Category Archives: Eric Hall

Thursday 22nd December 2016 – I’VE HAD ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… where I’ve been drifting in and out of wakefulness all day. For the most part, I was out of it completely.

I didn’t have too much of an early night last night, and to go with it, we had another door-slamming session, at 03:20 this morning. That made me sick as a parrot.

Although I managed to drop off to sleep, I was imagining that I was in a situation where people were talking in the distance. So much so that it awoke me and, sure enough, there were people talking in the distance in here, loud enough to keep me awake.

It was a struggle to go back to sleep after, but I did, and it was a real struggle to awaken when the alarm went off. And everywhere that I had been during the night, it immediately evaporated.

After breakfast I tried to catch up with the website and even though I made some progress, I couldn’t concentrate and eventually I crashed out. And that was how my day went today. Just in and out of sleep.

Later in the morning I managed to struggle down to Caliburn and I brought another load of stuff back up here. And at lunchtime I made it to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette.

Tonight, I made a big curry. Potato and mushroom, and there’s enough left over for the next txo days too. It really was delicious as well and while I didn’t put any bulghour in it, I threw in a handful of peanuts to give it an additional taste.

So let’s see how I get on with sleep tonight. I hope that no-one disturbs me for I really need a good sleep. I can’t go on like this.

Wednesday 21st December 2016 – HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE

It’s hard to believe that after today, the nights start to become shorter. We’re at this time of the year already. Hasn’t the second half of the year gone by so quickly?

It’s also the first day of winter, so the least said about that, the better.

I was in Central Scotland with someone whom I knew back in my University days. We were attending college lectures and so seeing that I was with him, I followed him off to the public library for some books. He found everything that he needed, including a couple of books that I thought were largely irrelevant, but I took copies nevertheless. However for one course, I couldn’t find a suitable book, so I told him and some of hi friends, that I would share with him when it came to it.

That wasn’t all that I did during the night, but we had the early morning performance again, 06:15 this time, and much of the stuff melted away immediately.

And I didn’t have my early night either.

Well, I did, but just as I was settling down under the covers, “The Saint” came on the radio.

We all know Roger Moore and Ian Ogilvy from the television. And we all know Vincent Price and Tom Conway from the radio. But how many of you know Paul Rhys?

In the mid-1990s the BBC commissioned three 55-minutes radio plays of The Saint, starring Paul Rhys in the title role. And firstly, whoever wrote the scripts for the broadcasts deserves a medal because they really are excellent. And secondly, the voice of Paul Rhys has a hypnotic quality and I could even listen all night to him reading something quite banal, like the telephone directory perhaps.

And as I said, one of these programmes came onto the radio just as I was settling down.

I’ve no idea why the BBC didn’t extend the series because just three of these programmes is nothing like enough the explore the full range that the scriptwriter and the actors could offer.

I had another early breakfast and then did some stuff on the internet for quite a while, totally carried away with what I was doing. So much so that it was midday when I stopped. The weather had brightened up by then so I nipped down the road to Caliburn and came back with more stuff, including some clothes. I need a change of outfit and I’m running short of undies too.

Seeing as I had a free hand, I brought back His Nibs and now he’s ensconced on a corner of the bed where he’ll stay for a while.

After lunch I carried on with what I had been doing, but crashed out for an hour or so later on. I’m definitely getting old, aren’t I?

For tea tonight I had the second of my two pies with potatoes, carrots, leeks and gravy. And it was just as nice as last night. Now that I’m using the small table-top oven, it’s cooking quite nicely and i’ll have another go with a pizza in due course.

I’ll try again for another early night. But it doesn’t make much difference. I don’t seem to be able to last the pace these days.

Tuesday 20th December 2016 – I MADE SURE …

… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

What I did was to do something that I hadn’t done for quite a while, and that was that I got into bed and started to watch a film on the laptop. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes or so, I was off.

But if I ever lay my hands on whoever it was who left the building at 02:40 this morning, slamming the door behind them, they they will know about it. Because I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

And it was just as well because the girl in the room next door was up and about at 06:00 and she wasn’t exactly quiet either. But then you can’t pick your housemates, can you?

Anyway, I was in at breakfast at 07:00 and out by 07:30 and back down here at work.

Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened to me at the hospital yesterday.

For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, the sign on the back of the Fiat van says “Please don’t park within 3 metres …” of the rear doors, to allow the rear doors to open to admit a wheelchair.

And so the car behind is parked within 1 metre of it – right outside the entrance to a hospital.

I went up to the driver and asked him if a sign has to be written in both official languages (French and Flemish) to be legal, but as you might expect, my comment went clear over his head.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”, and reminds me of the spoof Open University course on “Understanding Irony”, which actually received several applicants.

But it’s a sad reflection of the selfish attitude of many Belgians, isn’t it?

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

I walked up to the reception desk and the woman looked at me and said “ahh, Mr Hall …” Yes, I’m even being recognised by the clerical staff in the hospital now. This is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Another thing that I have forgotten to do is to post the photo of the stuff that I bought on Sunday at the English shop.

Working clockwise around, we have Linda McCartney vegan pies, a vegan Christmas pudding, Bisto vegan gravy browning, a bottle of ginger beer, a bottle of dandelion and burdock, a bag of Bombay mix, some custard powder and, pride of place, two boxes of vegan mince pies.

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

Later this morning I went down to Caliburn to sort out some stuff to bring up here and then went down to the Carrefour. I came back with a baguette and some tomatoes, some seitan slices (for Christmas dinner), some potatoes, some carrots and some leeks as well as a couple of pots of fresh spices.

That was because, for tea, I had boiled potatoes with fresh mint, carrots with fresh rosemary, leeks and Linda McCartney vegan pie covered in thick Bisto gravy. It made such a change from my usual fare and it was absolutely delicious. It all worked out fine too, much better than my pizza did. I shall be doing more of this, as well as looking at the possibility of baked potatoes in the microwave here.

High time that I was organised.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and also did some work on my web pages.

Another thing that I did was to walk into the (unlocked) bathroom just as my nubile next-door neighbour was wrapping herself in a towel after her shower. Serves her right for not closing the door!

So now we’ll have another go at an early night. And I’ll hope for better luck too.

Monday 19th December 2016 – AND SO …

… I went to the hospital this morning.

But if you think that this was exciting, you should have been here last night, for what a night that was!

I had crashed out well-and-truly by 22:00 and apart from two brief awakenings I remember nothing whatever until about 06:30 when I awoke bolt-upright.

Saying that I remember nothing is perhaps an understatement. I was on my travels again – and how!

We (a little group of us) were in a hotel at the seaside – a large expensive kind of hotel too but our room was dreadful – just a couple of big double beds and no other facilities. All of our stuff was lying around on the floor, on the beds, and we were planning to leave, chucking-out time was 11:00 and all of our stuff was still lying all over the place wit no urgency whatsoever.
From here I was in a car with Alison (her debut appearance on my nocturnal voyages, I believe) and we were driving along Thanet Way talking about my mother’s two Aunts – Auntie Dolly an Auntie Gertie – who lived there (we actually did have a discussion like this on Saturday). Auntie Dolly lived in Birchington and Auntie Gertie lived somwhere just off Thanet Way and I couldn’t remember the Aunt who lived in Ham Street who had the cats called Katapus and Redpus (it really was Greypus and it was Aunt Mabel by the way). But we stopped at a row of terraced houses on an embankment at the side of the road and eventually found our way to the one that we needed. A couple of hippie-types lived there and they showed me to a room, which was a very poorly furnished ground-floor room with an unused front door. I waited there for quite some time but nothing was happening so I forced the door open and went outside. There was a very early Austin A30 (or was it a A35?) saloon there with no number plates, and at the end of the front garden was the drop to the road but I couldn’t work my way down the bank so I went back. By now, some other male person had occupied my bed and had a baby with him so I went back to the main room, said how much I liked the car. We then discussed fetching my stuff. I had some modern up-market computer stuff and I didn’t want to bring it in but they were encouraging me to do so, telling me what equipment they had which would work with it. But their stuff was all out-of-date and wouldn’t be compatible with mine, and so I declined the offer.

I was thoroughly exhausted when I awoke, and that was a bad sign. In fact I had taken my medication up to the kitchen and forgot to take them – shows you just how confused I was.

But anyway the wal, up to the hospital did me some good and I wasn’t the least bit worn out when I arrived.

The place was crowded with people today and we even had bread rolls with the soup, that made a change. And as for the results, my blood count has improved to 9.7 and the protein loss has “decreased” to 1.96 (it should of course be less than O.15).

The doctor who saw me – well, she can come and inspect my kidneys any time she likes – tells me that I have to stop taking my protein supplements. She’s wondering if my body can’t absorb the proteins and that’s why it’s being excreted. It’s noted that the amount has gone up since I’ve been taking the bulghour and gone down when I’ve been at home or elsewhere where I’ve not been taking it.

The psychologist came to see me too and we had a chat,but she doesn’t seem to be adding to what I already know about my condition or my general state of health.

The upshot of all of this is that I have to come back in 2 weeks – 2nd January 2017. I’ve been asked if I’m going back home for Christmas but I’ve decided to stay here instead.

Liz was on line later and we had a video chat. I took her on a guided tour of the building so that she now knows where I live and how I’m living. And then I crashed out for a bit.

For tea, I threw something together quickly, for I have plans for the next few days as far as food goes. And quite right too!

So now it’s another early night. And I hope that my travels are as exciting as last night’s.

Sunday 18th December 2016 – I’VE BEEN …

… out and about on my travels again this afternoon.

A little saunter up into town took me to the railway station and my train, but I wasn’t going to Aarschot and neither was I going to Antwerp Central railway station either, but seeing that it’s nearly Christmas, I’ve actually just been to Nazaret.

I consider that to be a highly appropriate place to visit at this time of year.

You’re probably wondering just where Nazaret might be, and what there might be to see in Nazaret to attract my attention.

The fact is that Nazaret can be reached by train from Leuven and a good brisk half-hour walk at the side of the railway line and then along the road in the direction of Lisp, and I’m sure that you think that I’m joking too.

But I’m not

What there actually is in Nazaret, or actually in Lisp because it’s apparently across the commune’s border, is the Herman Vanderpoortenstadion, otherwise known as Het Lisp, and that’s the home ground of Lierse SK, the football club of Lier.

That’s my destination for today, because OH Leuven are playing there today. Everyone tells me that I ought to get out more, and so going to watch OH Leuven fits into that plan.

The stadium is quite a modern stadium and there was a fair crowd in here today. The atmosphere was good – quite noisy, which makes a change from Tubize the other day.

I was sitting in the stand at the back of the goals with a pile of old men (somehow it seemed quite appropriate) and there can’t be anything more Belgian that sitting in a stand at a Second-Division football match clutching a bag of fritjes

It’s another place where there’s no fritkot between the station and the football ground and that’s a rather desperate state of affairs here in Belgium.

I’m glad that I arrived at the ground in plenty of time because one of the most exciting features of the game is the pre-match entertainment.

We actually had some cheerleaders out there dancing away. Something of a motley crew rather like the ones whom I saw in that diner on the Interstate near Bangor, Maine, a few years ago, but cheerleaders just the same.

It was a shame that their routine was rather sedate, but nevertheless it warmed me up a little.

We also had a parade and a triumphal arch with enormous flags to welcome out the players to the pitch. It reminded me like something of a Nuremburg Rally in the mid 1930s.

But I did have a little smile about the standard bearers. And I’m sure that you don’t need me to describe them because you can imagine them yourself, but I will do all the same.

They were all probably in their late 20s and 30s, large, overweight and wearing glasses and you’ll see them in every similar organisation carrying buckets and that kind of thing.

As for the match itself, it started slowly but gradually through the first half OH Leuven began to impose themselves.

The more pressure that OH Leuven applied, the more apparent it became that it was the Keystone Cops playing in the Lierse SK defence. If you thought that Pionsat’s defence was chaotic at times, you haven’t seen anything yet.

But if Lierse SK had the Keystone Cops in defence, OH Leuven had Laurel and Hardy playing up front. To give you just one example of many, Casagolda missed a free header into an empty net from three yards out and his striking partner, the big Macedonian striker Jovan Kostovski following up, shot into the side netting when it was far, far easier to score.

The only surprise was that it took OH Leuven to score. While two Lierse SK defenders dillied and dallied about clearing the ball, Kostovski stuck out a boot in between them and lifted the ball over the keeper into the net.

And as you might expect, we had two different teams out there in the second half. I was expecting OH Leuven to go out there and score three or four more but instead, sat right back and allowed Lierse SK to bring the game to them.

By about 60 minutes, Lierse SK started to play good attacking football and from then, they went on the rampage and it all began to look rather uncomfortable for OH Leuven.

We had a couple of penalty calls and despite some rather weird decisions that the officials had been calling, they had the penalty decisions just right.

The most controversial was a loose bouncing ball in the penalty area that Gillekens dived for and pushed away. There was a collision with a Lierse SK attacker but in my mind, there was no doubt whatever that Gillekens was playing the ball – in fact he had managed to have both hands to the ball in order to push it away – and the collision was after Gillekens had played the ball.

No doubt in my mind whatever that it was not a penalty, but he didn’t half receive some abuse from the crowd for the rest of the match, particularly when on two occasions he was over the goal line (but the ball wasn’t) when he caught the ball.

But it was inevitable that Lierse SK was going to score, with the amount of pressure that they had been applying.

Right on 90 minutes too and it was a penalty as you might expect. The ball definitely hit the arm of a defender from a cross on the goal line, and it did indeed divert the ball, but it was one of these harsh decisions where the player’s arm was right by his body and there was no intent whatever to play the ball with the arm.

A penalty, yes, but just sheer bad luck.

And so I walked back to the railway station at Lier in order to come back to Leuven.

And as I walked down the side of the railway line I noticed a train leaving the station. “I bet that that’s my train” I mused to myself, and when I arrived at the station, I found that it was too!

Ordinarliy I would have had to wait another 55 minutes for the next train but a friendly neighbourhood guard on another train told me how I could go to Leuven on the Liège train, changing at Aarschot.

And so what else have I been up to today? While you admire some more photos of the Christmas decorations at Leuven I’ll tell you about it.

Despite a somewhat-disturbed night that involved a trip down the corridor, I was fast-asleep when the alarm went off this morning.

But I’d been on my travels too, to the abandoned communities of Hebron and Okak on the day that they were being abandoned (which, or course, was not the same date but never mind). And I’d entered into a “relationship” with a young Inuit girl, just as many kablunas did when they arrived on the Coasts of Labrador.

And after breakfast, I had to get a wriggle on. Alison was planning to go to the English Shop after lunch and did I want to go?

It meant that I would be in a dreadful rush to catch my train and so I went for a walk uptown to the railway station so that I would have my ticket all ready for what I reckoned would be a dash to the train.

And on the way back, we had another one of these “Only in Belgium” moments.

Here in Belgium and in the Netherlands, we have what is called a bakfiets, a bicycle built to carry goods. And here we have a mother who has decided to go out for a bike ride with the kids on a Sunday morning, and what she has done is to simply chuck the kids into the bakfiets.

The barrel organ singer from yesterday was there too, but this morning he wasn’t singing – just turning the handle of the organ.

I had a good look at his barrel organ, and it’s one of these sheet music things where the sheets are rather solid and have punched holes so that the pegs that work the notes of the organ that are required to be played are operated by the holes in the sheets. Spring pressure keeps the pegs inoperable, but the holes allow the corresponding pegs to open, and that’s how the music was played.

Alison came round as arranged at 12:45 and by this time I was outside waiting for her – the quicker we get away, the quicker we come back.

It was quite crowded in the English Shop but there was a really good selection of products that had just come in and I was able to stock up with some very useful articles.

They are stored in Caliburn right now, and I’ll show you a photo of them after I’ve been to rescue them.

Shock! Horror!

The train was two minutes late, which is most unlike Belgium, and as we unloaded at Aarschot the train from Liège pulled in bang on time so we had to run to the next platform. This train was absolutely packed and I had to fight my way into a seat.

And I crashed out too for 10 minutes on the train. It had been a long walk.

But the train arrived back in Leuven bang on time and we had the usual tidal wave surge up the street into the town and passed the Christmas decorations that by now were all lit up.

It’s certainly much nicer here in the city centre with the illuminations, isn’t it? And as it wasn’t all that cold right now, I hung around to take a few photos.

As we’ve seen, the camera on the telephone is nothing like as good as the Nikon D5000 but as you know, we can’t take “professional” cameras into football grounds these days and so the phone is the best that I can do.

So having spent a good 20 minutes walking around the city centre and the lights, I came back to my little room in the hostel.

It’s Sunday night, and that means pizza. And with my little trip back home when I was able to pick up some more stuff, I’d come back with my pizza tray and in my new cooking mode, I decided to make my own pizza.

And having bought a packet of these half-baked half-baguettes, I made some garlic bread too.

But it didn’t work out too well. The oven here doesn’t seem to work – only the grill – and so my pizza was burnt on top and uncooked on the underside. I’ll have to rule this out.

The small table-top oven works reasonably well and I’ll have to use that the next time, although a pizza won’t fit into it. I’ll have to cook it in two halves.

After pizza, I had plenty of things to do, but I just crashed out.

I’d had a long, hard, busy day.

Saturday 17th December 2016 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

… the centre of Leuven all decorated up for Christmas, let me tell you a little about what I have been up to today.

It’s Saturday and as you might expect, I’ve been out and about late this morning, doing my shopping ready for the weekend.

And I took the opportunity to go for a walk up into the centre of town to see what was going on.

In fact, there was a good purpose for going up there.

I wanted some vegan cheese and some spray-on vegan cream from the Vegan shop ready for Christmas. But although the door was open and there were people there, the shop wasn’t open for customers yet.

I can’t believe how much money Belgian shops turn away with some of the silly ideas that they have. After all, I wasn’t going to hang around for another hour.

But I can’t believe how empty the town centre was today. I was expecting the place to be teeming with people seeing as how close we are the Christmas, but it was more like an early Sunday morning up there rather than a late Saturday afternoon.

It wasn’t all that cold either. It doesn’t seem at all like Christmas right now and I’m clearly missing something somewhere

The decorations in the city are rather half-hearted and that doesn’t add too much to the festive atmosphere. I was expecting much more than this here in Leuven, to be honest.

All in all, I wasn’t out all that long. A quick lap around the Delhaize (where they had some grapes alredy bagged up on special offer) and my wasted trip to the Vegan shop, and that was that.

But there is one thing that I do have to say – and that concerns the barrel organist whom you might have seen in a previous photo.

I don’t care what anyone says, Christmas carols sung in English with a Flemish accent sound far too much like Goldmember for my liking. I was trying my best not to burst out laughing as I listened.

So my early night last night must have done some good somewhere for despite having to go off down the corridor at one point, I ended up being awake, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (well, sort-of) and out of bed at all of 06:02 this morning.

I’d been on my travels too – something to with kids in the snow in Northern Labrador (i seem to be stuck here right now, don’t I?), but sometime later, it was a morning of really heavy snow and I was on my way to work. It was to a new job in a new office. And I was admiring the snowmen that people had built in their gardens. It was Shavington, on the corner or Rope Lane and Main Road by the Co-op where I arrived next, and here I fell in with two people who were to be my new colleagues. One of them I recognised immediately – he was someone with whom I’d worked in an office previously. We started to chat and he told me a little about my new place, and that he was getting married – to someone that I knew – that morning so we would have the day off anyway. But he was already making plans for a subsequent marriage, and it all sounded rather weird to me.

After breakfast I did some stuff on the website and then went off into town to buy what I need. And that took me nicely up to lunch.

This afternoon I went for a coffee and a really good chat, and that took a good few hours, we had so much to talk about.

I had a crash out when I returned, and then I had a little treat. The Welsh Premier League matches broadcast on Sgorio aren’t accessible to people living outside the UK, but someone “shared” it on his social networking site and by this method I was able to see the game.

The first this season, I reckon.

I missed tea tonight – I couldn’t summon up the energy to make it. Instead I’ve had a relax and now I’m going to have yet another early night.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going off on my travels, I reckon.

Friday 16th December 2016 – TODAY WAS A LITTLE …

… more exciting than yesterday.

What probably made a difference was that I was on my travels during the night. And not just upstairs to the bathroom either (I knew that I would have to do that, didn’t I?).

I was driving down the M1 to London in an E-type Jaguar and the range wasn’t enough to reach there so I had to pull off somewhere round by Luton or Dunstable to fuel up. I knew just the place but when I arrived, it was abandoned and all of the pumps were broken. I enquired of a yokel where there might be a fuel station, and he pointed me in the direction of the Motorway service station. But later on I had to go for food and this involved walking down a long corridor past various hatches to receive various items of the menu. Part of the route took us downstairs to a hatch and there I noticed that some people also had mugs of pea soup. I fancied a mug of that and so I made enquiries – to be told that the pea soup was at a hatch a few positions further back so if I wanted pea soup I would have to retrace my steps.

It was difficult to crawl out of bed this morning, but even so, I was all done and dusted and back down here before 08:00.

We had yet more excitement in the Kruisstraat this morning after the police trap the other day.

It’s a police barrage, this time with the aim of issuing alcotests to the drivers. They can do random breath tests here in Belgium. And they caught a couple too.

They also caught a couple of motorists trying to drive the wrong way up the one-way street too

A little later I went outside. They are doing some work in the building opposite and this really caught my eye.

It’s a little mini-tractor like my Kubota B1220 and you can see how they are moving the breeze blocks – on a pallet being used as a skid hoisted up at one end on the tri-point lift. I’ll have to try this one day.

I went down the the bank around the corner and drew out the next month’s supply of money, and then down to Caliburn where I brought another pile of stuff back up here. Food mostly, but some clothes too.

Fetching the baguette was next, and then a coffee. I deserved it.

I was disturbed later by someone who wanted to check the plumbing again. But at least the shower room is now finished and we can use that again. Saves me staggering up the stairs at silly hours in the morning.

This afternoon I spent some time on the website again – and I’m still stuck in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I hope that I can move on some day soon.

Tea tonight finished off the last of the kidney bean stuff that I made the other day, and now I’m going to try yet again for another early night. I had a little crash-out this afternoon but I’mstill quite tired.

Tomorrow it’s market day so I may well go for a little stroll up town.

Thursday 15th December 2016 – JUST LIKE THE MATHEMATICIAN …

… called Hall, I’ve done three-fifths of five-eights of … err … nothing today.

I awoke yet again in the middle of the night to go off down the corridor, and was still asleep when the alarm went off this morning. But I was first up for breakfast and first back downstairs again. And then apart from a trip to the corner for my baguette, that was that.

We’ve had the builders in today. There’s been a leaky tap in the shower that’s been filtering into the bedroom at the side of it and today they came to sort it out.

They had to chisel off some of the tiles in the shower in order to access the leak, and they’ve repaired that. And then they chiselled off the damp plaster and put some tongue-and-grooving over it – with me giving some technical advice seeing that I’ve done rather a lot of this just recently.

But the plaster isn’t dry in the shower so we can’t use it and so that bathroom is closed off – which means that we have to go upstairs. That will be interesting at 03:00, that’s for sure.

I had a phone call today too – from the hospital. My appointment is on Monday at 11:10.

And i’m not looking forward to it.

Wednesday 14th December 2016 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

… so good.

Blood count collapsed to 8.7 and protein loss dramatically risen to 2.4. And not only that, there might be a thrombosis in my lower right leg. All of this means that I have to go back – not in a fortnight, not in a week, but on Monday.

And I’ve had the stimulation injection too. That’s usually the last resort before the transfusions.

I am so fed up.

My sleep last night was disturbed. There wasn’t much of it and I had to go down the corridor too. but I’d been on my travels. Back in a relationship and back to Labrador. Clearly my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

My eye appointment was at 10:00 and my hospital appointment was at 11:10. but at 13:30 I was still having my eyes seen to. The bad news here is that my eyesight has deteriorated considerably with my illness – deteriorated to such an extent that they can’t give me a full prescription for the eyesight as my eyes wouldn’t take the dramatic change.

All in all, it’s not going to well.

Then up to the hospital and all of the shenanigans, including an echograph.

I have had my medicaments all changed and quantities adjusted, and that should see me through. And then back on Monday as I said.

I used my little wok tonight and it really was good. My tea worked out just fine.

Now I’m exhausted and I’m going to have an early night. i’m completely fed up with all of this

Tuesday 13th December 2016 – I’M NOT BUYING …

…any of these burgers and schnitzels.

They might be on sale in the Bio range of the Delhaize supermarket in the centre of Leuven, but they don’t look as if the are vegetarian, never mind vegan, do they?

Yes, I went up to town today to do some shopping. A baguette, some hummus, some rice and a carton of iced tea, and that’s me fixed up for the next few days.

Not only that, I was browsing around in the HEMA on the corner, and that had a mini-wok on sale, reasonably good quality, for just €10:00. It’s just the thing for cooking while I’m here, and with this I can do some fried onions and all that kind of thing.

My curries will take on a new dimension with this machine.

With my early night last night, I was wide awake by 06:30. I’d been on my travels during the night, but don’t ask me where I’d been now, because it’s all gone out of my head.

By the time that the alarm went off, I was already eating my breakfast and that is something that hasn’t happened for a long time, has it?

And then I came back to my room to witness the excitement.

They’ve turned the Kruisstraat, the street at the side of the building, into a one-way street but not too many people have taken much notice of it.

Consequently, they sent a police van and a police patrol out to ambush the motorists. But if you notice, you’ll see that the police van is parked the wrong way round in the one-way street, and that’s the kind of thing that can only ever happen in Belgium.

After lunch, I carried on with some work on the website, with a little bit of rest here and there, and then I went for my tea and an extremely lengthy chat with my housemate.

It’s late now, and so I won’t have much of a decent sleep unfortunately. But that’s the kind of thing that happens when you socialize, and that’s a new experience for me.

Monday 12th December 2016 – WHAT A GOOD …

… night’s sleep that was. I was off early – awoke to switch off the radio and there I was, gone until about 06:45. And gone on my travels too. I was in a relationship with one girl, a relationship with which I wasn’t happy and so I was trying to involve myself in a relationship with a second but somehow, beyond all my control, I was drifting towards a relationship with yet a third girl and it was all becoming very, very complicated.

I was alone at breakfast and then came back here and tidied up in my room, trying to put the stuff away seeing as I’m going to be here for quite a bit. But round about 10:30 I went down to Caliburn and sorted out a pile of stuff to bring back.

Including my halogen heater. The radiator in my room isn’t working properly and I sent a mail to the landlord about it, but I want to be on the safe side.

Narrowly avoiding being knocked down on a pedestrian crossing by a wayward cyclist, I came back here to drop off the stuff and then went to the supermarket on the corner for a baguette, a lettuce and some pears. Back here, I had a coffee to warm me up because it was freezing outside.

After lunch I was disturbed by the central heating man who bled my radiator and that’s much better. I didn’t need my halogen heater after all.

Once he’d gone, I cracked on with work. I’ve found a magazine from the International Grenfell Associaton, the charity that supplied health services to the Labrador coast in the days from the turn of the 20th Century until 1949 when Labrador was a forgotten British colony. All of the issues from 1903 until the 1970s are on line now and there are tons of stuff of interest in them.

Tea was a lentil curry, and I was joined by a British guy who is staying here. He proudly told me that he voted for the Brexit, but was here to work. The irony, if not absurdity of his position has clearly gone right over his head.

It was delicious, my lentil curry too, with more left for tomorrow too.

Now it’s an early night again. I hope that I have as good a sleep as I had last night.

Sunday 11th December 2016 – SEE IF YOU CAN GUESS …

… where I am right now.

In fact, if I walked forward a dozen or so spaces and stood on that slab just there in between the rails, I’d be on the very spot where the Armistice was signed between the Allied powers and Germany on 11th November 1918.

And it’s also the place where the armistice was signed between France and the German Reich on 22nd June 1940 and which brought to an end the Battle of France.

And despite what you might hear, this is not the railway carriage in which the armistice was signed, even though it dies carry the same fleet number.

After the signing of the 1940 Armistice, the original carriage was taken to Germany where it was displayed for a while in Berlin. But as the noose closed in around the city, the carriage was one of the artefacts evacuated.

It was taken to relative safety to near Ohrdruf in Thuringia, but was burnt by the Germans in late April 1945 to stop it falling back into Allied hands.

This carriage here is one of the original carriage’s younger sisters, but is fitted with many of the fittings and accessories of the original carriage, which were discovered in Berlin after the end of the War.

There are quite a few other bits and pieces on display here too.

This is a Renault FT light tank of 1918, and despite being built less than 2 years after the first appearance of the tank on the battlefield, it really is a modern vehicle, well in advance of anything else that any army had to offer at the time and is the basis of almost every subsequent tank built even today.

In fact the design was so advanced that dozens of them went to war in World War II with several different armies. The one here actually did see action in the latter stages of World War I.

But pride of place from my point of view in the absence of any contemporary aeroplane, has to be this piece of artillery

This is the French Army’s 75mm rapid-fire cannon, much better known as the soixante-quinze. And when I say “rapid fire”, I really do mean “rapid fire”. The official firing rate of one of these is 7 shells per minute, but fully-trained crews have been times as firing 24 and even more rounds per minute under pressure.

This was certainly the most astonishing piece of artillery of World War I and its rapid rate of fire with a trained crew saved many a battle.

You could always tell when they were at the front because instead of going off with a dull thud or a bang like most artillery pieces, they had a very distinctive whine that anyone who has ever seen a World War I film featuring the French Army will immediately recognise. It sends a similar shiver up my spine as does the hooter of a North American diesel engine.

Apart from that, the one trouble with going to bed early is that you awaken early. And after a long while of tossing and turning, I finally rose up from my (very comfortable) stinking pit to find that it was … errr … 04:26

But never mind. That gave me an opportunity to back up all of the files on the laptop and to do a few other things too.

And have a shower. And a shave. And not just clean clothes but brand spanking new socks and undies. I bought a pile of those last year just before I was taken ill, and I hadn’t even unwrapped them. Anyway, I’ve brought them with me.

Breakfast could have been a little better, but apart from that, I enjoyed my stay at the Akena Hotel here at Claye-Souilly and I’ll remember this place for again, that’s for sure. Add it to the list if I can’t make one of my other two stops. It was a good find.

By 11:00 I was back on the road and after fuelling up with diesel on the N2, headed off for the clearing at Compiègne. This was another one of the places on my list that I can now cross off.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful and even after my sight-seeing, I was back here in my little room by 17:00 with a couple of bags full of stuff.

I had a good rest, a pizza from round the corner, and now I’m off to bed. I’ve had a busy last few days and I need to catch up with my beauty sleep.

Saturday 10th December 2016 – I’M GLAD …

… that I went home.

I was dreading what I was going to find when I returned, and with a mouse loose in the attic I feared the worst. In the middle of winter too, and an Auvergnat one at that.

But I really must have made a pact with the devil or something because although it was cold at night, the days were like spring days – plenty of sunshine non-stop from morning until night and the batteries were always fully-charged by 11:00.

There was accordingly more than enough power to run the ash-sucker, and that made short work of the mess. I gave the table a really good scrub too so that looks okay, and with some of the tidying-up that I did, it looks much better than it has for a while.

The cold wasn’t a issue either because I had had the foresight to bring a huge pile of wood up last year. That was now nice and dry and the attic heated up in seconds once I fired up the woodstove. What a good buy that was!

All in all, while I can’t see me going back to live there full-time now, I had a satisfactory stay there and I’m glad that I did it.

But returning to our moutons, as the French say, I dunno what happened at all last night. I was in bed quite early as I said, and I was soon asleep. But I awoke again at about midnight when the alarm went off – I knew that it was a mistake to put new batteries into the clock here and I wish that I could remember now how to switch off the alarm. But I did notice that with the fire on last night the temperature in here reached 26.3°C. That’s not bad for December.

I must have gone back to sleep again, but it wasn’t for long. I’ve no idea what time it was that I awoke but after tossing and turning around in bed for ages and ages, I went for a stroll down the corridor and noted that it was 06:20. And that was that – I couldn’t go back to sleep.

It wasn’t as if anything had awoken me either. No beastie scratching away at the roof or anything like that. It’s rather a disappointment when I was hoping for an early night ready to hit the road this afternoon.

After breakfast I started to load up Caliburn and then tidied up in the attic and gave everything a good once-over. By the time that I had finished, it was just before 12:00 and so I thought to myself “sod it” and we hit the road.

An anxious moment while I couldn’t remember where I had put the key to my room in Leuven, but I found that and off we set.

A stop for lunch at 14:00 on a motorway service station near Cosne sur Loire, and then I drove on northwards.

Now here’s a thing.

We have had beautiful, glorious weather down in the Auvergne but suddenly, as I hit Dordives, a bank of fog came rolling across the motorway. And the temperature plummeted in minutes from 13.8°C to 7.1°C.

From then on, all the way northwards, this was what it was like, and I’m glad that it hadn’t been like this back at home.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take a good photo?

We hit the usual problems on the Francilienne, all the way along and it got worse because my hotel, the Akena Hotel which is another Budget chain at €46:00 that I have yet to try, is in the middle of a centre commerciale, a shopping centre at Claye-Souilly and I arrived at chucking-out time.

It was freezing here with the fog, and the receptionist told me that it had been like this all day here too.

It took a while to sort out the heating and after my pizza had come, I had a shower. And now I’m off to bed, ready for part II of my journey.

Friday 9th December 2016 – I HAD MY …

… early night, and I was quickly away with the fairies too. But I was soon awakened by some kid of beastie scratching away in the roof.I’d forgotten all about them, you know, and how they used to scratch away all the blasted time. I did recall how, on my first night asleep in the bedroom downstairs, how deep a sleep I had without being disturbed at all.

But anyway, this scratching went on for quite a while and I couldn’t get off to sleep while all of this was going on. It was so annoying. But anyway, I did finally go off to sleep and was wide awake again before the alarms went off.

After breakfast and a little relax, I made a start. The corner in the attic that had been left open for access to the cables and (whenever it might be) the water pipes for the solar heat exchanger, I cut some plasterboard quickly and screwed it up to cover the gap on both walls. And then I cut a bigger piece for the ceiling to close all of that up too.

There’s a hole too behind one of the beams that I hadn’t managed to fill in when I did the ceiling. I cut some wood offcuts and I’ve blocked that off now – well, sort-of.

All of this involved a huge run-around for bits and pieces of wood and plasterboard. All of this wore me out completely. I had to stop regularly for a rest and at the end of it all it took me until just after 13:00 to do a couple of simple jobs like that. It’s easy to see just how much this illness has affected me.

But one thing can be said – and that is the 500-watt ash-sucker that I had bought years ago with the aim of converting it into a vacuum cleaner. Seeing as how we were having another impressive day, I gave it a run out to clean up the dust and plasterboard. And it worked in spades too. It’s made an astonishing difference to everything, particularly once I’d started to attack the rest of the room with it. I should have tried this before, and I wish that I had more time to do it again.

After lunch, I did a little more tidying up and then went down to pick up Caliburn. And he was ready too. And even more interestingly, the bill came to much less than half what I had paid in Brussels. He had checked the other side too, the one that they had done up there and told me that it was okay and any other sound that I might hear are not anything to worry about.

As an aside … "you’ll get used to these" – ed … I’d enjoyed driving my little Peugeot. Certainly showing her age, but she was still a fun car to drive around in and considering it had cost me just the diesel to borrow her, I had had a good deal.

Montlucon was next. I was early so I went for a stroll around, and then down to the tyre place. Caliburn now has brand new tyres on the rear to go with his good snow tyres on the front, and a reasonable spare too. Two more snow tyres next winter and then two more decent Hankooks in 18 months time and that will do for a couple of years.

With a full tank of fuel, I drove back here. It was 18:45 when I returned.

After tea, I had a relax again and now I’m going to have an early night. I’ve decided to hit the road tomorrow and head back to Leuven.

Thursday 8th December 2016 – LAST NIGHT, I DIDN’T …

… have such a good night’s sleep. I dozed off quickly enough, even with the radio on, but I was soon awake again when something loud came on the radio. And once I’d sorted that out, I couldn’t go back to sleep again for ages.

However,I must have done because the alarm awoke me. And then it took ages to leave the comfort and warmth of my bed. I’d been on my travels too for some part of it, wandering around somewhere with a young lady.

For the first part of the morning I pottered around and then set off for the garage to leave Caliburn for his wheel bearing.

The courtesy car was there too this time. It’s a 1994 Peugeot 306 with 308,000 kilometres on the clock and a rear flasher that didn’t work.

There wasn’t any diesel in it either so I had to put 12 litres in it to get me about, an don my way back home I went via the Intermarché at Pionsat for a little shopping and to visit the bank.

Liz phoned me up too and we had a good chat.

After lunch I carried on with the tidying up in here, slow as it is, and then went down to see how Caliburn was doing. But he wasn’t ready and that’s something of a disappointment as I would have been on the road tomorrow had he been ready. Now, I have no idea when i’m going to leave here.

Tea was mushrooms, green beans, vegetables and pasta in tomato sauce cooked in the oven. And that was nice too.

So let’s have an early night and see what tomorrow will bring us.

EPIC HALL

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