saloon of the 1970s was driving like a maniac and as we watched, he clipped a small car coming the other way and turned it over, and spun into a pick-up and totally flattened it. He, of course, escaped unhurt. The small car that was on its side, the construction workers used one of their machines to try to turn it right-side up but they dropped it into a water tank and had to fish it out with a fork-lift truck. After all of this, a small woman with a shaven head emerged from the car. All of her worldly belongings were in the car, ruined by now, and she was destitute. She looked quite shaken and so I beckoned her up to the doctor’s. When she arrived, I explained that the doctor was busy but we would let her go in next for a check-up. She was clearly upset, and was going on about her car and her goods and however was she going to find a mortgage to replace everything?

Having resolved the issue of breakfast, off I toddled to the hospital. My appointment was at 10:50, and do you know what time I was seen? Anyone from the UK would never ever guess correctly – they would be at least a day or two out – but I was seen at 10:50 precisely – bang on time.

They took a blood test from me and fitted a drain in me, and then I was told to wait in the waiting room. And wait I did – for all of about half an hour when I was summoned to see the doctor – a nice young female trainee who can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes. I told her everything – about my arm, about the compression in my chest, about the loss of appetite, the fatigue, the nausea – absolutely everything, and she poked and prodded me just about everywhere – right at the end she asked me “may I feel your groin?”. Well, who am I to argue with that?.

She then went off to consult her professor, and came back 10 minutes later. “We need an ecography of your stomach”.
“When is this likely to take place?”
“14:15” she replied. You can see that we are clearly not in the UK. That was only 90 minutes, not 90 days away.

So I had my ecography and then went back to hear the news.

And I suppose that you are all dying to hear what is going on, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, but it doesn’t make pleasant reading – not for me and probably not for many others either. But here we go.

Basically, the embolism is back in the right arm. It seems that the veins in there are not good enough to support a drain. This means that everything will have to happen in the left arm, and the veins aren’t all that much better in that arm either and they are worried. In view of everything else that is likely to happen to me, more of which anon, they propose to fit a catheter port in my chest. This news (the catheter in the chest, not the embolism) has filled me with complete dismay.

Secondly, they have detected some gallstones. These are by no means a problem but they are blocking a good view of my intestines. They are talking about sending a camera down, but this, I assure you, they will do over my dead body. I’ll suffer like this before I suffer like that.

Thirdly, the chemo hasn’t worked as well as has been expected and so I have to have another transfusion. I had one pochette on the spot then and there, as well as an injection to stimulate the red blood cells.

Fourthly, I have to go back for more chemotherapy, and that’s fixed for 29th April. This is after the end of the 15-day period during which I’m allowed to stay here, so something needs to be done. Those of you with long memories may recall that I was given “advice” by that guy in the European Union’s Social Services department, but the net result of that as been zero. He hasn’t even bothered to reply to my e-mail, never mind do anything about the issues involved. What a waste of time that was!

However, the girl from the Social Services at the hospital seems much more helpful – she sought me out today at the hospital and we had a little chat, and she thinks that once she knows what the programme is, she might be able to help me find somewhere to stay in the neighbourhood. That’s the ideal solution – she seemed to know what she was doing while all of this was going on.

So beaten, battered and bewildered, I left the hospital and went to move Caliburn around the car park and to rescue the clean clothes that I forgot the other day. And then, I took the bus back here.

I did have a pleasant surprise tonight though. I’m limited with what I can eat right now as my taste buds are out of order and I still have some nausea. I seem to be limited to pizza and to the cheapo pasta shop up the road and round the corner. But tonight, looking for a change of diet, I found an Asian take-away. They did a huge portion of vegetable stir-fry and rice for just €5:00.

I’m not a big fan of food from the Chinese end of Asia, but I did cheer up when he started chopping up half a broccoli. And I do have to say that this was one of the nicest commercial stir-fry meals that I have ever eaten (I stress the “commercial” because nothing whatever can match Liz’s stir-fry). I shall add this place to my list.

So tomorrow I need to start work. I need to sort out this accommodation question because I reckon that I’m going to be here for the duration, so I may as well come to terms with it.

EPIC HALL

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