Category Archives: Eric Hall

Friday 9th September 2016 – THAT WAS A MUCH BETTER …

… night last night. Even though I had to make a few trips down the corridor I did manage to have something of a decent sleep – right through to when the alarm went off. And I was on my travels last night, although if you are probably eating your lunch right now you don’t want to hear about them.

I had breakfast with Rachel and once I had organised myself, I had a task to perform.

Did I mention that a mouse seems to have found its way into the back of Strider? It hibernated in there over the winter and you can imagine that the mess that it has made is quite considerable. And so I resolved to empty everything out of the back and give it a good clean.

Of course, these days, everything takes me ten times longer to do than it did before, and emptying Strider was no exception.

One of the storage boxes was broken and it was in there that the mouse had lodged, so the box and most of its contents were filed under CS. A pile of other stuff followed it too, and once Strider was empty I gave him a good brush out and all the mess was removed.

I’ve redesigned the bed slightly too so that works better (that aggressive rough-cut saw that I bought last year is an impressive tool) but I can’t finish it off as the batteries for the Ryobi plus One drill are flat (on charge even as we speak).

Once I’d had lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so (can’t stand the pace these days, can I?) and then I went downstairs to start to reassemble everything.

And here’s the finished product, such as I had been able to reach at that particular point. It’s comparatively tidy in there as you can see and we have the Canadian Tire fold-up chair in the background and the little Walmart folding table in the foreground. You’d be surprised at just how comfortable it can be in there.

But the condensation on the aluminium roof is the big issue as you know once the temperature cools down. If I do manage to make it back here another year I’ll have to attend to that issue.

While I was out there organising myself, Darren came back from work. He was stopping off on his way to Woodstock to do one or two things, and so I hitched a ride. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded in the truck, but there was enough room for a new tote box from Walmart – a nice colour-coded purple one to go with the light green one, the black one and the blue one.

Back here after tea I loaded up the new tote box with what was left from the damaged one and added a few bits and pieces that were lying around all over the place, and now the tidying is completed.

We have had a minor inconvenience though. I’d been charging up my Canadian mobile phone with the 12-volt car charger, but when I removed it from the socket I left half of it behind. I need to disconnect the battery and pull out the missing bits with a pair of long-nosed pliers, and hope that it will all reassemble. It’s the “good” lighter socket too.

All of this has worn me out considerably today but at least it’s a job well done. I didn’t feel at all guilty about having an early night. And so checking my mails, I found that I had finally received the proposal form for Strider’s insurance. I need to print it out, fill it in and fax it off (and pay for it of course) and as soon as I can do that, I’ll have the insurance card in the next post.

Strider needs his safety check (the equivalent of an MoT or a controle technique) and then his licence tags, and we will then be ready for the off.

I fancy a week or ten days by the seaside.

Thursday 8th September 2016 – THAT WASN’T VERY GOOD

Not very long at all after I went to bed last night, I was off into the Land of Nod. But I didn’t stay there too long. About half an hour later I was awake again and that’s how I stayed for most of the night – to such an extent that I actually spent most of the night working on the laptop.

There are probably a few reasons why I had trouble sleeping, but one of them is that I have once more picked up a heavy cold and streaming nose and this is just so uncomfortable for me. It’s really pretty dismal just how easily I can catch this stuff.

Rachel and I had breakfast together and that gave us the opportunity to have a really good chat about this and that. So much so in fact that she ended up being late for work.

As for me, I stayed on here. After all of my exertions these last few days I wasn’t feeling up to all that much, particularly meeting people, and anyway I had had a bad night as you know. I had plenty of stuff to do too.

It took me all morning to catch up with what needed to be done (I wasn’t in much of a rush) and then it was a question of organising lunch. I had some vegan cheese in Strider and so I went down to look for it. I found it, but I also found something else that didn’t make me very happy – namely that a mouse had found its way into my living quarters in the back.

And so that’s tomorrow’s job, isn’t it? Emptying out the rear of Strider and clearing up the mess. I’m not looking forward to that one little bit.

One thing that I didn’t manage to find – and for ages too no matter how hard I looked for it – was the coffee. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I managed to track that down.

But in the meantime, I’d been chatting with Rhys on the phone. He’s passed his school bus driving test in South Carolina today, which is excellent news, and is now off for his Commercial Driving Licence next. So well-done to Rhys.

It goes without saying that I couldn’t keep this up all day. By mid-afternoon I was stark out – and properly out too because when Darren came home from work he popped in to see how I was doing, and I didn’t notice a thing – and that’s not like me at all.

I wasn’t alone either. I had Cujo the Killer Cat to keep me company. She was curled up on the bed right next to me when I awoke – clearly I’m warmer than the windowsill in the living room.

Rachel cooked a lovely tea this evening – a big dish of mixed vegetables soaked in olive oil and done in the microwave for 15 minutes. It was totally delicious. I’ll have to remember this.

I didn’t stay up for long after tea. My bad night was catching me up and so I came down here to my little room and went to bed. This streaming nose is still getting me down in more ways than one.

But i hope that I can have a better night tonight.

Wednesday 7th September 2016 – WHAT A GOOD DECISION …

… that was, to book into that hotel at the back of the coach station.

I was stark out as soon as I laid down my weary head. We did have an interruption at about 23:45 when a baby started to cry, but that can happen in the best of places and it was a thing of five minutes. And then I needed to make a trip down to the corridor at about 03:00. I finally came to my senses, such as they are, at 04:45, having had a good night’s sleep in this extremely comfortable bed. The night porter’s call at 05:00 was therefore rather superfluous but it was nice to know that it was available and that it works.

But I’ll tell you this – $30-odd less per night than sleeping out at an airport hotel and while the comfort is rather less, I don’t need most of the difference. For the time and money that I save and for the convenience of being in the city centre, if I do ever make it back to Montreal I’ll be coming here, even if it does involve a 500-metre drag of the suitcase. And remember – when I stayed in Lille the other year I dragged it farther than that – and uphill too!

Let’s face it. It’s seen better days, this hotel, but I had a good shower, a really comfortable sleep, and no-one stole my boots. What more do you need?

I was too early for breakfast of course, but that can’t be helped. My bus was more important. I was at the coach station in no time flat and a friendly security guard unlocked the door to the left-luggage room and took my voucher so that I could recover my suitcase and Strawberry Moose, and we took our place in the queue, chatting to a guy who said he was a scouser, although he sounded more Northern Irish to me.

The trip to Sainte-Foy, on the edge of the city of Quebec, took just under three hours and I spent the time in half-asleep mode. After all, it was quite early in the morning. And it’s a good job that I didn’t go to sleep (or is it?) because this bus apparently goes right out to Sept Iles, somewhere else where we’ve been before and where I can catch a train to Labrador.

But when we reached our destination – Sainte Foy, not Sept Iles – a couple of mugs of coffee and a few rounds of toast and jam revived my spirits somewhat, although I’m not sure that you really need to say more than once that you don’t want butter on your toast.

But what’s this all about? That chewing gum was disgusting – $2:00 for three slices and it tasted of nothing but rubber. As for the viagra however, I tried that once many years ago whilst in the company of the much – maligned Percy Penguin, who didn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserved to back in those days. And I clearly didn’t swallow the viagra quickly enough – I had a stiff neck for a week.

And you all know that the wish that I have about my departure is to go suddenly while in the arms of a nubile nymphet a third of my age. Were I to be lucky enough to find a willing volunteer, the viagra would come in handy in those circumstances. But it would take them three days before they could put the lid on the coffin.

Coming over the Pont Pierre Laporte, which we’ve visited before, there was a ship a-sailing … "a-dieseling, you mean" – ed … by, up the river towards Montreal. It’s too far away to see what it is, but it’s the only likely candidate for today’s Ship of the Day and so we’ll include it in here.

We’ll see if we can identify it at a later date when I can access the record of the Port of Montreal … "he couldn’t" – ed.

But on the subject of Pierre Laporte, the whole world is currently up in arms about what they perceive as brown-skinned terrorism, but never forget that Pierre Laporte, a leading Canadian politician, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in cold blood by white-skinned Catholic terrrorists during a major terrorism in Canada – and some of the perpetrators of the crise d’Octobre were given a free passage to Cuba by the craven Canadian Government.

And not only that, some modern-day Quebec politician proposed to erect a plaque in their honour. Yes, and the Canadians complain about brown-skinned terrorists. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

But now the bus is in, and it’s two hours from Sainte-Foy to Riviere du Loup.

So feeling a bit more like it after the coffee, I did a pile of paperwork on the laptop and listened to some good music to pass the time. I’m in Traffic mode right now and I had a good listen to Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired from the magnificent On The Road album, because that’s just how I’m feeling right now. And if he can play a lead guitar solo like the last four minutes of that track when he’s feeling do uninspired, whatever could he do if he were to have some inspiration?

By the time I got to Phoe … errr … Riviere du Loup I wasn’t all that far behind where I wanted to be. But we were late and the connecting bus was already in so I had no chance to buy something to eat and drink. Luckily, I still had a packet of the vegan crisps that Alison had bought for me in Belgium and which had survived the voyage across the Atlantic. They didn’t survive the voyage down to Edmunston anyway.

And our Holland Hurricane has internet available and I can actually configure it to work. All I need now is a few people on line to talk to, but as soon as all of my friends see me come on line, they all clear off rather smartish-like.

We had a 15-minute stop at Edmundston (it’s nice to be back in New Brunswick anyway. Home Sweet Home, an hour in front of Quebec time of course) which was plenty of time to visit the gentleman’s rest room and to pick up a coffee. That’s me organised now for the two hour journey that remains.

Much to my – and everyone else’s – surprise, the bus was bang on time to the minute on its arrival at Florenceville. Rachel, my niece, was already there and waiting and so that was ideal. She had a few errands to perform and then it was off to Centreville and the tyre depot. Rachel went on to do some more errands and I came back here with Darren and Amber.

First task was to sort out Strider. He’s been in his little hidey-hole since last October and needed to see the light of day. Even though the battery had had the odd trickle-charge it was a little flaky so that will need to be replaced, and the tyres were down. And not just that, but some creature or other had made a nest with the soundproofing from underneath the bonnet. But it’s good to be back behind the wheel of Strider again – just like old times and as soon as I can resolve this continuing insurance issue we’ll be in business.

Darren and I had quite a chat but I eventually called it a night. It’s far too much for me these days. It’s amazing just how tired you become doing nothing but sitting around all day on a bus.

And it’s nice to see some friendly faces, but a couple of weeks with me will soon take care of all of that.

Tuesday 6th September 2016 – “WELL ON THE WAY …

… to the Land of Nod” I said, didn’t I? And at 21:45 too.

And there I stayed until almost 04:00 before i had to disappear off down the corridor. Over 6 hours of continuous sleep is a miracle these days and I’m well-pleased with that. It’s been ages since I’ve been like that – it just tells you how tired I really was.

And that’s not all either. I got back into bed and I was gone again for another hour or so too – and quite right too if you ask me.

First downstairs for breakfast again, and then back up here to do some work, as well as a long chat with a friend on the laptop. The internet is a marvellous tool for this kind of thing and I wonder however we managed without it.

All of this took me until about 10:40 and I had to finish then because there was a shuttle that someone had ordered to take them back to the airport and I had hitched a ride on it. It wasn’t as if I was working to a timetable and so it wasn’t worth ordering one just for myself, even if it is a free service. And so off we set and it doesn’t take long to reach there from here.

And it looks as if the Societe de Transports de Montreal has been spending its money too. In the past, the 747 – the bus that connects the airport to the city centre – was just an ordinary service bus. But now, we have some big six-wheeled Prevost tour buses doing the runs and that’s certainly progress.

Of a sort anyway, because the legendary 25-minute white knuckle ride into the city is over.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s there was a massive investment in the infrastructure of Montreal. But the work was blighted by problems of overspending, over-time and, shame as it is to say it, all kinds of corruption. All of the concrete work that was done in those days is falling apart as you can see in this photo and this is by no means the worst example – just one that was clearly visible right by where the bus happened to stop.

As a result, huge sections of the overhead motorway network have been taken out of service to be repaired and in some cases it looks as if some sections have been demolished. And that means that our journey took about three times as long as it would otherwise have done.

I’m glad now that I didn’t rely on public transport to bring me into the city early tomorrow morning. As a long-distance traveller I’ve always believed in being as close to my destination as possible as early as possible, and you can understand why.

So here I am at the bus station, and there’s a left-luggage place here. It’s $10 to leave an item here for 24 hours but I’m not going all around the city lugging the giant suitcase around with me and I certainly don’t want to be staggering around with it at 05:00 tomorrow morning. Here it stays.

I didn’t stay though. I headed off to the Galeries Desjardins in the rue Sainte Catherine – and for several reasons too.

there’s a Subway in the basement and I’m hungry. What with the delay on the bus it’s lunchtime already and my stomach feels as if my throat has been cut. I managed to eat this one too without dropping it on the floor.
it’s steaming hot again and there’s a sorbet store just across the road. The coconut milk sorbet was beautiful although they were a bit stingy with it, but the chocloate sorbet was disgusting and it was all that I could do to finish it. I won’t be having that again.
there’s a metro station down in the bowels of the place and this is where I want. I’m on the move again.

The metro takes me to the terminus right out at Honore-Beaugrand and there I leap aboard a 28 bus that pulls up right on cue. This is going to take me out to the rue Jarry Est and my storage locker. My credit card expired a few weeks ago and a payment has been missed and I don’t want them to foreclose on contents of it.

It’s a nice drive out through the outer suburbs of the city and then round across the motorway to the industrial section of the east end. The friendly driver shows me where my stop is but I recognised it anyway.

And now we have another problem – and that is that my UK credit card – which is in credit as always when I go off on a wander – has been blocked. "Unusual spending patterns" probably, which is just an excuse for saying that they don’t want me to spend any money so that the bank can keep it. I mean – it’s not an unusual spending pattern at all, is it? Every year at this time of the year I come here.

Still, I’ve been expecting this ever since I was stranded in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 2002. I make sure that I have other cards with me and I’ve even opened an account in a Canadian bank. We can soon resolve this issue – but it’s darned annoying all the same.

Back outside to the bus stop on the other side of the road and it’s the same driver on the return run. We both recognised each other and we had a little chat. That passes the time of day and we’re soon back at Honore-Beaugrand, just in time to be swamped by schoolchildren. It must be chucking-out time already. But then again, we did go a long way out of the city.

I alight at Berri-UQAM and head round to the rue Saint Hubert and the Hotel Bon Accueil.

It’s quite a modern building – dating from the 80s I reckon – but I bet that the rooms haven’t seen a lick of paint since then – it’s quite down-at-heel. But the place is spotlessly clean, there’s air-conditioning, a fridge and the bed feels oh! So comfortable! So much so in fact that I’m well-away with the fairies for an hour or so. And quite right too.

But I can’t stay here for ever no matter how nice it feels. I need to be on my way.

Another advantage of the hotel is that right at the end of the street is the Place Emilie Gamelin.

She was a nun who had a convent here but that was demolished to become the site of the Berri-UQAM metro station and underneath all of the grass and greenery is a concrete pad which is actually the roof of the station.

If I do decide to come back to the hotel here, this place would be nice to come to sit to with a book and a cold drink if I don’t feel up to going for a wander around the city. It’s nice to have a garden close by

But I don’t have time to stop here and enjoy the sun this afternoon. We have things to do.

Our next stop is what is for me the most beautiful building in Montreal – the Gare Viger, which was formerly the old Canadian Pacific Railway terminus.

Canadian Pacific abandoned all of its operations east of Montreal back in the 1980s (hence the reason that I’m obliged to leave the city on the coach) and this majestic building was left to decay. At one time there was even talk at one time of demolishing it, but it seems that good aesthetic taste has prevailed and they are actually doing something with it. And just as well too because it would be a disaster if this place fell by the wayside.

Down to the river next to see if there’s anything loading or unloading at the grain terminals. Montreal’s fortunes were built on the grain that was brought in from the Prairies by the railway and shipped out to Europe down the Saint Lawrence.

And we’re in luck. Not the best Ship of the Day but the first one so far. It’s so far away that I can’t read its name from here (yes I can if I enlarge the image – she’s the Manitoba, or Personitoba as I suppose we have to say these days).

She’s an old laker, as you can tell from the bridge that is right on the bows of the ship. These ships sail around the Great Lakes and through the canals as far as here, and the reason that the bridge is so far forward is that the captain can have a good view of the entry to the locks into which the ship must sail.

And I do mean "old", by the way. As in 1967 as it happens and that’s an extraordinary age for a cargo ship. She’s a bulk carrier of 10902 tonnes, registered in Hamilton on the shores of Lake Ontario and, for a period up to 2011, was known as the Maritime Trader.

According to her manifests, she seems to spend a great deal of time travelling between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and Port Cartier down the Gulf of St Lawrence which we visited in 2012. It looks as if she’s in the ore business then.

Seeing as how we were talking of bridges just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … how about this for a bridge?

It’s the custom, as we know, for important geographical features to be named after their discoverer, and so I wonder what Jacques Cartier said when he sailed up the St Lawrence to here on 2nd October 1535 and saw this magnificent bridge spanning the river. He must have been so impressed, just as I was the first time that I saw it.

It’s a beautiful evening and not cooling down very much so I go for another stroll along the riverside.

Over there is where I should have been yesterday had that music concert not interrupted my plans. That’s the Ile Sainte Helene and that’s the belvedere where there’s an excellent view of the city at night when everywhere is all lit up. I’ll manage without a photo from there though for this year. You never know – I might be back in Montreal yet again if I can continue to fight off this illness.

But just a few words about the island. During World War II it was the site of a prisoner-of-war camp that earned something of an evil reputation due to the severe fashion that the German soldiers were treated in there. It later it became the site of the 1967 World’s Fair – Expo ’67, which, seeing as this was the the period of a considerable amount of major Quebecois terrorism, was known throughout the world as Explo ’67.

Further around the waterfront in the old docks is another ship.

Actuallly she’s a goelette, the Grosse Ile and she claims to be the last working goelette on the Saint Lawrence. She was bought as something not too far removed from a rotting hulk in 1992 and it took 20 years to restore.

Her work these days seems to be nothing more than taking tourists for a couple of laps around the harbour, and I could have been tempted, but I didn’t have the Crown Jewels with me so I let the opportunity pass me by.

Now I bet that you are all dying to know what a goelette is, aren’t you? And so you need to cast your minds back 50 years and more. In those days, most of the settlements along the banks of the St Lawrence were either fishing villages or lumber camps, and there was no road connection between them. Instead, there were the goelettes that sailed along the river from a railhead and worked a chain of these isolated communities, dropping off supplies and picking up the fish or whatever.

There are still several isolated communities like that these days and you may remember coming with me in May 2012 on an icebreaker, smashing our way through the pack-ice out to an isolated island down in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

From here I trudged wearily, because I’m in wearily trudging mode by now, to the metro. It’s my last night in Montreal so I’m going to have a big blow-out.

Quite literally too, because there’s a superb Indian restaurant right by the Snowdon metro station and that’s where I’m heading. Vegetable samosas followed by a potato, spinach and mint curry with boiled rice and a naam bread and that was me well-and-truly stuffed. As I have said before, it’s the best Indian meal that I have ever had outside Stoke-on-Trent.

Another one of the advantages of being in a hotel in the city centre is that travelling time is so much less. Instead of 20:45 it was more like 20:15 when I was home. This meant that I was all done and dusted, in and out of the shower and all tucked up in a comfortable bed by 20:45.

And if I’m going to have to be up tomorrow at 05:00, then I need to be, too. I’m not looking forward to this one little bit.

Monday 5th September 2016 – THEY SAY THAT A YEAR …

… is a period of 365 disappointments, and I’ve been having my fair share just recently. And another one ha reared its ugly head today. The night bus that I was planning to take tomorrow night – well, I can’t. Apparently there’s no room on it, and that’s that.

There is however another bus, but that leaves at 06:00 on Wednesday morning and so faute de mieux, I’m on that. But 06:00 in the morning – does that exist? We shall have to find out.

It also means that I shall have to stay another night in a hotel here, and for no good purpose too which is unfortunate. And “here”, as in the Comfort Inn on the Cote de Liesse, is clearly impossible as there is no way that I could be in the city centre in time for the bus.

However, wandering around in the vicinity of the coach station, I came across a street full of about 20 disreputable cat-houses, a mere 5 minutes stagger away from where I want to be and so tomorrow night I shall be installing myself in one of those.

God help the bed-bugs with me on the way!

Now I can’t remember how many times I left my bed last night. It might have been one, but on the other hand it might have been none. One thing that I do know was that we had the Sleep of the Dead.

I was in bed, as I said last night, by 21:15 and I remember nothing whatever until about 04:40. Totally painless it was.

And I didn’t feel up to doing much for the first hour and a half. I stretched out here on the sofa and took it easy with a glass of cold spruce beer and a coffee. No point in having a decent, comfy sofa if you don’t make full use of it.

Breakfast was from 06:30 and I was there very shortly afterwards (something like 06:31 actually) and here we had a minor panic. Bagels (and a toaster, coffee and orange juice) there were a-plenty. But where was the maple syrup? You can’t come to Canada and not have toasted bagels and maple syrup for breakfast. Anyway, eventually some was found and that was me all set up for the morning.

I had a companion too – a North African who told me that he was from Belgium. He was here on a tourist visa, so he said, but he was looking for work and asked me if I could help him. i gave him a few pointers, such as I know them, which isn’t very much, and then came back up here to attack some paperwork, of which there was more than enough. It didn’t help with me … err … closing my eyes for a little relaxation at some point during the proceedings.

But I can’t stay here for ever. Despite the fact that it’s Labour Day, there are things to do, places to go, people to see and all of that and so I need to sort myself out for the bus.

And I didn’t have long to wait either which was just as well because even though it was only 10:00 it was stifling hot already. The bus to the metro and the metro to the Berri-UQAM station and the coach station round the back. And this is where I had my disappointment.

But of course you know that we don’t have problems, we have solutions and so we set off to put our principles into practice.

This isn’t a photograph of of my selected cat-house by the way. This is a photo of a very tranquil little alleyway at the back of what used to be a boot and shoe factory, and it’s right in the centre of Montreal. It wasn’t what I was expecting to find in a place like this.

This isn’t a photo of my selected cat-house either.

If you are a regular reader of this rubbish you will recall that I’ve been posting the odd photo every now and again of houses in Montreal and the surroundings because some of the inner-city housing has a very special charm or beauty.

And these here in the rue Timothée just go to show what can be done with a little imagination – something that seems to be sadly lacking in Europe these days.

Having resolved the issues of the next stage of my journey, the next plan was to resolve the issues of my stomach. It was lunchtime.

The rue St Catherine is what is described as the city’s “Latin Quarter” – something that took me by surprise seeing as how all of the signs were written in French.

It was also Gay Pride day or something in the street apparently. There were loads of same-sex couples strolling hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm. I took my time over eating my Subway sandwich (without spilling it all over the floor this year) – I didn’t want to bugger off yet.

Last year, you may remember, they had street pianos dotted around all over the city so that anyone who fancied a quick tinkle on the ivories could go and have a play around.

They are doing the same thing this year too, and here is a pianist having a right old go on the joanna and he’s recruited a couple of vocalists to give him some accompaniment. I suppose that it’s all part of life’s rich pageant

There’s all kinds of stuff going on in the rue St Catherine and at a certain point there are four or five giant chessboards. People give their names to the organisers and they are called up to play when a previous game is finished.

Here in this game we had a dispute over the rules of “castling” and I learned something that I didn’t know before. And that’s always good news.

We had a few moment of excitement in the rue Sainte Catherine too. A woman, coming out of a building, saw another man, went over to him to say ‘Happy Birthday!” and grabbed him in the most enormous bear-hug that went on for hours.

I was so impressed that I went over to her and told her that if that was the reaction, then I would like to say that it was my birthday too. However, I didn’t have the same treatment – not at all!

I told you that it was not my lucky day, didn’t I?

But by mid-afternoon the heat was thoroughly overwhelming and the only protection is flight. I flew to the Metro and took the train out to Verdun and the La Salle metro station.

Just down the road is the Parc Arthur Therrien, whoever he is when he’s at home, if he ever is, and that was my destination. It was great to see the centre of Montreal from this kind of distance rather than being stuck in the middle of it in this heat.

Over there in the distance at the back of Mount Royal is the Oratory of Saint Joseph which is on the Cote-des-Neiges. You may remember that we visited the Oratory in … errr … 2013 wasn’t it?

But not today, I’m going to enjoy the sun and have a good time, watching all of the people enjoying themselves – and I say “all of the people” because there are hordes here and everyone is having fun – even all of the kids who are splashing around in the swimming pool and the ponds.

As for me though, I headed off into the shade and found myself the first real view of the St Lawrence river for this year. The motorway bridge away in the distance (downstream, fortunately) rather detracts from the scenery, but never mind.

And so, having found a nice shady spot out of the 32°C temperature, I closed my eyes for … errr … 45 minutes and it was totally painless, I’ll tell you that! It did me the world of good too!

Having hunted down the gentleman’s rest room (and had I not needed it I would probably still be asleep there now) I went for a walk along the edge of the river, watching the fishermen, the canoeists and the jet-skiers.

And also admiring the properties on the river front and how I would love to live in an apartment in a building like one of those.

And you can tell by the sky ust what kind of weather we are having today. It’s magnificent.

And so I headed back into the city and changed trains for the Jean Drapeau station on the Ile Sainte Helene in the middle of the river at the other end of the city. That ought to be nice and cool with the breeze coming in off the river as the evening draws on.

But that wasn’t to be either. The island was closed off as there was an “event” taking place there – some kind of music concert that was clearly not my type, so I headed back to town. Just round the corner from the Sherbrooke metro station, seeing as I was in that end of the city, is a little Lebanese restaurant that does an assiette falafel at a very democratic price. That was tea organised.

I headed back here afterwards, part of the way in company with a woman from the North East of England who had lived here for 8 years and couldn’t stand the heat.

And forget your white-knuckle rides in amusement parks. Take the 202 bus from DuCollege Metro Station back to here with the lady driver that I had, and you’ll have the time of your life. I ended up back here, shaken but not stirred, at 20:45 and by 21:15 I was showered and in bed, well on my way to the Land of Nod.

Sunday 4th September 2016 – WELL, I NEVER THOUGHT THAT I’D EVER …

… get back here again, but here I am all the same.

And it was really no surprise where I was going, was it? Hands up if you REALLY didn’t guess.

And I’m glad that I’m here because it really was miserable this morning! And I’m not talking about me either. I had a reasonable night’s sleep for a change – just two trips down the corridor, and I ended up awake round about 06:45. But you would never have guessed what time it was – it looked as it if was 04:00 outside – totally dark, grey and miserable. How glad I am to be getting out of this.

No breakfast at the hotel either. It seems to have tightened up considerably on its efficiency from what I saw last night and I reckon that the breakfast cards that I still have from my time as a chauffeur all these years ago might be disallowed these days. But having anticipated this move, I did have some supplies with me – Strawberry Moose hadn’t eaten all of them – and so we had breakfast in my room. The complementary coffee plus the crackers, banana and satsumas out of my suitcase.

After breakfast I had a shower – and the door to the shower cubicle promptly fell off the runners – evidently the previous honeymmoning couple had been far too energetic in the bathroom – and there was no soap in the dispenser in the shower cubicle either. It was clearly not my night in the Comfort Inn, was it?

The shuttle back to the airport was fairly straightforward, although these days they only go to Terminal 2 and you need to take the internal tram-shuttle round to there. And then of course I had to enquire of the direction to the aeroplanes, never having been this way before.

We had all fun and games at the baggage check-in. First of all, my luggage weighed a mere 17.1 kilograms. I’m definitely losing my touch, aren’t I? And then the girl at the check-in dropped my passport into the conveyor. That brought Terminal Three to its knees for a good half an hour. Who needs machine guns and dynamite to paralyse a transport network when Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly are on the loose?

As for the security control, that was the most painless that I have ever encountered. Straight in, straight through and straight out without even a hint of inconvenience and aggression. Quite the reverse in fact – the couple of young people working there actually had a sense of humour and a laugh and joke with the passengers. Other airports and border crossings should take not of this. If every other passage through "Security" was as pleasant as this, every journey would be a pleasure instead of being so stressful.

I’ve complained bitterly about airport security in the past so it’s only correct to give credit when it deserves it;

The aeroplane was late, as you might expect, and we had to be bussed out across the hardstanding because it’s Air Transat again and they can’t afford the full terminal fees. And I know that I said that I would never ever fly Air Transat again but this year, what with my incredibly late booking, the cost of a flagship flight across the Atlantic was well into four figures. With Air Transat it was less than €500 and that’s the cheapest price that I’ve ever had across to Canada in modern times. It might be easier for a lion to swallow his pride than it is for me to do so, but I can do it whenever there’s some of the folding stuff involved.

But Air Transat is going downhill. There wasn’t even a hint of anything on the in-flight entertainment that I wanted to watch, even as a captive viewer. In fact under the heading "Classic Films" there were just three – and they dated from the turn of the century. Hardly what I would call "classic". I ended up listening to music on my phone instead.

The in-flight catering was absolute rubbish too. I’ve never ever eaten so badly on a long-haul flight in all my life. Just a hot wrap of grilled vegetables for lunch and a sort-of pizza slice for tea, and that’s your lot. Mind you, I had been warned about this by someone who actually works for Air Transat, and that was the reason for the extra baguette and butties that I made yesterday.

You may remember – or long term readers of this rubbish my remember – the Air Transat flight from a few years ago with the full-length mirror in the gentleman’s rest-room. And so we had another one on this flight too – which is what looks to be a reasonably-modern Airbus A330 by the way.

There’s clearly a purpose for these mirrors, and I’m sure you come up with your own ideas. For me, all you need is a paintbrush and a pot of varnish and then I can gloss over all of my shortcomings.

And so we headed out well across the Atlantic, our arrival becoming later and later as the headwinds kept pushing us backwards.Our estimatedtimeof arrival, which should have been 13:14 had we taken off on time, became 14:15 aswe left, and ended up at 14:27

Now, reading the notes that I’ve been typing about Air Transat, you might be thinking that I’m pretty well-disillusioned about the airline. But nothing could be further from the truth. Had I had this level of service on a Swissair or Lufthansa flight at €1335, I would have been beyond furious. But just let me remind you that I’ve paid a little more than a third of the price to do the same trip with Air Transat (and that’s not strictly true as Lufthansa wanted me to go via Dusseldorf). Given the situation, I’ve had my money’s worth from Air Transat and I don’t want anyone to think otherwise.

At least it’s not as bad as the legendary Air Fungus flight that set off from Ballyhoo to Montreal – a flight of 2200 miles – and when the pilot discovered after 1800 miles in the air that he didn’t have enough fuel for the remaining 400 miles, he turned round and flew back towards Ballyhoo.

We eventually arrived, and at a real air terminal too, and I was able to take a photo of the aeroplane. It’s not very good, mainly because I was using the phone camera and I had the sun in my eyes, and you can’t see the serial number of the machine either. But it’s the best that was available.

The queue into Canada was nothing like as bad as last time – only about four perpendicular lines, and with 9 immigration staff on duty we were done and dusted inside half an hour. I took advantage of the pause by emptying my rucksack of all prohibited food items – Canada seems to be becoming more and more keen on this sort of thing. But I was clearly observed nibbling on a forbidden orange or somthing because I was quizzed for a few minutes about any food that might be in my possession and a red cross was put on my entry form.

Whoops!

Next stop was the bus ticket machine. I’m here for three days now, having messed up over this Labour Day thing. I was supposed to do all of my errands tomorrow and move on tomorrow night but it’s Labour Day and so everywhere will be closed down. I can’t do anything now until Tuesday and so I’ll need an extra night at the hotel for a start. A three-day ticket costs $18 and that even includes travel from the airport into the city as often as I would like, and if that’s not good value I don’t know what is.

And I shall have to stop talking to myself too. Someone loitering near the ticket machine came over to me. He said that he was glad to hear another English-speaker and could I sort out a ticket for him. Americans are so lost outside their normal environment and so I was glad to help him.

And what goes around comes around too because they have changed all of the hotel shuttles too. The gate has moved to upstairs and you need now to phone up for yourbus – there are no longer any tourneés.This was going to be a problem, as I predicted, because my Canadian phone charger doesn’t work and the battery is flat, but a kind man at the information desk lent me his phone and that was quickly organised.

I didn’t have to wait very long either, and the man who picked me up was the same man who has picked me up a few times now so we had a very interesting chat about old times on the drive down here. It’s good to be amongst friends.

The hotel is only 5 minutes away from the airport and so I was here in no time flat. I booked my room for an extra night, so much for the best-laid plans of mice and men, andin a change to the advertised programme I’ve also booked a room for the night before I leave Canada.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother and I’d go straight through off the overnight bus onto the overnight plane, but I have to remember that I’m ill and while I might be okay right now, whatever am I going to be like in five weeks time? This is no time for playing fast and loose with my health.

Having done all of the necessary, I went up to my room, liberated Strawberry Moose from his confinement in the suitcase and had a nice relax for a couple of hours, something which involved a couple of cups of coffee.

And then I hit the town. There’s a bus stop right outside the hotel here and having observed from my window the times of the buses that pass by, I didn’t have long to wait. The 202 bus goes past the hotel every half an hour at about 05 and 35, and there’s a bus stop right outside the building.

This is why you always buy your bus ticket at the airport. The hotels along the Côte de Liesse are quite handy for the public transport, but you need to have a ticket handy when you leap on board.

The bus goes down to the DuCollege metro station and that’s about about 30 minutes drive away. Here, you can take the underground into the city centre, or anywhere else that takes your fancy.

Ordinarily I’d go down to the Snowdon metro station and chanhe trains for the Côte des Nieges because there’s my little falafel place and even an excellent Indian restaurant but tonight, as it was early, I had a change of plan. I did change trains but I went all the way to the Jean Talon station instead.

Just down the road is the legendary wholesale vegetable market and it’s a stunning place, full of traders and people and the most astonishing vegetables. But everywhere was closing down by the time that I arrived and there were just the private citizens buying up the leftovers. But it’s still a really exciting place to be even at that time of the evening.

From here, I walked down towads the Parc Metro station – the old Canadian Pacific railway terminus that i’ve shown you before. A Metro supermarket came up with a big bottle of epinette, the spruce beer that I love (and I have a fridge in my hotel room too) and I could organise some vegan cheese because it’s Sunday – pizza night.

At the side of the underground station is a pizza place that has always been very good to me in the past. Here I ordered my pizza as well as a bottle of root beer (after all, we are in Canada now) and then I was ready for home. And I didn’t have to wait too long for the bus at DuCollege either which certainly makes a change.

Coming back can be something of an issue because it isn’t easy to reach the hotel – there’s a motorway in between the hotel and the return bus route. However a friendly driver can usually be persuaded to stop at the overpass about 800 metres up the road and although it’s a bit of a walk back, it’s much quicker than doing the circular tour.

I was back here by 20:45 and by 21:15 I was cleaned, showered, clothes washed and in this beautifully comfortable bed. And here I’m staying until my name changes to Rip van Eric.

Saturday 3rd September 2016 – ONE OF THE THINGS …

… that is pretty much guaranteed to get my goat is the general unco-operative spirit of people who seem to deliberately set out to obstruct and inconvenience every single one of their fellow human-beings. And I had one of those on the train today from Leuven to Brussels. Here I was, struggling with my mammoth suitcase and there was a family, with pushchairs and all kind of encombrances blocking the passageway, and they simply sat there and watched as I struggled my way down the aisle.

You can tell that I’m leaving Leuven and heading closer to Brussels, on the first leg of my voyage elsewhere.

Despite being thoroughly exhausted after my walk around the city yesterday – so much so that I had an early night, and despite two trips down the corridor, I was awake quite early – round about 06:20 or thereabouts. And I’d been on my travels during the night too – but then again you don’t want to know too much about this seeing as how you are probably eating your breakfast.

After breakfast I packed up and sorted everything out. By the time that I had done this, it was midday and so I went and fetched Caliburn. Strawberry Moose had quite a surprise as I stuffed him into his suitcase, and then I took that up to my room and took down everything that I don’t need. I then took Caliburn back to his little hidey-hole and walked back.

On the way back I bought two baguettes – two being necessary because there is no other way of my obtaining any food tomorrow during the next leg of my journey so I have to make butties. I had lunch and made the butties for tomorrow and then packed my suitcase and sorted out everything that I need.

And here I have had a disaster – I don’t have the charger for my other telephone. Well, I do, but there are two of them and one doesn’t work and it’s the one that doesn’t work that I have managed to bring with me. So this is going to cause a major problem tomorrow late afternoon.

I’d also forgotten the saucepan. I had to wash that and then walk back to Caliburn with it, otherwise I would only forget it. I know that it’s not much good, but it’s the only one that I have at the moment.

And another thing – I’ve solved the mystery of why I always seem to pick up an infection, a heavy cold or cough (or both) when I’m in my room, which goes almost as soon as I leave. The reason for this is that there is about 6 feet of dust and fluff underneath my bed. This cleaner-person just seems to clean where he can see and that’s your lot. No wonder it’s affected me so much.

But, as I have said before, I’m not complaining. I had an important reduction on the room rate due to the time that I was spending there and the price of less than €26 per night, breakfast included, was an excellent deal.

By 16:30 I was ready to leave and so I hit the streets. Dragging the monster suitcase behind me I made it to the bus stop and then on the bus to the station. And despite the difficulties I made it to Brussels all the same. And I got lost in Bruxelles-Midi – it’s all changed since I was last here and what with repairs and renovations and bits closed off, it took me an age to find my way around to the Thalys lounge.

It was 17:15 when I arrived and my train was due to depart at 19:15, and we could board it half an hour earlier, which seemed like a good idea to me. I sat around for a while and then went off in search of food because there won’t be any at all where I’m going tonight. I ended up with a veggie burger and chips and a bottle of pop, quite over-priced (which is only to be expected when you have a captive audience) but wasn’t as disgusting as I was fearing.

Just for a change, I was a mere third on the train and my suitcase, with His Nibs inside, was first on the luggage rack. That’s much more like it than the mad scramble that occurs at Lyon Part-Dieu (which is where this train is heading, incidentally).

Not that it made much difference though, because there was hardly anyone on it. I’ve never been on such an empty TGV – or have I? The one that I took from Lille to Charles de Gaulle a couple of years ago was quite empty, so I recall. It didn’t fill up much more at Lille and we shot off into the sunset from there still pretty-much empty.

At the airport (yes, I’m at the airport) we had the usual half-hour wait for the shuttle bus, and when I finally arrived at my hotel, the hotel had no trace of my booking, even though I had the agency’s confirmation. This led to a very interesting 30 minutes at the reception desk, but luckily the bridal suite hadn’t been booked and so I’m spending the night in 5-Star luxury in an emperor-sized bed. And you can’t say fairer than that, can you?

So an early start tomorrow, and we are off on our travels again. See you soon!

Friday 2nd September 2016 – WHAT A NICE DAY!

A few days ago I heard that my friend Esyllt, with whom I studied at University, was coming to Brussels from Cardiff for the weekend. We had a quick exchange of e-mails and instead of coming this evening, she came over at lunchtime instead and made her way out to Leuven. That was really nice of her.

We met at the station and went to the fritkot for lunch, followed by a coffee, and then a mega-ramble all around the city. It took us hours to do the full circuit, and we had a really good chat to catch up with old times. Eventually we ended up back at the station and Esyllt took the train back to Brussels early in the evening.

It was nice to catch up with her – we haven’t seen each other for three years – and see where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing in the intervening period. It certainly beats packing boxes and suitcases, and there’s always tomorrow.

On the way to the railway station, I organised the monthly payments for Caliburn’s parking, booked my hotel here (I’m going to have a bit of luxury for a change) for when I come back and then went to the railway station for my rail tickets for the first part of my journey at the weekend. Now I’m up-to-date and everything (except for one night in a hotel because I’ve made a miscalculation about one of the things that I need to do) is organised.

I had a bad night too – still awake at 02:40, but I slept all of the way through the 07:00 and 08:00 cacophony and it was 08:18 when I awoke. I must remember to set the alarm for tomorrow.

So now I’ve had tea – I was going to buy something for tea but I reckoned instead that I would liquidate some of the stocks instead. Less to carry to the van tomorrow. And I’m going to have an early night too. I’m tired and my legs are aching after my mega-ramble (and it does say something that I can go on a mega-ramble like this these days – it’s been a good while) so it will do me good. And then I’m off on the road tomorrow afternoon.

As Gandalf famously said, “It’s a dangerous business going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to”.

And for me, that’s part of the pleasure of travelling.

Thursday 1st September 2016 – I CRASHED OUT …

… good and proper this afternoon. And I was miles away too. It’s not very often that I can crash out quite like this.

Mind you, I had good reason. I’d had a bad night, being still awake long after 02:30. And although the 07:00 cacophony rattled me into some kind of wakefulness, it was the clatter outside the door at 07:30, caused by a young family preparing to leave, that brought me to my feet.

I staggered off for breakfast, and then I had a few things to do here. I made a good start with the tidying-up and the throwing-away and while there’s tons still to go at, it’s nice to have some of it under my belt.

Once I’d organised that, it was off to town and the shops. At the Delhaize I bought the butty stuff for the next few days and then I wandered off to the Wibra for some more of those plastic boxes that I mentioned the other day. I want to have some new stuff to replace the plastic boxes that I’ve had back home since 2006 and which are falling to bits.

Lunch was next, and I made the usual baguette. And when I’d demolished that, it was next to the launderette to wash all of my clothes. It’s important to bring all of that up-to-date too.

Once I’d organised that, it was down to Caliburn to see if the bank account details of the owner of the garage had appeared. And quite rightly so – there they were. And so I toddled off to the bank around the corner, only to find that it’s only opened in the morning. So that’s another job to do tomorrow.

But it wasn’t ‘arf ‘ot, mum, and with having done all of that at (for me these days) break-neck pace it’s hardly surprising that I crashed out here as soon as I returned.

But that’s not all either. My voyage at the weekend is complicated by a document that I need – it’s not a document that will stop me travelling but it will limit my activities when I arrive. And so I had to go off on a major on-line search and this resulted in my sending out about 15 e-mails.

This seems to be becoming a regular event – sending out a major mail-shot – and you all know the results of these because I’ve complained bitterly about the (lack of) response in the past. But today, I’ve had a response rate of well over 50% – some in the negative (but it was nice all the same), some offering suggestions, and a few being extremely positive. Isn’t that a nice change? And so it looks as if a part of my voyage, which I was planning on abandoning, might well be back on and that’s good news.

So now I’ve had my tea and I’m planning on having an early night. I have much to do tomorrow and not much time to do it either. I’ll have to put my skates on.

Wednesday 31st August 2016 – FATE HAS A VERY STRANGE HABIT …

… of dealing with its own issues without very much input from oneself, no matter how hard one might try to interfere with things. And in the end, one quickly discovers that one didn’t even need to interfere at all.

And so it is with my accommodation, because the situation has resolved itself without any input from me, no matter how hard I tried.

I was told this morning that I can leave the hospital today. My blood count is back up (and over) to 12.2 – the highest that it has ever been, and there was no infection in my blood. And when do I come back? The answer is – 13th October – in 6 weeks time in fact. And then I’ll be required to check in every 6 months or so. Consequently there is no need at all for me to stay in Leuven and I can go back home.

Except that I am not going home at all. I have a cunning plan, and it certainly does not involve Belgium.

I had a bad night at the hospital, but then, that’s only to be expected. I always have bad nights at the hospital. I didn’t get off to sleep until about 01:30 and I was wide awake again by 05:30, tucking into a nectarine and a banana, followed by a coffee.

A blood sample followed (I didn’t mention the fruit), and then breakfast, and then we had the endless stream of visitors. And this was when the news was given to me about leaving.

Having had my lunch (I’m not going to miss out on this) I set off for home, remembering half-way down the hill that I had forgotten my vegan cheese in the hospital fridge. And when I arrived here, I had a phone call – could I go back to the hospital and allow them to take out my catheter? Yes, who forgot to have it taken out then?

So back up the hill to the hospital, remembering on the way that I had to collect my vegan cheese from the fridge. Sophie, my third-favourite nurse was there and she took it out without even a wince. The best one that I’ve ever had. Then downstairs and bumped into Evie who was going home, and we had a long chat.

From there, I walked back home, remembering half-way down the hill that I had forgotten my vegan cheese in the hospital fridge YET AGAIN.

Back here, I put things in motion and as a result I’m leaving here on Saturday afternoon, and leaving for goog too, 12 days before my time is up. And where I’m going on the train, you’ll all find out in due course. But it’s not back home to Virlet.

I’ve had my tea – mushroom curry – and now I’m having an early night. I have so much to do now for the next few days.

Tuesday 30th August 2016 – WELL HERE I AM AGAIN!

That’s right, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed … "well, yes" – ed … here in the hospital, ready for my final session of mapthera.

And bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I ought to have been too, because I was asleep relatively early too. Not that it did me much good of course, because round about 01:00 we had a party of fellow-residents returning from a night out in the town and they certainly let everyone know that they were back.

Not only that, I had a nightmare too! How long is it since I had one of those? Things are definitely being rather depressing around here right now if that’s the level to which I seem to have sunk.

An early start and a reasonable breakfast in the bright morning sum did much to restore my morale and then after a little relax to gather up my wits, not that it takes too long these days … "you said that the other day" – ed … I set off for the long trudge up the hill to the hospital.

I was here early too, and soon installed in a nice room by a couple of my favourite nurses (but not the cute and sweet Tara as yet). It’s nice to be on my usual ward with everyone so friendly and helpful. And I had a new doctor too. It looks as if Hermione is now a thing of the past. No more Ericus Reparo.

And we’ve had some very bad news too. They took my blood count and it is DOWN – from 12.0 to 11.0. It’s true to say that 3 months ago I would have happily settled for 11.0 and gone home smiling and whistling, but not after I’ve been up as high as 12.0. Here I was, thinking that I was out of the woods. It seems however that I have merely moved into different woods.

On the other hand, they have now made a formal announcement of the illness that I have. It seems that I have Waldenströhm’s disease (I should have kept well-clear of Waldenströhm, I suppose). It’s quite rare, which is probably why they were having issues with dealing with it at Montlucon, but then again it’s not as if I’m likely to have anything plebeian, is it?

They talk about vision loss, which as regular readers of this rubbish will recall is something that I have mentioned frequently over the last year or so, and a change in mental state. Well, you can all make up your own minds about that one.

They also say that it’s incurable, and that there’s a life expectancy of between 5 and 11 years (now, of course, 4 and 10 years) and I don’t like the sound of any of that at all. But as far as you lot are concerned, at least it gives you all some kind of idea of how long you have to suffer theremaider of this rubbish that I churn out.

I had all of the antidotes and calmants and stuff like that, and then I had the mapthera. That didn’t take too long and by 17:00 I was all done and dusted, having had an hour or so away with the fairies meantime. Now I have to wait the 18 hours to check for the side-effects, and I do hope that my room-mate doesn’t snore. And I suppose that he’s hoping that I don’t cough.

Now here’s a thing. In the absence of the cute and sweet Tara, I’m being attended to by the just-as-cute and just-as-sweet Evie. And she wants to know why it is that whenever she takes my blood pressure, it’s always higher than when the other nurses take it.

Ordinarily, I would tell her – but not when my room-mate is listening and the door to my room is open.

Monday 29th August 2016 – BLIMEY! WHAT A STORM!

I can’t remember when it was that we last had a terrific rainstorm. But the one that we had this morning was a corker!

At about 06:30, when I awoke this morning, it was quite grey and overcast. And also quite a lot cooler which made a pleasant change. And although it was an early start, it wasn’t that early when I went up for breakfast. I seem to be becoming quite lazy in my old age.

Yet another leisurely morning (just by way of a change) and round about 10:00, just when I was thinking that I ought to go out and buy my baguette, the heavens opened in a dramatic fashion and that was that. And so instead of going for my baguette I went upstairs for a coffee instead – to find another group of residents whom I hadn’t noticed before.

The rainstorm eased off round about midday but I couldn’t really care less because I was doing something else – but I can’t remember what it was now. It was round about 14:00 when I finally remembered that it was lunchtime, so I nipped down to the supermarket on the corner for the baguette. With no hummus I used vegan cheese with my tomato, olives and lettuce and it was of course just as nice.

The weather improved this afternoon but I missed some of it because I crashed out (yet again!) for an hour or so – something that is becoming too much of a habit these days. But I managed to drag myself into the bathroom for a shower, a scrub and a shave. Add to all of that a change of clothes and I was then ready for anything, especially for meeting Alison.

Going down to the car park I took with me a bottle of the Raak Campagne Pils that I had bought in the Netherlands in March. I’d mentioned root beer to Alison the last time that we had met, and Alison had never tasted it. I mentioned ages ago that this Raak was the nearest thing to root beer that I had ever found in Europe and so I donated a bottle to the cause.

We went into town for a plate of falafel with salad and chips and a good long chat and then off to a nice café in the city centre for a coffee. It was such a pleasant evening that we went for a walk afterwards and I took her to see this studio that I had been shown in the city centre last week and then we ended up back at our end of the city.

Now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m off to hospital for what I hope will be my final course of treatment.

Sunday 28th August 2016 – THAT WAS A BETTER …

… night last night. While I didn’t drop off particularly early, I was well-away all the same and I only had to make one trip down the corridor during the night.

But by 06:28 I was wide awake again, and by 06:29 the cooling fan was running – and as an aside, it’s never stopped at all during the day. I was trying to settle down again to drop off back to sleep despite the 07:00 cacophony, but Bane of Britain once more forgot to switch off the alarms and that was that.

However, I was in no rush to leave the bed and it was as late as 09:00 before I heaved myself out of bed. First stop was the boulangerie where I bought one of the last four baguettes. And it was only then that I went for breakfast, where I was joined by another resident. again, I didn’t eat much but the coffee was beautiful. Had it not been so hot (the weather, not the coffee) I would have had a second mug.

Today was one of those days where I didn’t do too much at all. I simply took it easy. And quite right too – it is Sunday after all. I did go out for an hour though. I walked down to Caliburn, made sure that he started and then we went for a good run out. Nowhere specific – just far enough to warm him up thoroughly and make sure he is okay. But still no bank details from the owner of the parking space. and so I rang him up to tell him that even with the best will in the world I can’t pay him if I don’t have his bank details.

Many of the streets in Leuven were cordoned off today. It looks as if there’s one of these car-free days in the city centre. This is a feature, once a year, of life in Belgian cities. I wondered about going for a walk into town but decided against it.

For tea I made some garlic bread and went to buy a pizza. A half-hour wait (it was actually 38 minutes) in the pizza place tonight. It’s getting longer and longer.

The landlord was here tonight too, checking things over. We had quite a chat, especially when I caught him trying to file away my saucepan. Not his fault of course – it can’t be every tenant who brings his own saucepan with him. But the fact that there are only two on the premises I can’t keep one of those in my room, despite my health issues.

So tonight it’s another early night. And my last day of freedom tomorrow. I’m meeting Alison for tea tomorrow night so I’ll need to look my best. A good beauty sleep would do me the world of good, but I need much longer than 21 hours to do any good.

Saturday 27th August 2016 – I AM NOT ALONE!

There I was this morning, having another major coughing fit, when there was a knock on the door. it was one of my co-residents, asking me if I was OK or if I needed any help or anything. I explained the situation to her and she went away, but it really was nice that there are people who are concerned about me and my health.

But that was merely summing up my night last night, where I had difficulty sleeping due to my incessant coughing fits. But I went on one of my nocturnal rambles – something concerning the Dragnet radio programmes which I’ve been listening to since I downloaded the entire 7 years-worth of programmes from Archive.org along with a pile of other stuff.

The alarm woke me up this morning, which was a surprise, meaning that I must have slept through the 07:00 cacophony. And I struggled to eat breakfast too – so I’m definitely sickening for something. It was disappointing too because we had another loaf of that excellent bread. What a shame to miss out on it.

The heat was oppressive today – probably the hottest day of the year. After my nice relaxing morning doing not very much, I went up into town for shopping. Apart from the baguette and the lettuce from Delhaize, I pushed on to Wibra, near the railway station.

That’s something of an upmarket Dollar Store or Pound Shop, and when I was in there the other day I noticed that they had an excellent line of plastic containers and very democratic prices. I picked up a few – two large ones for my rice and pasta, and a smaller pouring container for the boulghour. And i’ll be back there for half a dozen others too because the ones that I have at home have seen better days.

I struck it lucky too while I was out. There are several of these ice-cream stalls in the city and one of them sells dairy-free sorbets. And so I was really in my element here. It’s high time that I treated myself.

After lunch, I crashed out for quite a while. It was far too hot to do anything else. And once it cooled down I washed and dried the containers and then sorted out the food in here. The place looks quite tidy now, which is a surprise for anyone who knows me.

Tea was rice with a tinned vegetable curry and garlic bread. The supermarket here sells these half-cooked half-baguettes at just €0:39 for two and while they don’t come out as nicely as the more expensive ones, it was still delicious. The smell was enough to entice one of my co-habitants into the kitchen.

Now I’m off for another cold shower and then I’m off to bed. Not that it will do much good in this heat.

and I’ve had no news yet about the studio.

Friday 26th August 2016 – WELL, I’VE DONE IT NOW!

Yes, This lunchtime I signed my life away – or, rather, the next 12 months of it.

I went to see that studio this morning. It’s in a modern building, quite clean and tidy and looks quite respectable. It’s round the corner from here in the Tervuursestraat and even closer to the hospital, which is definitely a bonus. The studio is on the 5th floor, which is actually a series of penthouses, and the 5th floor is quite clean and tidy too.

As for the place itself, it’s the smallest studio that I have ever seen – 17m² to be precise – and it’s so small that there’s no room for a bed. Just a sofa bed. And a wardrobe, a desk, a table, a couple of chairs, a kind-of kitchen area and a small shower room.And it’s painted white, which I hate as you know.

However, the size is perfect because it means that there’s less to clean. And the floor is tiled like my old place at Duysburgh, and that means that it’s easy to clean. And, it’s clean, tidy and modern. All one wall (the longest wall) is full-length window so it’s light and airy. There’s a flat roof from the lower floor just outside the window and while I can’t use it as a terrace, it’s ideal for lettuce and herbs and all of that kind of thing.

The downside is that there were two of us visiting it, and we both wanted it. But I filled in the application form, gave them details of my salary and bank accounts, and now it’s up to the owner to decide. And I do hope that I’m the one who is chosen. It’s €395 per month and €50 per month for the service charges and that makes it very affordable from my point of view. And it’s a 12-month contract, so that’s idea, I reckon.

But I’ve never seen a place as small as this. The studio that I bought in Brussels in 1993 was a mere 48m² – almost three times the size.

My night last night was very mixed. After the shower that I had (and I’ll be having another one tonight I reckon) I tried to doze off but in the heat it was impossible. I did eventually drop off to sleep, and I only woke up the once too. and to everyone’s (including my) surprise, I was awake again fractionally before the 07:00 cacophony.

There was another accommodation opportunity that appeared in my mailbox too. That looked even more perfect from the photos, but once again I was up against a “couldn’t care less” estate agency who couldn’t possibly fit me in to visit it until the end of next week. I really do wonder how these people manage to stay in business.

But having seen the other one, I had to gather up the paperwork and shoot off to the letting agents before lunchtime to register my interest. It was a beautiful walk along the old canal and the old quay and the walk back through the old part of the city and along the river was even nicer.

After lunch, the heat was overwhelming and I crashed out for a while, although not before cutting my hair. It was getting far too long and I can do without it in this weather. And then we had the siesta – I wasn’t up to much, that was for sure. and I shan’t be up to much tonight. I’ve had my tea and I’ll be having a shower in a minute, and then I’ll be off to bed.

And I do hope that I’m the lucky one with this studio.

EPIC HALL

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