That’s because I was far too busy with other things.

Well, actually there will be one but it will be a very sad one – a surreptitious one of the inside of a Refugee Centre in Brussels.

But at least, it doesn’t matter how sad it is, it’s there. And it’s more than anything that the UK is offering to any refugees any time soon.

When the alarm went off at 07:30 I was up and about already. And at 08:00 I was at the door of my guests across the way with a typical Belgian Sunday breakfast – croissants and koekjes. The local bakery around the corner did the business. No reason why my guests can’t profit from some of the local culture.

At 09:00 we hit the streets with these several suitcases of luggage – all that they could salvage from their the remains of their apartment after a week living in a cellar on the left bank of the Dneipr or whatever the river is called in Kiev.

Our train was the 09:33 to Oostende that took us to Brussels Midi and having been on a recce yesterday I went straight to the ticket office. Producing the passports of my guests was enough to obtain free passage to Paris but the bad news was that with it being the start of the Easter fortnight, the next train with any vacant seats was at 16:13.

No chance either of going via Charles de Gaulle Airport and then the RER to Paris.

Nothing for it but to sit and wait. At least the Refugee Centre was welcoming, with coffee on tap and food for those who needed it.

My guest took her children out in turn with the dog (did I say that they had brought a dog with them?) so that they could have some fresh air, prevent boredom and see the sights. Not that there are any sights worth seeing around the Gare du Midi of course. I stayed guard over all of the luggage and the luggage of just about every one of the four million Ukrainians who have fled the cruelty of an insane butcher.

Once I found out where the porcelain horse was, I could have a coffee. I’m working on the principle today of “if nothing goes in, nothing will want to come out”.

Eventually it was time for our train. And “packed” wasn’t the word. They had even sold the seats in the bar which was just as well because that was where we were sitting. In my perambulations up and down the train to stretch my leg I saw just one empty seat.

Fighting our way through the entry gates to the Metro was exciting too. They are very quick so unfamiliar people with heavy suitcases and a dog are apt to be caught out if they aren’t forewarned about how to go through them. As it was, the young girl found it quite stressful.

Mauling the baggage from the platform up the steps into the street was quite an adventure too and that about finished me off.

We had a tragedy too. I’d but a litre of iced tea in my computer bag having forgotten to first put it in a plastic bag and the container had leaked. There was about 20cl of iced tea swimming around in the bottom.

Too late to do anything about that now. We pushed on regardless to the station.

Give me a choice of 15 rounds with Mohammed Ali and 15 minutes with French bureaucracy and I’ll take Ali any time.

In Belgium (and apparently in Poland and Germany) it had been so simple. Present your passport at a guichet and your ticket is handed to you. But not in France.

“Go and see someone from the Red Cross” said the receptionist, pointing to someone in a red fluorescent tabard.

So off we went and we were led all the way across the station to the other side, down the side of the far platform and up some steps onto a balcony, miles away. Not a sign anywhere.

“Why didn’t you do the job properly and erect some camouflage netting over the steps?” I asked rather bitterly.

Trying to beat some sense into the officials up there was difficult. I knew the time of the train (19:50) and how the procedure worked but the receptionist insisted on giving a long-winded explanation that was totally superfluous and I blew my top. I’d had a trying day already and this just put the tin hat on it.

Having finally negotiated a laissez-passer for my guests I then had to walk all the way back to the ticket office for my own ticket. At least the guy there was very friendly and even asked if he might speak English to me. “I learnt English at school but I don’t have the chance to practice.”.

Back at the Refugee Centre (I ain’t ‘arf clocking up the miles) I blagged a cup of coffee and a bottle of water (even though I’m not a refugee but I felt that I’d earned them) and relaxed.

Our train duly came in so we wandered off back down to the platform and scrambled aboard. Luckily with it being Monday morning tomorrow and this train returning as the 05:55 for a 09:00 arrival when it will be packed, it was a two-trainset train so we had plenty of room to spread out.

And to my surprise, after being drenched in ice tea, my computer still worked.

As we were heading for home I typed up some notes and then had a listen to the dictaphone. I had been in a Motorway Service Station last night. Some little old man had come in. I don’t know what he had done but I heard a message over the tannoy in some foreign language but I didn’t understand which language it was but I understood it. It said that two security guards were needed to put this man outside. I went to tell this old man but as I reached him 2 security guards turned up. They were about to throw him out so I told them that he had the right to collect his possessions before he leaves. They didn’t believe this but of course it’s true so I insisted. They then called someone to throw me out too but it ended up in a brawl all the way across this service station.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I went through a phase of violence in my dreams a while ago. It looks as if it’s come back again.

It’s three hours on the train from Paris to Granville but this one takes longer as it has two extra stops – at Versailles and Dreux. My guests had been a couple of days snatching snacks here and there when they could and they were too tired to even think about even a bag of chips last night.

And so I now understand the definition of a “moveable feast”. I was glad that I laid in those supplies that I’d purchased the other day. Not much of that will make it home.

Much to my surprise (and to everyone else’s too, I shouldn’t wonder) the train pulled in to Granville bang on time and I said goodbye to the nice young girl who had been sitting across the aisle from me.

And then the rest of us swarmed out of the train to be met by a welcoming committee – an event that was one of the most touching things that I have ever seen.

Of course by this time after all of this I was totally wasted and so I was offered a lift back home which was really kind. And having had nothing to eat since a slice or two of toast for breakfast (I don’t eat ham and cheese etc as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I tucked into my lunchtime sandwiches – at 23:45.

Monday is usually the day when I rise at 06:00 and do my radio programmes. But if anyone thinks that I shall be up at that time they are mistaken. I shall sleep until I wake up – which means that the nurse will have an early morning blood call in the building so can he do my injection while he’s here?

Just now I’ve been down to the railway station and come back with a family of Ukrainian refugees.

This is something that has been simmering away for a week or so, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

The issue has been getting from the Polish frontier into a railway station in Warsaw and that wasn’t easy at all. But last night at 23:00 they finally struggled into Warsaw and the rest has been comparatively plain sailing.

They are installed in an empty room across the courtyard from me and we are off on what is probably going to be the most difficult leg of our journey tomorrow – to wit, negotiating with Belgian bureaucracy. I lived in Belgium for 15 years and I can tell you quite a few stories ….

But retournons à nos moutons as they say on the southern side of the linguistic divide.

It’s a good job that I was awake and up and about this morning before the alarm because the alarm didn’t go off. For some reason that I have yet to fathom, the battery in the telephone went flat during the night and so it switched itself off.

Mind you, it did surprise me for despite trying my best to go to sleep early, I ended up involved in yet another lengthy chat about these refugees. There I was, in total darkness dressed as nature intended, trying to hold an intelligent conversation as the small hours drew on.

What surprised me more than anything was that there was even time for me to go off on a few travels during the night, as I discovered when I listened to the dictaphone after the medication. I’d met this young girl who was really nice. Even though she was quite a bit younger than me we’d had a really good time together and things were slowly starting to develop between us. But something happened and in the end she cleared off with my brother. That led to something of a scandal in the family but I couldn’t understand why because it was just one of those things that happened. I don’t think that it was because of that anyway but it was quite the talk, the relationship between these two. I’d ended up being away for a while. When I came back a group of people met me, some older, some younger. The mother of one of these younger people was talking to me. The question came round to what kind of girl I would actually like. I can’t remember what I said at first but this woman replied “she has to have brown hair, doesn’t she?” I thought “not really”. I said “hair will grow. It makes no difference to me”. Someone came up and said “you’re going with whatshername (they actually said that)”. I asked “what do you mean? I’ve not heard anything”. She said “you’ve been invited, or haven’t you iyet seen the parents of a certain girl who in real life created a stir around the Auvergne for a short while?”. “No” I answered. They replied that she was having one of the parties that she had and there’s an odd number of men and women because she’s on her own so she was going to invite you”. I thought that that would be a strange situation because the last couple of times that we saw each other it didn’t work out very well. We had a little walk around and I ended up being on my own walking through this town thinking “what on earth is going to happen here?”. Then I was with someone else again and we carried on walking. We saw someone coming towards us carrying some kind of brochure and I thought immediately that it was something to do with this girl. When they went past I breathed a sigh of relief.

Later, I was dreaming something in the Middle East but I can’t remember what it was. It ended up being a race. There was a start and things in the distance. You ran the first one then came back and did the second one then came back and did the third one etc. While you were doing it, depending on which lane in which you started you had to say some things in Welsh – the present tense of the verb “To Be”. I was doing fine except by the time that I reached the third lane I’d forgotten. I couldn’t remember quick enough and lost count of where I was and what I was actually doing in this race.

There was then a group of us out in the Middle East. One of the members was a very evil, horrible person. We suddenly found ourselves in a zone that had been badly damaged and was under an air raid. This guy fell into a bomb crater. Gradually his expression and appearance changed and he started to become someone quite nice while he was in this shell hole panicking, trying to get out. We were hoping that he would end up trapped in there for several days

Did I tape … “no you didn’t” – ed … the bit about where we were all leaving school and we had to go distributing leaflets around to different areas for charity purposes etc? There was a girl there whom I liked who was off doing it. When she came back she said that she had done 6 miles and was feeling pretty exhausted. i was there talking (… battery when flat …)

(…Start that one again…) We were at school and we had to distribute all kinds of leaflets around. We were all talking about what would happen – would we all need to lay in a bottle of sherry in case people came round to our house for this charity thing that we were advertising for school? One girl came in and she had done about 6 miles. She was sitting there totally exhausted. Her legs were all swollen up. She was a girl whom I happened to like. There was a little dance going on so I wanted to dance with me but she was far too exhausted so I stayed around there chatting to her. She was younger than us. One of the girls had to leave so I went over to say goodbye to her. She pointed to this girl and said “just take it easy with her. She’ll be OK”.

And later yet on a different occasion I’d done something to Caliburn and my niece’s husband came to look at it. He walked around down one side but I didn’t want him to go down the other side because that wasn’t particularly pretty but he walked over there and walked round the other side of the van but went off into the bushes for a gypsy’s. I was hoping that he wouldn’t see the other side when he turned round and came back.

Now it was time for me to head into Brussels.

The train that picked me up was one of the decrepit and derelict AM 80 trainsets. Built between 1980 and 1983 they look every bit like something from 40 years ago both on the inside and the outside, but mechanically they still do sterling service on main-line express work and sound as if they will keep on going for ever.

At the station I tracked down the Refugee Centre and had a chat with the people there who gave me some very helpful information. A railway guard informed me that Ukrainian refugees can travel on the SNCB for free on presentation of an identity card or passport.

Not so much luck at the TGV office. Yes, they can travel free on the train but the first train with empty seats is at 13:13. I was planning to be almost home by then, never mind kicking my heels around Brussels.

The train back was one of the class 08 trainsets.

There are four trains per hour from Brussels to Leuven but they don’t run, as you might expect, every 15 minutes. They come one after the other and then there is a long gap.

The fourth train in this set is a stopper – “all stations to Leuven and I’d just missed the third – an InterCity Express – and I wasn’t going to hang around for half an hour

Back here I had lunch, having realised that I hadn’t had any breakfast this morning.

This afternoon I rather unfortunately crashed out – and crashed out definitively too. So much so that I went off on a little voyage. I can’t remember how this started but there was some kind of game being played at school – a kind of word game between a minimum of 2 people. I was with a group of two others and a female teacher was controlling it. For some reason she only asked questions of the other two so after a while I told her that there was no point whatever in me having come out so I may as well go back in again, and I walked away. On my way back in I reflected that although I hadn’t started my final year at school yet, I already had a degree from the Open University so there wasn’t even much point in staying at school so I could leave and go off and do something more beneficial.

After I awoke I finished off cataloguing the photos and then there was a football match on the internet. Y Barri v Connah’s Quay Nomads. Another good game that finished 1-1 but could (and should) have been more.

Y Barri’s goal came from a penalty that was described as being “controversial”, the argument being that George Horan won the ball. Which he did of course, but only after having wrestled Kayne McLaggan to the ground.

After a quick tea of Beans and chips I headed off to the station to meet my refugees. We arranged a signal, that I’d sent them a photo, and when I met them on the station I showed them the same photo so they knew that it was me.

Loaded up with luggage, all their worldly possessions that remain, it was rather a struggle for us all to come here. But we eventually made it and they are all properly installed with a shower and everything that they need until tomorrow morning when we go back on the road.

And now I’m off to bed. No lie-in for me tomorrow so I’ll be feeling like death before we even start.

God alone knows what I’ll be like when we finish.

… not sitting in a rainbow but back in my little room after a nice evening out with Alison in the Greenway Vegan restaurant where my spicy pepper burger, although being delicious, was nothing like as spicy as it might have been

And last night was nothing like as spicy as it might have been either. It’s been an age since TOTGA, Castor or Zero came to accompany me on a nocturnal ramble and I am missing them terribly. So I suppose that I shall have to work on improving my aim.

Instead, I was running a club and a taxi company last night. I had a couple of new drivers and was having to explain to them the prices on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve didn’t start until 22:00. If they were running late and didn’t pick someone up until 22:05 although they were booked at 22;00 that was our loss, not the passenger’s. I had to explain it in great detail. I had live music going as well. There was a group performing and one of these musicians was THE GIRL WHO WAS REALLY A MERMAID and they couldn’t seem to make their equipment go loud enough. I thought that they could turn it up so I went to turn it up but they seemed to be rather reluctant to do it. In the end I asked how much cable they had on their PA amps because I could stick them over the side out of everyone’s way where people were falling over them, as if I’d learnt nothing from that gig THE OTHER MONTH and that would improve the sound by having the speakers spread further out but they were all very reluctant to do that.

There was a group of us again in one of these gondola cable cars going over the port of one of these big German cities looking at how it was built all of stone. One of our friends had to look away. She couldn’t look at things like this. But the stonework that made this pier out into the harbour was really impressive, large stones piled up on top of each other to make an artificial thing that stuck out into the water. Again, we thought that we would go and have a look at this because the city was bombed and totally destroyed in World War II and what a job they had made of rebuilding it and making it ……. because the state that it was in, if anyone got on there with any strength it would float away. And I wish that I could decipher the gap near the end where I was mumbling in a daze.

But the consolation is that whatever it was that I missed, at least it wasn’t long enough to have caught Zero in my evil clutches.

After transcribing the dictaphone notes the rest of the day was spent choosing music for the next batch of radio shows. That’s five more added to the pile. For obvious reasons, I need to be well ahead of where I actually am supposed to be so that I can leave a trace behind me when I’ve gone. Although sometimes it’s not easy to concentrate.

At lunchtime I had to go out to the supermarket around the corner as I have – what a crisis! – run out of coffee. But to my dismay, they had no cheap coffee there and I ended up walking through town to the Delhaize in the Brusselsestraat. I picked up a couple more bits and pieces while I was there too.

On the way back I bumped into the manager of the complex and we had a little chat amongst ourselves. I have a cunning plan …

Alison contacted me later on. Did I fancy going out? Well, I’m all in favour of that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. We met in the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein in the rain and had a slow walk to Greenway.

Afterwards we went for a coffee in the Grote Markt and a really long chat. And the subject drifted round through all kinds of subjects and people. In fact the only one of my three young nocturnal lady-friends who didn’t have a mention was Zero.

If I’m lucky she might come to visit me tonight and I promise that I will make it up to her. But the chances of that happening are … well … remote.

… to find the time to go off for a walk this afternoon.

Not that it wasn’t without its complications as I had three different groups of people at one time in communication with me about this refugee issue.

And one thing that I’ve discovered (well, I knew it anyway from years of bitter experience) is that it’s a really great deal of effort to actually help people and make progress. And there’s a long way to go yet.

But these are of course First-World problems. I would probably feel so different had I been chased out of my home by a Russian tank with my two children and then watch a guided missile demolish my whole street.

They actually had a similar kind of experience in Crewe during the war when a wagon-load of munitions exploded just outside the station – 40 tons of it. They say that it caused £50,000,000 worth of improvements to the town.

For a change I had a good night’s sleep, even though there wasn’t much of it. I had my little Hawkwind playlist going round again and I enjoyed it so much that I played it a second time

And why couldn’t I ever find a violinist like SIMON HOUSE when I was playing in rock groups?

Leaving the bed wasn’t easy of course but eventually I was up and I went off for a shower and to wash my clothes. And I noticed that one of my socks has a huge hole in the heel. I can see that I need to go shopping later.

Steam-driven computing is not easy when you are having a Welsh lesson on Zoom but I managed it without too many inconveniences. It just took ages to switch in and out of break-out rooms, by which time most of the work had been done.

It ended up being quite a late lunch because there was so much to do. But once I’d eaten I could go out for walkies. First stop was the office here. I’ve extended my stay until Sunday now and I needed to pay the supplement. But they hadn’t had the account yet so I needed to call back later

FNAC and Zeeman had nothing of interest, but I managed to find some socks in Wibra. And then round to whatever Origin’O is called now where they had vegan cheese and vegan sausages at last.

On the way back I went to the office to pay the bill – I just caught them before they went – and then back here for a coffee. My emergency supplies are being depleted rapidly and I’ll need to buy a small jar before I’m much older.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too. We were at school again, all of us. One of the teachers had thought that he had Covid and went and had a test but found out that he hadn’t so he carried on teaching at school. There was a girl in his English class who I was very keen on indeed – the farmer’s daughter in fact even if that’s nothing whatever to do with Deep Purple, who has figured occasionally in our voyages but while she wasn’t there last night she was in spirit. Although I had never succeeded in getting my evil clutches around her, nevertheless we did come into a fairly close contact on one occasion round about the day that this teacher nearly had Covid. While he was talking to a load of people about this I happened to throw into the conversation that “I nearly infected all of your class with it”. He was actually teaching my brother at that moment so he was in fact interrogating my brother on “how come? Who? Which girl?” but my brother didn’t know either. He might have had an idea about this particular girl but he didn’t know for sure whether it was her or whether there was someone else whom I’d really had in a clinch. While I was outside the room, a little girl came out, a tiny little girl bouncing a ball. He shouted something at her about the ball so she went back in and then came out. I asked her what had happened and she replied that the teacher had taken her ball. I told her that she could take STRAWBERRY MOOSE if she wanted but she said no. All she wanted was her ball.

And then I was back at work. There were a few problems in the office because we had two Trades Union reps and they were both off sick so no-one was dealing with Trade Union issues. First of all, as a line manager I had to go to see one of them, who was an old guy who had been there for years (the other was the woman who worked with him but I can’t remember her name) and remind him of his obligations to inform his employers about his work and any new contacts he made even though he was off sick. Someone, while I was reading out the oaths to these two people, came along and reminded me of my oath to appoint a replacement. I had to think of a replacement and someone’s name came to my mind. I wasn’t sure if he would do it seriously or whether he would use his position for other kinds of purposes. But it was strange being in that office after all this time with this kind of thing that happened and a load of damp peppers that could go some way towards saving any meal that I was making

While we’re on the subject of meals … “well, one of us is” – ed … after tea there was football on the internet – Penybont v Y Drenewydd. And you’ve no idea how exhausting it is watching a game in “portrait” format on a smartphone.

There have been plenty of games better than this that we have seen – and plenty worse too – but the score of 2-0 to Drenewydd was rather flattering.

So, totally exhausted, with 81% on the clock, I’m off to bed to listen to Hawkwind and try to fall asleep. I’m ready for a good sleep, especially if I have some decent company with me during the night.

… exertions of the weekend and all of these difficult nights just now, I slept like a baby last night.

Even though I should have been radioing, I switched off all of the alarms and that was that. I awoke a few times during the morning but when I finally left the bed at about 10:10 I was feeling like a new man.

Not surprising, because I’m pretty much fed up of this one.

No toaster in this apartment so I had to grill my bread on a hob element and it didn’t turn out too badly. I didn’t make the mistake of turning it full-on but just under half produced something that resembled toast as well as I can do it.

Actually I was feeling rather miserable and quite ill as it happened but nevertheless I staggered outside in the light drizzle to go to the shops.

At Delhaize I stocked up with food for the next few days and bought a can of energy drink for the journey back to my room. And I needed it too because my load was a little heavier than usual and I wasn’t feeling myself today.

Well, when you are carrying two shopping bags, you don’t have a free hand, do you?

Back here I chatted to the manager of the property. There were one or two things that I needed to organise and while I’m at it I asked about a toaster and sure enough, he provided me with one.

For some reason or other I wasn’t hungry today so I did without lunch. Instead I went through the music on the laptop and organised it properly. That helped me free up 30GB of space on here which is just as well because I’m starting to run out of space.

As well as that, this refugee issue reared its head again and I spent a lot of time trying to resolve what are seemingly unsolvable problems

There was still time to watch the highlights of some of the games of football at the weekend and then to transcribe the dictaphone notes. And there weren’t many of those as I hadn’t gone far. There was something about a landing craft full of people coming in to port but for some reason they couldn’t tie up so the captain wanted to beach the landing craft on the sand to let everyone come ashore that way but the ship hit a rock as it was manoeuvring onto the beach and sank offshore.

After tea I wrote out my notes but crashed out for half an hour halfway through. And I don’t understand that either – it’s not as if I’ve done much today.

Tomorrow I have my Welsh lesson and it should be interesting trying to do it on this laptop. It’s quicker than the laptop at home but the internet is slower here.

A good night’s sleep will do me good but I wonder if it will be as good as last night’s. Only one way to find out, isn’t there?

… o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.

And so they did last night. With countless interruptions of all sorts and kinds of nature as I was trying to listen to Hawkwind and work myself up into a frenzy of passion before going (hopefully) to sleep, the final straw just as I was reaching the climax of “Spirit Of The Age” when someone sent me a message “would I be able to pick up a party of Ukrainian refugees in Cologne and escort them to Normandy?”.

That led to some kind of intense discussion and debate that reached the conclusion that if they could reach Cologne and go to the huge refugee welcoming centre here just outside the station, they could help them to reach Leuven on Friday and I can do the rest.

We’ll see how that all pans out over the course of the forthcoming week with my hospital visit on Thursday and so on but the immediate result was that the nice warm and comfortable, contented feeling that I had after listening to Hawkwind had evaporated completely and I ended up lying in bed working out a route and plans of how the trip would be accomplished.

Another night of tossing and turning in bed again and I’m having far too many of these just recently.

At some point I must have gone to sleep because there was stuff on the dictaphone. Later on (“later after what?” I asked myself) I was leading a couple of refugees around in Europe trying to get them to Normandy. I can’t remember very much about it and couldn’t decide what I was doing when I was awake and what I was doing when I was asleep

At another point I was in a Lada saloon driving from Greece to Normandy bringing a family of refugees with me, an old man, a young boy and a mother, having to organise them and find my way, part of which was on my old road from Virlet to Brussels.

So you can see that it’s the kind of thing that’s really getting to me even in my sleep.

There was an alarm this morning set for 08:10 and when it went off I was actually up and about, which just goes to show that I can do it when I really try.

Just for a change (and a real change too) I was first down for breakfast but gentleman that I am, I waited for all of the others to arrive. And my luck was really in this morning because I found the baked beans. So now as I walk around the city I shall have assistance from the wind.

Even though we finished breakfast quite quickly, it was 11:00 when we tore ourselves away from the table. With not having seen each other for so long, we had so much to talk about.

Jackie, who is our travel guide, knew of a 28-storey tower on the right bank of the Rhine where there is an observation platform so we headed off for the Hohenzollernbrucke that goes across the river.

The lift up to the top was an impressive machine. 28 floors and it probably took about 8 seconds to reach the top. We half-expected it not to stop and to launch us into the ionosphere.

But the views from the top really where impressive. Just wait until you see them. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that many years ago I was on my way to Central Germany in Caliburn and as we came over the brow of a hill Koln was spread out before us. This afternoon we could see all the way back to that viewpoint.

After we descended we walked upriver for a while and then crossed back over to where the “crane” apartments are. There’s a pleasant cafe situated in the foot of one of them where I was introduced to the delights of rhubarb-flavoured water. And believe me, it’s delicious.

We walked back along the banks of the Rhine into the town centre and after Alison had collected her luggage and found her rail ticket, we stuck her on the train to Brussels and then the rest of us cleared off to the brewery in the town centre.

Eventually we had to break up the happy party. Jackie went home, Hans and I collected our luggage and went back to the station for my train to Leuven and his to Munich.

The train to Liège was quite busy as far as Aachen but afterwards I could stretch out a little. The train to Leuven was a double-decker so although there were crowds on the platform, there was plenty of room on there as well.

A long wait at the fritkot for a bag of whips to eat with my burger that I’d brought from home and now I’m ready for anything. Almost anything, that it, because it’s bed time. A few bad nights has wasted me and so I’m having a lie-in tomorrow morning.

… here at some point to wonder where I went to during the night, what I was up to and, more importantly, who came with me to do it.

But I’m afraid that you are going to be disappointed.

Last night was what they would call a “nuit blanche” around where I live – a night where I didn’t sleep at all. And I don’t know why but I was tossing and turning all the way through without dropping off to sleep for a moment.

Consequently there was nothing whatever to report.

When the alarm went off I was out of bed quite quickly and after a shower I went downstairs to meet Hans for breakfast.

After breakfast we went to our rooms to prepare to sally forth to meet everyone else.

There is one thing in this world that no matter how rich and famous you are, no-one else can do for you. And so while I was thus engaged, there was a knock on my bedroom door and thinking that it was Hans, I let loose a torrent of vulgar abuse and vitriol, only to find when I opened the door that it was the cleaner.

That’s what I call an omelette sur le visage moment.

At the railway station we met Jackie and then Alison immediately afterwards, and then we came back here for Alison to register for her room and dump her stuff.

Finally, everyone being assembled, we all set sail for the town.

Firstly we stopped for a coffee and then set sail down the Rhine for an hour. It had stopped snowing by now and although it was freezing cold, it was a reasonable day.

When we came back we went for another coffee at this expensive place that Jackie knows and everyone else had a slice of cake – the best cakes in this part of Germany so we had been told, and they agreed with that description.

And then we hit the shops. Alison had quite a list of what she wanted and Jackie wanted some stuff too. And Cologne is the place to come for that kind of stuff.

Back here to drop off everyone’s purchases and a little “relax” for half an hour, time that Jackie and I spent chatting about old times and then out for a meal.

On our travels during the day we’d seen a “vegetarian Indian restaurant” and that was our stop for the evening. And on entering, I knew that it was going to be good judging by the number of Indian people dining here.

No place for tourists this.

And I was right too. This was one of the best Indian meals that I’ve ever had outside Stoke on Trent and I shall be putting the toilet roll in the fridge tonight.

Across the road to the pub afterwards for drinks and a chat, and listen to the music on the pneumatic accordion and tuba before coming home to the hotel and sticking Jackie on a tram.

Alison was having no end of difficulty with her room and her internet and there wasn’t an awful lot that I could do to help unfortunately.

At least I managed to write up my notes and prepare myself for bed. But that won’t be for a while as I have Hawkwind on the playlist again and it’s the kind of music that I’m in the mood.

Ich weiss night wass ich sagen sollde.

… that 17.4 million people in the UK actually voted to deprive themselves of the right to do what I and several other people are doing right now.

But Hans, my friend from Munich, and I are currently sitting in a room in a hotel at the back of the railway station in Köln and tomorrow several others will be joining us.

And apart from the odd partner or two, we are all British from all different parts of Europe. It’s been so long since we’ve all seen each other that we’ve decided to have a weekend together and catch up with what we’ve missed for the last two years or so.

And so this morning, having almost fallen out of bed (I’m not used to sleeping in a single bed) the first thing that I did after the alarm went off was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

And make the most of it because I’ll be too busy over the next couple of days to type out any dictaphone notes.

To start off, we’d been all rounded up in Crewe. They had started from the west side of the town and were pushing everyone out to the east. I’d set off eastwards and as I was going down Earle Street past Prince Albert Street there was a little girl skipping whom I vaguely knew She shouted out that she’d been chased away from her house as well. Then another girl who was older, probably about 12 or so said so had she so I told them both to come over here and we went arm-in-arm skipping off out of town. As we arrived at Winterley it was starting to become night and cold. We saw a horse blanket in a hedge and I was thinking of grabbing it to cover us at night but the older girl said that they were still civilised people at the moment and didn’t intend to resort to stealing unless it was a last resort and they wanted to push on as best as they could normally. I replied “yes, but we’re going to be pretty cold tonight” but they said that it didn’t matter. It was what she wanted to do. The 3 of us carried on heading out towards Sandbach

And then I was with a girl last night – a girl who was rather like someone I knew from a while back but was much more friendly and lively and enthusiastic. She’d been collecting some kind of toys that you make scenery with, they use for scenery. One particular one that she had mentioned was something like 3 children in a kitchen, like dolls’ house furniture and people, that sort of thing. I can’t remember ho it had all started but she went off to do something and then the suestion of this dolls’ house stuff came up. I thought that this would be a nice thing for me to buy her for Christmas, some more stuff like that. Then she came down with some of the clothes that she had, a kind-of silk dressing gown and some nighties. I told her that she had some lovely clothes. She said something about what should she do with them so of course I said “you should just hang them on the wall for everyone to look at when they come in, some kind of sarcastic response but I was being funny. She smiled and laughed. It seemed to me that here was someone with whom I could have a really good time, a really pleasant and happy relationship. It looked as if things were going my way.

Eventually I went outside to go for my train. And I’m glad that I packed a sweater because not only was it freezing cold, it was now snowing and it looked as if it would stick as well.

At the station I popped into the Carrefour for some breakfast and then caught the train to Leuven For reasons that relate to my various return trips, I had to break my journey at Leuven so I went to the little supermarket at the back to buy some supplies, and then while I was waiting for the train to Liège I treated myself to a piping-hot coffee

And I can’t say that I didn’t need it

The train was a push-me-pull-you and wasn’t all that full so I had plenty of space to spread out But no power on the train so I had to listen to Colosseum Live on the ‘phone And regrettably, yet again I wasn’t assailed by any nubile young ladies.

The magic of Colosseum Live seems to have worn off, unless it only works on board ships.

Having frozen to death on the station at Liège for 15 minutes the German ICE train pulled in and I could scramble aboard. Plenty of room on board until we reached Aachen when suddenly it was swamped with people and we were crowded in like chickens in a coop.

But having said that, the German expresses are super-comfortable and I hope that the next generation of French TGVs will be like this, although one power socket between two people is not the best way forward. Luckily I had first dibs so I could read about the excavations of a Neolithic burial site in Kent while Hawkwind and I stomped all our way to Köln.

Hans’s train was a few minutes late so I had to hang around for a couple of minutes while they took his driver out and shot him (this IS Germany) and then we headed off to grab something to eat.

Finding the hotel wasn’t easy. There’s one right at the back of the hotel but they couldn’t find our reservations. Eventually it turned out that there are two with the same name within 300 metres of each other and it was the other one that we wanted.

They couldn’t find my reservation either but then a problem that I’ve noted over the past ever so many years ever since I’ve been using this booking agency was resolved. For some reason, they have my given name and my family name reversed.

Once we’d dealt with that, things were fine. But I’ll need to remember it for the future because it explains several difficulties that I’ve experienced in the past.

The Wyndham Tryp Hotel is expensive but this is a city centre hotel in one of Germany’s major cities and it’s within staggering distance of the station and all amenities so all things considered it’s good value and I’ll stop here again if ever I’m this way.

Now that I was properly clothed for sub-Arctic conditions, we went out for a long walk around the town, stopping for various coffees, a vegan Thai meal and even a slice of vegan apple pie as we wandered around in a snowstorm and finally ended up back at the hotel where I’m staying for a couple of nights.

There’s been a football match on the internet this evening so after the final whistle I’ll try to catch the cached programme and hope that my computer has the processing speed to stream it. It won’t stream the live broadcast but then steam-driven computing, even with the 1TB SSD that I fitted a while back won’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

If not, I’ll have an early night ready for the hordes of people tomorrow. And maybe a snowball fight or two if this weather doesn’t improve.

Our trip down the Rhine on a pleasure cruiser looks as if it’s a non-starter anyway. Not much good of you can’t see the river bank due to a raging blizzard.

… about the wisdom of stopping at this hotel, especially when I saw the keycard that they gave me.

There is certainly no doubt whatsoever. Corona certainly is much more than plastic cards, as many millions of the population will confirm.

In actual fact, I’m in Brussels at the Hotel Midi-Zuid. That’s a hotel at which I’ve stayed on many occasions in the past, usually when I’m catching a plane from Zaventam.

But don’t worry. I’m not going on a plane any time soon. I have nothing like that planned at all.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I sprung energetically from my bed, just to prove that I can do it when I really try, and then I spent the next couple of hours backing up the computer, making my food for the journey and then doing some tidying up.

Not much though. I didn’t go mad. But in a crazy fit of excitement I took out the rubbish.

At 08:00 I set out for the railway station. No neighbour to run me up the road today.

As usual, I stopped at the corner of the Boulevard Vaufleury and the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne to make sure that the NIKON 1 J5 was working.

There wasn’t a great deal of activity going on down there in the port this morning. There was one shell-fishing boat moored up at the fish processing plant but that was about my lot.

As for the Joly France ferries, they aren’t over there at the Ferry Terminal today either. Maybe they aren’t going out to sea today.

And if you want to know where they are, they are here.

The two Joly France ferries and the newer Belle France are moored up down there, two of them parked in Marité‘s space. So it doesn’t look as if she’s coming back in the immediate future.

Also moored up down there underneath the crane is Normandy Trader, one of the little Jersey freighters. I mentioned the other day, when we saw the swimming pool on the quayside, that one of them would be coming into port quite soon.

Most of the route to the station wasn’t as difficult as it might once have been, but once I stopped for breath, about 200 metres from the top, I had to stop twice more over the final bit.

Regular readers of this rubbish will remember seeing a concrete pad that had been installed on the station car park.

Now we can see exactly what it is. It’s a de-luxe bicycle shed for the hordes of people whom the town evidently think will be cycling to the station along the new concrete path that they have spent so many millions of Euros laying.

A closer look revealed that there’s a tool kit there and also a bicycle pump. Europe seems to be catching up with what we saw in Minnesota in 2019.

Well, what I saw. You haven’t seen the photos yet of that trip.

It was snowing over much of Europe this morning. Not here though, but nevertheless it was absolutely taters and I froze to death waiting for the train to arrive.

It wasn’t any warmer when we boarded either. It must have stood in the open air all night with the windows wide open. It took an age to warm up as well.

It was fairly busy but I had no neighbour so I was able to update this computer and then to read the Ninth Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, dated … errr … 1910.

Why that is interesting is that It lists every expedition that it known to have visited the Far North of Canada (except of course the Norse – it predates William Nunn’s book of 1914 in which he predicts the discovery of the Norse encampment at L’Anse aux Meadows) and the places that they named, in as far as is known.

And as you might expect, the area in which I’m currently interesting was surveyed by Belcher’s expedition of 1852-1854 and as you might expect, his information is described as “scant.

But some of the explanations for the naming of some of the places are extremely whimsical. in 1854 James Rae named Bence Jones Island in the Rae Strait “after the distinguished medical man and analytical chemist of that name, to whose kindness I and my party were much indebted for having proposed the use of, and prepared, some extract of tea for the expedition”.

We arrived in Paris bang on time and I braved the freezing cold wind and rain to go down the street to the Metro station to save a few minutes.

The train was actually in when I arrived at Paris Gare du Nord but I wasn’t concerned about that right then.

There’s “something” happening in a couple of weeks if it all goes to plan and so I needed to go on a recce of the station. And a helpful SNCF cleaner helped me out in this respect.

So back to the platform and everyone was already boarding. As usual, it’s a double decker “Reseau Duplex” and I’m upstairs yet again.

No-one sitting by me so I could eat my butties in peace and carry on with my reading as we hurtled through the void on our way to Lille.

We arrived at Lille bang on time which is always good news. And so I went round to see what was on the front of the train pulling us along.

And here’s a surprise. We’ve seen all kinds of hybrid trains made up of a mix of trainsets on which we’ve travelled between Paris and Lille.

But today, not only do we have another double decker “Reseau Duplex”, which is rare enough on its own, the one at the front is unit 218 and the one behind on which we travelled was unit 217.

What would be the odds on that happening?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that old cars is another subject that figures quite often on these pages.

So why would I be posting a photo of a brand-new van?

Probably the most typical of all of the French vans of the 50s and 60s is the old Citroen “H” corrugated iron “garden shed” and how I would have loved to have found one 20 years ago?

But this is the new midi van from Citroen and you can see that the front end bears more than just a passing resemblance to the old Citroen “H”.

The train that took us from Lille Europe to Brussels Midi was one of the PBA – Paris Brussels Amsterdam trainsets.

It was packed and I had a neighbour who was already plugged into the only power socket so instead of stomping all my way to Brussels with Hawkwind, I had a more sedate listen to Colosseum Live on the phone.

Whenever I listen to that album, I seem to have strange encounters with young ladies but not today. The magic seems to have warmed up.

Here at Brussels I went across the road to the hotel for my room and to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. It was the final of the Welsh Cup last night and it really was an exciting game but I ended up not really watching much of it because I was helping out with the administration. It took place at a factory sports ground in Wrexham and I didn’t know whose ground it was. I thought that it was a club or something because it was as good as any that the clubs in Wales have. I was told that it was a factory club but the factory was closing down so we were wondering if a league club was going to take over the ground and have it as their own. At one moment we put a drone up in the air and we could see the crowds of people so we shouted up to the organisers to see how many were in there. They said 14 hundred thousand so we assumed that they meant 14,000. There was a young girl there helping out and running errands etc. Her name was Kayne. She was being ever so helpful. It then came round to paying everyone. Of course most of us were volunteers but there were people there like Fire Brigade, Police and so on who were paid so they were handed an envelope. Someone handed an envelope to this girl and she looked surprised but we made her take it. One of the organisers as well, we were going to ask around to see what we could do for Kayne.

There was something else. I can’t remember very much about this but there was a big group of us, probably a family or something. There was a foreign girl with us. My family had a habit that everyone does things for themselves which wasn’t how this particular girl had been brought up. They would do things like put a meal out and everyone would go to fetch their own plates, knife and fork etc, any special condiments they would want for themselves and then go to sit at the table and help themselves but forgetting that this girl had been brought up differently. It was time then for everyone to do their own thing but thy would close the kitchen door and sit in the dining room while this girl was still trying to puzzle out what o do but of course with the light out she couldn’t see anything. She would have to wait until someone else came in to the kitchen to turn on the light to carry on what she was doing. A couple of times I’d ended up being stuck in there with her and having to tell my family what had been going on. There was much more to it than this but I can’t remember anything although on one occasion this girl was busy getting some stuff for someone else and she was locked in the dark in the kitchen. She had to bring a banana through for someone or something but I can’t remember anything of it really.

And I also … errr … crashed out

Later on I went out for some fritjes and now I’m going to go to bed. My start isn’t all that early tomorrow but I have a long way to go. Here’s hoping that it’s worth it.

… that doesn’t happen very often, isn’t it?

On my way down to the doctor’s this morning I noticed that the tide was out, the gates were wide open and all of the water had gone out with the tide.

In fact, it’s usually about once a year maybe that they drain the port. And as for why I really have no idea because from what I could see, there wasn’t anyone working in there this morning and there didn’t seem to be anything fallen in from the quayside.

It will explain why the port is empty this morning though. Just a solitary yacht over there, settling down in the silt.

It will also probably explain why the trawler Jade III is moored up over against the harbour wall in a NAABSA (not always afloat but safely aground) position.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen her left in the inner harbour while everyone else has gone out to fish, and we’ve also seen her tied up at the Fish Processing Plant now and again just recently.

But the fact that she’s over there today shows that they aren’t in any rush to take her out to sea.

There must be something quite bizarre going on with her that she’s not going out to sea very often these days. I couldn’t see anything about her in any of the local Press.

But whatever was happening about the inner harbour, it wasn’t happening for long.

Usually when they drain it the close the gates once it’s empty so that the water doesn’t come back in with the tide so that they can carry on working.

But they’ve left the gates open and now that the tide is coming in, so are the boats. la Grande Ancre is the first to arrive in port with one of the smaller craft following on in behind.

With a shallow draught, they can boldly go where none of the bigger boats can go until there’s more water in the harbour.

That’s why the larger boats are having to loiter around outside the outer harbour waiting for thigs to happen.

Two of those trawlers down there we know because we’ve seen them in the chantier naval. The one in front is Yann Frederic and the one behind with the pink cabin roof is Trafalgar I reckon.

The second one down there is obscured from view by Yann Frederic so I can’t see who she is.

And over at the ferry terminal we can just about make out the stern of the little freighter Chausiaise. Whatever she was doing in the inner harbour yesterday afternoon, she wasn’t doing it today, having had to move because of the emptying of the inner harbour.

She wasn’t over at the ferry terminal earlier this morning either.

As I was on my way to the doctor’s, I noticed that they had the crane working over there and they were loading something into one of the Joly France boats that was moored up there.

There was a boat moored in front of her but that looks more like Belle France to me.

By the way, when I came back from the doctor’s I saw the Joly France boat heading out to sea, loaded up with crowds of tourists. But there was that much fog and mist about that it wasn’t worth trying to take a photo. I only had the NIKON 1 J5 with me.

A little earlier, I mentioned la Grande Ancre.

Whe I was on my way to the doctor’s she was moored up at the Fish Processing Plant, doing what I don’t know.

In front of her is Valeque, a little shell-fishing boat that we have seen on one occasion in the past, and in front of her is Les Bouchots de Chausey.

Now we’ve seen her on many occasions moored up over there unloading her catch onto the trailer that’s always pulled by the tractor there. And at times we’ve seen that loaded up with an unbelievable number of crates of shellfish.

But anyway, I digress … “yet again” – ed.

Last night was something of (surprisingly) a reasonable sleep but even so, it was still a struggle to leave my stinking pit. These days, it seems to be something to celebrate if I manage to beat the second alarm.

After the medication I went and had a shower. I have to look pretty for the doctor. Well – you know what I mean.

and then I hit the streets.

You’ve seen a few photos that I took of the goings-on in the harbour but the racket coming from the portable boat lift over at the chantier naval told me that there were some goings-on over there too this morning.

As you can see, Anakena is taking advantage of the absence of water in the inner harbour. If she has to go somewhere while they drain it, she may as well go into the chantier naval for an overhaul before she heads of north-about to wherever she’s going this summer.

On the way down into town, the apprentice stonemasons were there again.

The repointing of the brick capping on the wall is proceeding apace. Give them another couple of days and they might even finish it, and then they’ll have to find something else to do.

Not that there’s any shortage of repointing given the state of the medieval walls around here.

At the doctors, he shook his head over my x-rays. There’s no obvious injury to my right knee. What he proposes is that I go to the big hospital at Avranches and have one of these in-depth scans that can even check the muscle tissue.

He asked me how my sleep was doing these days and I explained that there hasn’t been much improvement over the last couple of weeks. Consequently he told me to double the dose.

As regular readers oof this rubbish will recall, I’m reluctant to do that. My life these days isn’t actually what you would call “exciting” and the most interesting part, as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … is whatever goes on during the night.

And that’s certainly true today, even if it has been an age since Castor, Zero and TOTGA have come for a wander around with me. If doubling the dose means that I don’t get to go out at night, then I’m going to forget it.

At the chemist’s I dropped off the prescription for the Aranesp, picked up another supply of these night-time tablets and then came home.

At the back of the building there were some workmen having a go at something or other.

It’s usually not a good idea to disturb them while they are working so I left them to it, having made a mental note to go for a butcher’s in due course.

Back here, I made breakfast and then phoned the X-ray laboratory for an appointment. Avranches on 13th April at 16:00 and they’ll send me a confirmatory letter with the details.

But not to worry. I’m quite used to people telling me where to go.

And then I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

I’d been working at someone’s house, filling in screw holes etc in the wall. I’d done a reasonable job but the place was covered in dust etc so I asked for a vacuum cleaner. They gave me some kind of vacuum cleaner but it needed a whole pile of extensions and adapters . When I went to connect it up half of them were missing, some were cross-threaded etc and it was turning into a right dog’s dinner. And all the people who were around there, these young “Hooray Henry” type people were taking the mickey somewhat. I was obviously not in their class or anything like that. In the end being totally fed up I found a hosepipe so I started to hose out the floor and push all the dust and dirt out towards the door. That meant putting out all the people with it. They grumbled and groaned but gradually they went. Eventually the girl whose house it was came down to see how I was doing. She was a young girl with waist-length blonde hair. She said “you didn’t need to go to all these lengths to do it”. I told her that I was happy to do it and happy to be here. I explained the problems that I’d had. She asked “are you sure that you want to do it?”. I replied “of course I am” and carried on working while we were talking. She had a good look at what I’d done and really liked it. “you must have done this quite a lot”. I replied “well, here and there”. I didn’t want her to know that this was the first time that I’d done ot. She said “would it be OK if you came back to do some more?”. I replied “I can come back any time any time you like” because obviously I had other things in mind. She asked when I could come back so I replied “I could come back tomorrow evening if you like” the implication being to take her out somewhere but that was where I reached – just about to get my fork stuck in it again.

Later on I’d gone to Burtons because I needed a new suit. We hadn’t been going out together for very long. The only trousers that they had were slightly longer so I asked Nerina if she would take them up for me which she said she would. They fitted me up with a suit and a jacket in dark blue with a light blue shirt and dark blue tie. I thought that it looked quite nice but Nerina said that it looked old

And the rest of the morning was spent dealing with the photos from August 2019 in Canada’s High Arctic. Right now I’m trying to negotiate a zodiac around a pack of seals in Dundas Harbour on Devon island.

After lunch I headed off to the physiotherapist’s.

Down on the quayside as I walked past, a large articulated lorry had pulled up and the driver was organising the trailer while there was someone else in the crane’s cockpit just there. “Are they going to be removing the old bouchot stakes today” I asked myself.

The walk up the hill was straightforward again with none of the issues that I had a few months ago. I’m still not well but this is definitely an improvement.

Today she had me on the couch with the electric massage machine and then a session on the cross trainer and a few exercises. I also told her of my appointment, which meant that I had to change my time with her that day from 15:30 to 14:30.

That means that I can go to see her that day in Caliburn and then drive from there straight to Avranches.

On the way home I popped into the chemist’s near the physiotherapist’s. Not for “something for the weekend” – well, yes actually. I suppose it was. I’ll be doing a lot of walking and I wanted a support for my knee. But I waited an age while the assistant and the customer in front of me told each other their life stories.

In the end I peed off out across the road to Carrefour for a demi-baguette to make my butties for my trip out tomorrow.

Down in the town centre I picked up the Aranesp from the chemist there and she also fixed me up with a knee support

Just in case you are wondering, I hadn’t forgotten the work that was going on at the back here.

They are erecting a fence at the back of the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs to stop people using the passage as a cut-through by the looks of things.

These Foyers des Jeunes Travailleurs are quite interesting places. With a large proportion of the French population living out in rural areas and public transport being so miserable, any young person who finds a job in a town is usually snookered for transport.

Consequently these places exist where a young person can rent a small room with very basic facilities and where there are some communal facilities. And the rents are usually quite affordable for kids on low incomes.

And I mustn’t forget the beach either.

But I needn’t have bothered because although the tide is not all that far in right now, there was no-one down there despite it being a school half-day.

Instead, I came in here and made myself a coffee and had a play with some photos.

Tea was a rush – pasta veg and falafel. And I ate it in front of the computer, something that I promised never to do, but there was football on TV. A Welsh Premier League Select XI against a Select XI from the English National Conference.

About 5 minutes after kick-off, Rosemary rang me for one of our marathon chats and it’s hard to talk with one ear on the phone and the other ear and both eyes watching a football match.

And it’s impossible to cheer the final whistle, even when Wales manage to stuff the English 4-0.

So right now I’m off to bed. I’ve an early start in the morning and a train to catch. But I’m not going as far tomorrow as I usually do when I’m on my travels. We’re having a change of plan