Category Archives: Eric Hall

Monday 28th March 2016 – I’VE NOT TAKEN …

… any photographs today. But that’s because my sorties outside have been few and far between.

The hurricane really hit us during the night and I’m sure that the roof of my little room was about to be torn off. I had a really bad night because of that, and this didn’t bode well for the daytime.

I managed to go off on a couple of nocturnal voyages though. We start off with a group of three men who had gone west, intending to settle somewhere out there. They had come across a town where they intended to settle but it turned out that the town was very conservative and the people there were very unwilling to accept new arrivals. The people were very set in their ways and any new arrival had to conform to the way of life of the existing inhabitants. In the end, these three people were effectively driven away. About 10 or 20 miles down the road was a ruined barn-type of place with living accommodation on some kind of abandoned farm and so they restored it to its original purpose and settled there. These people were hard-workers and so the place prospered. There was a river on the boundary of this property and this formed the border between a couple of States. As these three people prospered, the area slowly opened up and many more people came to the area to settle and a small road network was created. A short-cut of the road network was proposed, that would go right past their house and cross the river right there, making their site into a little gold mine when it came to redevelopment as a town site. This was good news for them and good news for people in the neighbourhood, but what they wanted was merely to live in peace and quiet and not become involved in politics of any kind. But this news about the road would affect the existing town, which would be by-passed, and the town would decline rapidly. Not only that, the long-time inhabitants had imposed some kind of two-tier society where they had much more say than the new arrivals and this too was causing a great deal of discontent. The people in the valley around this farm decided that they would organise a huge protest march against the townsfolk, and they all congregated at the farm to go into town to confront the townsfolk and this was the last thing that these three people wanted. He couldn’t extract himself from the protest, being swept along by the tide and found himself right at the front, leading the march, which was what he didn’t want to do. When he and this march arrived at the town, he found that one of his brothers, who had stayed behind at the town, had been forced to lead a counter-march of the town’s senior inhabitants. The two of them walked quickly to try to get ahead of their respective marching bodies to meet up and discuss the situation, and try to find a way out of the impasse before the two parties clashed.
Woken up by an extremely violent gust of wind, I then went back to a James Bond or Avengers situation with me as the hero and I had a female sidekick. We’d been trying to break up this gang of violent crooks for ages, and all of a sudden we’d had some kind of breakthrough. My sidekick had been captured by one of the gang, a leading female figure, at gunpoint and this had left a couple of men. I had one of the men cornered and I hit him with a pistol and he was flat out so I stuck him in my car and chased after the two women. The unconscious man slowly started to come round so I sloshed him again. In the meantime, I was overhearing some discussion about all of the evidence that we’d somehow overlooked and left behind at this place that we had just visited. As a result, I reluctantly abandoned the chase and went back to this house to collect all of the evidence. I completely lost the trail of these two women, but at least I had one guy and all of the evidence, and while I was there at the house, I captured the other guy. So the case was complete, except for the woman, so I took everything down to the police station where the men were formally charged. They were then ushered away from the charge room, giving me looks of hatred and anger as they walked past me. A couple of other people then asked me what I was going to do about my female companion. I replied that to be honest, what I was really hoping for was that they have both made their peace and are now quite happily in a relationship with each other and live happily ever after. That would be ideal. From here, I wandered back into Crewe town centre where this girl of mine had a flat and sure enough there was the girl’s mother and also Alfie Hall of the Clitheroe Kid. They were emptying out this apartment and packing up her stuff making it ready to be sent on. They asked me if I minded, and of course I didn’t mind at all. I was happy that things had turned out fine for her in the end. It was really nice to see this and I hoped that once they were settled, she would write to me to tell me where she was living, and I’d go round to see her in the summer.

I was up early this morning and was in fact the first in for breakfast. After that, I went for a walk to the supermarket while the housemaid made up my room. And the wind was astonishing. I’ve never seen anything like it – dustbins (and I’m proud that I could remember the Dutch for dustbin – it’s vuilnisbak – right off the cuff without any prompting at all) all over the place. I’ve stocked up with supplies (although I forgot the hummus) and Raak Campagne Pils, and I’ll be going there tomorrow on my way out because – booh hoo hoo! – I’m leaving ehre tomorrow morning.

Back at the hotel I crashed out. Firstly, the bad night had really disturbed me and secondly, I can feel myself going downhill little by little. In fact, my eyesight is starting to go now.

After lunch, and another crash out, I went for a walk and found out why the town was so full of people when I tried to stand up on the top of the dyke. I say “tried” because it was impossible in this wind and there was no-one else up there either.

The ice-cream parlour was a disappointment – there was no dairy-free ice cream on offer and I’m depressed about that, I’ll tell you.

Tonight, I had a pizza again and I’m now very low on vegan cheese. I hope that I can get into Brussels on Wednesday to find some more. But now I’m crashing out again. I really am feeling dreadful right now.

Sunday 27th March 2016 – MY POSTILION HAS BEEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

Well, not quite, but round about 16:30 this afternoon, in the middle of a thunderstorm and hailstone fusillade, there was a dull thud, the building shook a little and all of the power went off.

I went for a walk a little later and this was what I saw in the distance. Huge massing storm clouds over there, hanging over the North Sea.

In fact, we had heavy storm clouds all over the place and in the distance to the south (remember that Zoutelande is on the north-west coast of the Schelde estuary were some very clear thunder flashes. It is therefore very tempting to suggest that the hotel had been struck by lightning.

That wasn’t all that was going on either. I’d been for a walk earlier while the housemaid made up my room, and was lucky enough to see a ship sailing up towards Antwerp, just offshore.

And excuse the lack of focus on the image – the wind was terrific and blowing me around like nobody’s business. This was the best of the images that I took, and that doesn’t say much for the others.

But talking of the housemaid, we had a little chat this morning. And the only language that we had in common was Italian. Imagine that in the Netherlands!

But those storm clouds that we saw gathering off the coast yesterday early evening finally arrived during the night. They hit my little room with such a force that I was immediately woken up, and when I went back to sleep, then half an hour later I was awoken once more.

This accounts for the dreadful night’s sleep that I had last night, and also for the number and variety of my nocturnal rambles. And believe me, there were dozens, quite a few of which didn’t make it to the dictaphone because either I fell straight back to sleep or else by the time that I found the dictaphone, I’d forgotten where I’d been.

Anyway, from what I do remember, I was in XCL, my red Cortina, and back at school (or, rather, a school in France, not my old one). I was an adult by this time and I only went back to school very occasionally, because I was studying Geography and History in my own time, but I would call in to the lessons if ever I was going past the school because I wanted to take the school exams and I needed to make sure that I was in touch with the course. As a result, I didn’t really know any of the children there. One afternoon, I’d bought something – some new seat covers or something for XCL so they needed wrapping. I had my yellow rucksack with me, which had now transformed itself into a school satchel. I’d turned up at the school and I can’t remember now how I had arrived but as I arrived, I remembered that there was something that I wanted. I had to walk all the way back to the car in order to get what it was that I wanted. As I walked out of the class there were all of these kids hanging around the door like you find at a school. It was the afternoon so there was a triple-period, but it was only the final two lessons, a double-period, that were history lessons but I had plans to do something in the period immediately after lunch. As I walked out of the school towards my car, I was singing “Daydream Believer” or, at least, trying to because I couldn’t hit the notes. I was devastated because I was hoping to sing it really well and show these kids a thing or two, but I just couldn’t get the notes.
A little later, I was back playing cricket and our team had unfortunately been skittled out. I was the last batsman remaining and I had to survive the last over so that our team would win. But it was now pitch-black and you couldn’t see a thing, and the bowler was bowling from around the corner behind the wall. All that I could do was to put my bat in the way and hope that that would block the wicket. For the final over, we started to have some friendly banter and the bowler said that he was going to bowl underarm at me. He took up a position about a foot from my wicket ready to bowl. I had to explain to him that he couldn’t do that – it was a no-ball. He could bowl underarm at me as much as he likes and no-one will say a thing, least of all me, but you have to bowl from back at the other crease, 22 yards away, just as you would do for bowling any other kind of ball in a cricket match. But it took me ages to get this to sink into this flaming bowler’s head.
A little later, I was back at work driving my car about and I’d been summoned into the office – it was a Sunday morning – but there had been some war that had gone on and it had been won by we westerners. However, there had been a few bits and pieces of unpleasantness that had come out of it. I needed to go to use the bathroom but for some unknown reason I had forgotten all of the vocabulary so I said what I could remember. This didn’t, for some reason, go down very well so I thought “sod them! I’m doing the best that I can and no-one can do more than that and it’s their look-out if it doesn’t suit”. But it was a bright sunny day and so I went on my motor-bike from the north-west of the city and there had been a heavy rainstorm earlier that day and now everything was flooded out. Now I couldn’t come my usual way into work because of this and at one stage I was riding through a park and on a pavement and then down the wrong way in a one-way street with water up to the axles on the motorbike, following some kind of lorry that was tearing up the roadway in this park. I’d finally arrived at work, and found that my boss had been searching through my drawers for something. He found some of Roxanne’s clothing that I was keeping there and he was proudly displaying it all around. I asked him “is this all yours?” to which he replied with a ribald joke. I said to him that it was Roxanne’s and I would like to have it back so he eventually gave it back to me and I stuck it back in my drawer.
After the next bout of thunderstorms I was back at another place of former employment with someone who was formerly a very good friend of mine. We were visiting the richest farm in the UK, run by the richest UK farmer and his wife. There were some tunnels that had been discovered on this farm and having inspected them, we noticed that they had been lined and that there was electricity going right down there. I immediately thought of a tourist attraction and so I button-holed the woman when I saw her and asked her about them. She replied that the intention was indeed to make them into a tourist attraction and so I wanted to know more? Was it World War II? Was it the Vietnam War? She replied that from what she had been able to find out, they went back to the 5th Century, which immediately suggested the collapse of Roman Britain to me. I was immediately aroused by this and so I intended to be the first person to go down there. I asked her if she knew to where these tunnels led, but she didn’t. However, it was her intention to explore them one of these days, so I immediately pencilled myself in to go and explore these tunnels with her. We would travel miles and I would invite someone from the University – I’m not sure now if I mentioned the OU – to accompany us. To me, it was absolutely marvellous and exciting.
After a very brief return to the arms of Morpheus, I was awake again thanks to the storm. And I can recount that I had been to see the Queen. I’d taken this puppy, which was really the star of it all, although I’m not sure quite why and so we were going to do a stage show with it when the puppy would be presented to the Queen. We were hoping that this puppy would be house-trained and behave itself in view of all of the excitement and not let itself down. This led on to a debate about cleaning. Tourism was still in its infancy and no-one really seemed to know how to clean up a place properly (as if I’m any expert) except for a dustpan and brush. Everyone was hoping that everyone else would prove to be the expert on cleaning up the building.
But the final part of my night-time voyage was easily the most exciting and astonishing. You remember yesterday that I mentioned the navigator whose body is in the Commonwealth War Graves part of the local cemetery? Well, last night, whilst deep in the arms of Morpheus, I set out to find his pilot. The voyage, which started out to be simple enough, took me, and two Ministerial cars and assorted Government officials to a small urban cemetery in the East End of London (where, incidentally, the pilot was not buried and I knew this, yet my journey still took me there) despite the obstruction of a well-known London solicitor who had instructed the two members of his staff who were assisting me not to give me too much help in my enquiries because, as I was later to discover, he was interested in the case from a personal point of view. In fact, being early for a 13:00 appointment, I suddenly made a decision to divert to this small cemetery one more time as I had suddenly made a dramatic realisation. I ended up inspecting the paperwork of an old woman who had just been laid to rest there, and was just about to make an Executive decision (and executive decision is one where if it’s the wrong decision, the person making it is executed) when the alarm went off. And how frustrated was I?

But none of it was wasted because this morning while waiting for the weather to brighten up, I did manage to track down some further information. Flying Officer Angus Peter MacLeod (for it is he), service number 63376, was flying as navigator in Mosquito Night-Fighter II serial HJ935 for pilot, Flight Lieutenant Basil John Brachi when they were lost over the North Sea on 29th January 1944.

And now that I have found out the serial number of the aeroplane, I can tell you even more. The plane took off at 01:15, one of seven from West Raynham in Norfolk on a “Serrate” mission, which was to pick up the radar emissions of the German night-fighters’ “Lichtenstein” equipment, and then follow the emissions to the source (ie the night-fighter) and shoot it down. However, the starboard engine of the Mosquito failed and so Brachi turned for home. A short while later, the port engine failed and so Brachi and MacLeod bailed out. No trace was ever found of Brachi or of the aeroplane, but the body of MacLeod was washed ashore near here on 5th May 1944. And here he lies.

I’ve not done too much today – not even been for my mid-morning (or mid-afternoon) coffee. I didn’t have the courage to go outside very much. Mind you, this weather didn’t encourage me too much.

but I did go out this evening and one of the little restaurants here directed me to the fritkot which is now open. And I had fritjes for tea, just for a change. And tomorrow, the ice-cream parlour in the town opens up. Of course, I shall have to go to give it an official visit.

apart from that, I’ve had a shower today and washed my clothes. And depressingly, I find that I’ve only bought two polo shirts with me, not three. So I’m going to have to stay in this one while the other one dries. Let’s hope that that will be tomorrow.

And I know know why next-door neighbour’s 06:30 alarm didn’t wake me up this morning. The hour has changed, hasn’t it. I didn’t realise until this evening when I thought that it was quite light for 20:00 when i went out for my fritjes. My telephone is automatic, and so is my laptop, so they got on with the job of changing the hour without me knowing anything about it. No wonder I was rather tired this morning.

But now I’m off for an early night because I can’t keep up the pace. Only a few more days now before my second hospital appointment so I hope that they will have some news for me.

Saturday 26th March 2016 – I’VE NOT GONE OUT …

… for any tea tonight. I’m not feeling like it.

I had a good breakfast this morning and then went for a walk to the supermarket to buy the stuff for lunch. After a lunch (which was rather late as I wasn’t all that hungry) I went for a long walk along the prom southwards towards Vlissingen. That tired me out and so that was that.

I’d been on a good wander around during the night too and travelled miles. I started off being involved with a young English girl (and I know who she is but I just can’t think for the moment) who owned a jet aeroplane like a flight trainer that had been built in 1962. She had bought it at an Air Force liquidation sale with the aim of restoring it but she had fallen into the clutches of some evil English guy. Her aeroplane was stored in his hangar and the body had been taken off the chassis (it really is an astonishing aeroplane!) ready for restoration. He was annoyed intently with her because of the fact that she was now seeking her independence, but seeking her independence she was. We all thus dashed off to this hangar at this small airfield and managed to recover the chassis from the hangar and were pushing it onto the airstrip. As an aside, I was amazed at how corroded it was, especially around the body mounting points and I remember thinking that I wouldn’t want to go very far off the ground on that. But we had to – we had to bolt the body onto it and all clamber inside so that we could fly away. As we were moving the chassis, the man turned up. I was all for cracking on, doing everything for ourselves but he wanted to help us by holding open the gate while we pushed the chassis out. However the girl started to talk to the guy and began to discuss all of her future projects with him so he was there giving her all kinds of advice which was based on his own self-interest and not on anyone else’s. I could see that this girl was starting to waver again and I reckoned that we would never ever get away at this rate. The discussion then turned to stories about other planes that were lying abandoned on other airfields all over France and throughout the world and it soon became clear that this was how she had acquired this aeroplane. But we needed to hurry up before she swayed completely, but no matter what I said and how I encouraged her, I couldn’t get her to hurry. And I couldn’t get her to slip out of the clutches of this other guy. I could see her ending up by putting this chassis back into the hangar before much longer and going back off with him. How I wished that she would get a move on.
In this little bit we featured three girls, one of whom was my elder sister and another was my youngest sister. I was running some kind of Health-visiting team in Northern Austria and they had come to join it, working as Health visitors. It was very difficult work so I couldn’t understand why they had come, and my youngest sister had the worst round of them all. And then we had the 06:30 alarm of my neighbour in the next room and that, I’m afraid, was that.

But really, I’d had a bad night. it was like being back just after my operation and the severe compression in my chest that prevented me from settling down. I suppose that I should be worried about this but I’m not really. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life, no matter how long it might be, wrapped up in cotton wool.

I was about to go for an early breakfast when a friend of mine appeared on line for a chat. Consequently it was gone 09:00 when I made it down to breakfast and that may account in part for my lack of hunger this evening. As usual, we had an excellent breakfast with plenty of juice and coffee as well as some lovely Dutch bread and strawberry jam.

On the way to the supermarket (where the coffee machine is still “defekt”) I went past the cemetery and there is a Commonwealth War Grave in there.

I meant to go in to have a look at it on the way back, but what with the savage, biting wind that we were having, it slipped my mind.

It could be a victim of the Battle of the Schelde that liberated the area in November 1944, or a body washed up from the sea from maybe a naval operation or a downed aeroplane – or maybe even someone from the First World War – a victim of the sea or an internment victim (hundreds of British soldiers were interned in the Netherlands from 1914 to 1918, having fled there from the Germans after the Fall of Antwerp)

In fact, a search on the Commonwealth War Graves site discloses that it is the grave of a Flying Officer, a navigator of 239 Squadron RAFVR who was killed in January 1944.

239 Squadron was equipped with Mosquitos and flew night-time operations within the bomber stream to hunt down and attack German night-fighters that were targeting the bombe

It occurs to me that I haven’t yet posted a photo of my hotel, the Valkenhof. It’s a bit pricey as I’ve said before, but it is Easter weekend and the place is crowded.

My little room is one of the three in the annex to the side and it’s that window just there underneath the pointy roof. No, I have no real complaints about the place and as I have said before, you definitely win with the breakfasts.

Yesterday, I’d seen a strandcafé away in the distance to the south and so this afternoon I braved the savage wind to go for a good walk in that direction to see what the possibilities were.

It took me ages too because I wasn’t really up to much. This is definitely proving to be too much for me but I’ll gamely struggle on as the sea air will only do me good, and this is why I’m here.

One thing that I shouldn’t have done, I suppose, was to walk right up to the top of a huge sand-dune.

That certainly ook a lot out of me but it was well-worth the effort because the view from up here was absolutely stunning and I regretted not having the Nikon D5000 in working order. Away in the distance is the town of Zoutelande, so you can see how far I’ve walked, and you can also see the storm clouds gathering out there in the North Sea.

But there was a good reason for coming all the way up here and I’m glad that I did, because there are a couple of bunkers that relate to World War II, relics of the Atlantic Wall.

The big Commando raid on Dieppe in August 1942 was, from the British point of view, a huge fiasco but it had one very important side-effect in that it frightened the Germans to death. As a result, millions of Reichsmarks and tens of thousands of men and tens of thousands of tons of vital war materials were diverted from the German war effort in order to build huge concrete fortifications all along the Occupied coast from Norway to the Bay of Biscay between 1942 and 1944, and weren’t properly finished when the invasion took place.

Here, these two huge bunkers guard the entrance to the Wester-Schelde and the port of Antwerp and are now a museum, although it goes without saying that it was closed today.

I had my coffee, taking my time in case a ship came past (but I was out of luck) and then walked slowly back along the beach to my hotel.

One thing that caught my eye was this row of beach huts. From what I can tell, people rent (or own) them and store their beach material in them. Then they sit around their beach hut on deck chairs (even on a devastatingly-windy day like today) surrounded by windbreaks and sit and absorb whatever sunlight lught be about.

So now that’s all I’m doing. I’ll have another early night and try to have an early breakfasT

I hope that I feel better tomorrow.

Friday 25th March 2016 – NO COMPLAINTS FROM ME!

Yes, this hotel might be expensive but it is Easter weekend, my little room is quite comfortable and the breakfasts are superb. They certainly know how to make coffee in this place. The bread is superb too and if I were to eat animal products, there is enough meat and cheese on offer to satisfy the most energetic appetite.

I could wish for a more comfortable chair though, but that’s just a small complaint.

The bed is quite comfortable too, but I’m not very comfortable in it. I’m sensing that my blood count is going down, and I’m starting to have attacks of cramp again as I explained the other day.

It’s not stopping me going on my nocturnal rambles though. I had travelled to Australia last night to some kind of house where there was a father and a young son. There was only one bed in the house and they shared it, and I had to go and awaken them. I wasn’t able to do that and so I had the idea of switching on the printer and leaving messages everywhere for them. Whoever it was in charge of the printer said that this would never work and to leave it with him – he’d see to it. And so he pressed a combination of key characters on the printer and this caused the printer to emit a high-pitched whine. This succeeded in awakening these two people and they sat upright, puzzled by the noise (which we found quite funny). The discussion turned to this bed and how they each had their own side of the bed and each had their own way of sleeping. In fact, it was all very reminiscent of life 100-odd years ago where travellers would arrive at inns and not only be expected to share rooms, but to share beds with complete strangers. One of the Hercule Poirot short stories recounts how, even in the late 1930s, Japp and Hastings were obliged to share a bed in a hotel somewhere in rural England.
From here we became involved with Royalty with the future Charles IV and with Rebekah Wade, disgraced former editor of the former News of the World. it actually concerns the birth of the baby who would become Charles IV and how Wade was doing her best to suppress the news because it didn’t suit her newspaper’s agenda. There were all kinds of goings on, with places being set on fire, places where people lived who might give evidence in support of the existence of the the birth. Many people attributed these antics to Wade and her clique although she was making out that it was someone else behind it all (I think that I ought to stress that this is what happened in a dream that I am recounting and I make no accusation or allegation about anything that might or might not have happened or will subsequently happen in real life) – places which for the most part belonged to people who were trying to publicise this birth. While this was all going on, I was in a relationship with Lorna so I had all of that to contend with too. My transport at this time was a single-decker bus of the 1930s that I had borrowed from somewhere and was in a deplorable state, falling to bits, but nevertheless it was all that I had and so I had to drive it. There was only one way to drive it and that was with loads of revs and rapid gear-changes, just like a sports car. And I needed to as well, if I were to forestall what these opponents to the birth of Charles IV had in mind. We had to keep one step ahead of them and let them chase after us. It was all so thoroughly weird.

When I came back from breakfast, there was the maid making my room. I went for a walk while she finished but I didn’t go far as I had forgotten to pack my sou’wester, oilskins and waders. But there’s a small supermarket around the corner where I bought a baguette, some wheat biscuits and some more Raak Campagne Pils.

The weather did clear up later and so I went for a walk along the promenade. Like most places in the Netherlands, the coastline is protected by a very high embankment following the disastrous sea-floods of 31st January and 1st February 1953.

This area was quite badly affected by the floods and as a result, the sea wall is about 40 feet high on the landward side.

I’m going the other way though, heading north-west along the coast. I’ve seen a strandcafé – a beachside pie hut – in the distance and I reckon that that would be as good a place as any to stop for a pre-prandial coffee.

I need a coffee too because there’s a biting wind that is really uncomfortable. But at least, if you look to the far right of the photograph, you’ll see some blue sky being blown in from the north.

And as to why I’ve come to spend a few days at Zoutelande, then you need to look no further than this photo, taken from inside the strandcafé.

The deep shipping channel is only about 200 yards offshore and ships sailing up and down the Schelde pass this close to the shore. I was hoping to catch a 300,000 tonne oil tanker or maybe a 50,000 tonne container ship, but this will have to do for the present. We’ll see what happens at a later date.

From up here, there’s a good view of the town and you can see what I mean about the height of the sea defences. They really are impressive and it does bring home to you the fact that much of the Netherlands is actually below sea level.

But it’s a nice town and I discovered a big supermarket on the edge of the place where I stocked up with some more stuff, including some banana-flavoured Vitamin B12 drink and some gelatine-free spongy sweets. There was a coffee machine here too but it was marked “defekt”

There’s a football ground here too and so I made a note and dashed home to make enquiries about some footy this weekend. But no luck on that point – all of Dutch amateur football is postponed for the Easter weekend so I’ll have to go without yet again!

But it was a nice football ground, quite modern and clean. It would have been a good place to come to watch a match. Still, you can’t have everything.

You can’t feature anything about the Netherlands and not include a windmill in there.

There’s a beautiful windmill in the town and as I was going past it back to the hotel, my route took me past it. It was whizzing round like the clappers in the wind that we were having and I’ll post a little video of it in early course.

And just to add to the Dutch flavour in this photograph, you can see some tulips in the foreground too – or are they daffodils? I dunno, but it all looks very Dutch to me.

I went back to Caliburn after that, did some tidying up in the back, and then came back to eat my butty.

I crashed out for an hour or so and then went on with some paperwork. Later on in the evening, I went for a walk and found another pizza place where I had a mushroom pizza. I’ve still not found a fritkot in the town and I’ll be running out of vegan cheese at this rate.

Thursday 24th March 2016 – BACK IN THE NETHERLANDS

That’s right – I’ve left my comfy little spec at Paul’s Hotel this morning and headed east – in the driving rain.

But while we’re on the subject of the hotel, the breakfast that I had this morning was excellent. The coffee was beautiful for a start, and so was the bread and jam. I even had a comfy hour or so in the lounge while I did some work on the laptop that needed doing. In other words, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay here and although it was expensive, I had my money’s worth.

I’d travelled miles while I’d been asleep. Having been awoken by attack after attack after attack of cramp (which I’m very sad to see has returned after all this time), we started off with a sporting hero – a motorcycle racer or someone. He had an agent and also a manager. He was doing some business with his manager that involved making payments and he always made those payments promptly and always in cash with no problems whatever. One day he was in a rush to go somewhere and so he ordered a sandwich so the manager arranged to buy it. It came to €6:99 so the hero searched through his pockets to try to find something so the agent put down €7:00. The manager said that he would give back the €0:01 next time they would see each other. But the motorcyclist then went out to race, but was killed. This gave rise to the legend about him that his manager gave nothing and took everything, whereas the motorcyclist gave €0:01 and also gave his life.
So valiantly fighting off another attack of cramp, I was out in Labrador City, but it wasn’t Labrador City but a kind of linear village in the High Arctic, all along some kind of track. We’d gone there to take the supplies and the girl with whom I had gone, she had gone in front in an open-topped bulldozer-type vehicle to clear the route and I was in the closed-up vehicle bring the supplies behind because the girl said that it would be warmer. When we arrived, we were besieged by people who were after their stuff. We were talking to a woman there who was telling us about Pingu the Penguin who was some kind of local hero – everyone watched him on television. It turned out that an old girlfriend of mine, Robina, was living out there and I thought that that would be nice – I’ve not seen her for forty years. I hoped that she would come for her supplies. However, she didn’t come. Loads of others did so though – people with children and they were all talking about Pingu the Penguin. There was also a soap opera broadcast twice a day – 06:00 and 18:00, all about young people falling in love and I suddenly remembered something that I had written about this subject – a fictional story. I thought that it might possibly have been a script for this programme. We all had quite a chat about that too. One of the small boys asked me where I lived and I told him about my house – Hankelow Hall, although I called it something else. How we squatted there although I was in one of the outbuildings. We moved on from the town and ended up in the graveyard. Someone had been stealing one of the bulldozers on a regular basis and flattening the graves. One grave was an expensive grave for a person who had founded the Hobey’s (whoever they might be) chain of whatever and this grave was a particular target, having been flattened a few times and graffiti drawn in the soil such as “I used to work at Hobey’s”. Everyone in the town was disturbed by this and they had been unable to catch the culprit and stop them flattening this cemetery again and again.
Having managed to avoid another attack of cramp, I was back in Virlet, but it wasn’t Virlet as I know it. There were lots of ruined, abandoned houses all together. I was there with mine and Liz was there with hers and we were talking about selling and going off somewhere else. We went to an estate agent, who turned out to be Lieneke, to try to sell our properties for us. We had had all kinds of people coming to visit and they had asked all kinds of stupid questions so I reckoned that I ought to open a “stupid questions” file. I had to contact the mayor, who was in fact Rebecca from the OU, and find out all of the answers to these stupid questions. That would save everyone so much time. We were having quite a chat about this on the telephone and Lieneke went away. It was pretty close to Easter at this point and suddenly three or four caravans turned up and parked on some land at an abandoned house. Loads and loads of hippies arrived and installed themselves there, about 100 yards from my house. Lieneke asked me what I thought about all of these hippies. I said that I had nothing against them and they were entitled to their own lifestyle and it was sometimes a good thing because they can bring new ideas and new ways of thinking into a stagnant region, but they can saturate an area. I didn’t want 100 hippies living in an area like this. There was a programme on TV and I had been wanting to see it for quite some weeks, which is not like me. The village café had a bar so I had arranged to meet Liz somewhere so we had agreed on the café and I went there way earlier to watch this programme. I was sitting on a chair with a coffee watching this when I local turned up and sat down by me. He started to discuss this programme with me, which is what I didn’t want to do, and to my surprise, this person had some really intelligent points to make about it. And it was only something boring, like a quiz game.
Once more, after another disturbance, I was back in my house, which resembled something like my old apartment at Reyers, with someone who might have been June. Someone had arrived during the night and was ill and so had been put into one of the spare bedrooms (I didn’t even have one bedroom in Reyers – it was a studio!). This person needed me to help him recover and so I took him a breakfast tray and went to see how he was. It took ages to find the door into the room – I don’t know why – and so I knocked on the window to let him know I was there, and then tried again to find the door. It took a while to do that but eventually there I was. I said to the guy that I hoped that I hadn’t disturbed him too early but he laughed and pointed out that it was now just after 16:00 – I’d slept all that time! I sat down by the man and asked him about himself, but he apologised for wasting my time – it turned out to be only a simple headache and now he was feeling much better and didn’t need my services. At this point, June said that a weekend’s rest would do him good – why didn’t he come down to her place with a group of her people and play in a scrabble tournament? He liked the idea but the stakes (they were gambling – so much per point) were quite elevated and it ruled me out. But something that he said had made my ears prick up. It was quite a disreputable project so June wasn’t at all keen and quite rightly so, but hidden away underneath a fairground carousel was one of the very first Citroen 2CVs and that was the prize. But it was all weighing heavily down on me. I was 60 and I should have retired back in February and it was now the month of May. I needed to get away so I told June that I was going to see Stevie Smith, my old boss from way back, and tell him that I was leaving in three weeks time. She thought that I was being crazy, especially seeing that I was still being paid.

Back on the road, and we’ve started off with a major tragedy too. The battery in the Nikon D5000 seems to have died a death.

It was pretty flaky yesterday, I noticed, even though it had been fully-charged. And today, it just wouldn’t work at all – keeping on telling me that it’s flat. Which it isn’t of course because 2 minutes in the charger and the “fully-charged” light comes on.

The camera itself has never been the same since I dropped it in Quebec in 2012 and so I suspect that half of the problem is not with the battery but with the camera – maybe the contacts are slightly bent out of shape. But anyway, now (or, at least, when I return home) is the moment to upgrade the camera – something that I have been threatening to do for quite a while.

You’ll have to make do with some photos taken on the camera phone, such as this one.

The area where we are is an open shoreline with miles of flat land behind it, and has easy access to the port of Antwerp. It’s therefore quite heavily-fortified to protect it from invasion from the sea or from the Netherlands border and the fortifications still remain even today, like all over this coastline.

I’d bought a baguette, which was one of the nicest that I have ever eaten, but also one of the most expensive too. And I headed off via Cadzand to Breskens to sit on the estuary to eat my butty.

This is exactly the same spot where I ate my butty yesterday, but you can see the difference in the weather.

It really is wet, grey and miserable today and the wind is fairly strong. And you still can’t see very much through the fog. I’d love to tell you more about the ship that’s sailing past but I can’t make it out.

There are probably 1000 other ships out there too, but I don’t have a chance of seeing them.

After lunch, I headed off and found the bored tunnel under the Scheldt. It cosy €5:00 to go through, which I don’t suppose is too bad seeing as it’s 6.6kms long, and Strawberry Moose, Caliburn and I sang a few songs and played a game of hide and seek with the tunnel in order to cheer it up.

The weather brightened up on Walcheren and wasn’t too bad at all by the time I arrived at Zoutelande. I quickly found a hotel, the price of which for five days bed and breakfast would have bought a hotel in France. But there’s parking here for Caliburn (it’s expensive to leave it on the street), I was tired and about ready to crash out. And it is Easter weekend anyway and the town is crowded.

After an hour’s sleep I went for a walk – in the rain because it was heaving down. There doesn’t seem to be a fritkot here either but at least there are a couple of pizza places and I have some vegan cheese.

I won’t need much rocking tonight, that’s for sure.

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 – BACK ON THE ROAD

So here I am again – hitting the road to the Netherlands coast in West-Zeeland – the bit that’s to the western side of the Scheldt estuary. I’ve never set foot in this bit before so I’m determined to put that right – not the least of reasons being that we haven’t had a Ship of the Day since last October and up there in the Wester-Schelde you can see these huge 300,000 tonne supertankers and container ships making complicated manoeuvres just hundreds of yards offshore as they line themselves up for the entrance to the harbour at Antwerp.

Years ago, there used to be a vehicle ferry across the river to Vlissingen but that’s now closed and replaced by a tunnel. We are told by Wikipedia that it is a “bored tunnel” and so Strawberry Moose, Caliburn and I have decided to go there to cheer it up and bring it some excitement.

So having now decided on my seaside trip, I’m awoken today not by the birds chirping under the eaves but a torrential rainstorm cascading down onto the roof. And that awoke me from a very deep reverie.I had been off in the mountains of Tennessee or Kentucky last night, some time back in the 1920s or 30s and I met a girl called Lousey (that’s pronounced “Luzie” by the way). She was very young and blond but was in what we would 50 years ago have called an “irregular union” with a boy only a couple of years older than she was, and they were living in a cabin with Lousey’s mother. Someone had called a priest, or maybe a Justice of the Peace down to this village to discuss this “irregular union”. It turned out, following an inquiry, that this boy and girl were in fact living together but the boy was a scavenger of scrap metal and donated the income from this into the household. He was thus deemed to be supporting Lousey the best he could despite his limited abilities. Accordingly, this relationship was deemed by the judge or the priest to be exceptionally a “regular union”, despite the extreme youth of the two people involved. We drifted on from there down a street called Losey Road, which we were told was named after this girl, and at the top of the road there was some kind of queue involving all of the people from the village. I was with someone, who might have been Liz but I can’t remember now. I had a small bottle of sun-cream and so I put a small amount on my hands and started to rub it into the skin. Lousey was just in front of me and she had the same kind of cream and was doing the same thing. She noticed that I was only using a little bit so she pulled a face, laughed and said that she used tons more of the stuff when she did it. I showed her my jar and replied that I only had this small jar and there wasn’t much left. If I had more I would use ten times as much and I’d rub it all over me. Everyone in the queue except Lousey and my companion burst out laughing because they had seen a double-entendre in my remark but my companion turned round to Lousey and said “would you swallow that, Lousey?” meaning the remark that I had made. By now, everyone else, including me but excluding my companion and Lousey, was rolling aound on the floor in fits of laughter about this even more outrageous double-entendre that had gone clean over the heads of my companion and of Lousey.

Downstairs, Alison had already gone to work so I had my breakfast and said goodbye to Brian, thanking him for all of his hospitality, and then I hit the road.

I missed my turning into Leuven, ended up going by Nossegem instead, following the signs for Machelen instead of Mechelen and then being stuck on the Antwerp motorway due to a road accident, being unable to exit for the turning to St Niklaas. It really was not my lucky day.

But I am going to have to change my stereotyped ideas about the Netherlands and write a different script. I ended up in a “Jumbo” supermarket in Breskens which sold, inter alia a non-alcoholic drink called Raak Campagne Pils. One look at the label told me what this might be, and one sip out of the bottle later that night told me what it was. It was indeed the nearest thing that we can buy in Europe to Canadian Root Beer so now I am properly set up. But that wasn’t what I wanted to say. What I mean by my comments is that here in the “Jumbo” there was a bench for customers to sit, and we had free wi-fi, free coffee and free biscuits and I’ve never ever had anything like this anywhere else.

On the beach at Breskens, we could peer through the rain and see right across the river to Vlissingen and the huge Finnlines ro-ro freight carrier that runs a regular service between Antwerp and Helsinki.

If that doesn’t qualify for a ship of the week, I dunno what will because this thing is huge, and I do mean huge.

Mind you, it had plenty of competition including an MSC container ship that was coming up behind it, which I didn’t photograph, for reasons which will soon become apparent.

Firstly, I was distracted by this monster turning into the river at Cadzand.

This is the Sonche Trader, built in 2009 of 53,000 tonnes and flying the flag of Liberia. she’s coming in from Callao in Peru via several other ports. Her last port of call was Rotterdam, although it might not look like it.

And as I turned my attention to the MSC container ship, it was here that I was distracted once more because I had a phone call.

One thing that I do like about being a dazzling European cosmopolite … "did you forget “modest”?" – ed … is that here I am heading south to north via several different countries, and I have another dazzling European cosmopolite friend heading east to west through several other different countries, and our paths dramatically cross.

And so half an hour later, Strawberry Moose and I are in the ferry terminal in Zeebrugge, Belgium, having a coffee and a chat with my friend Hans and his travelling companion, Selfie Ted.

They are travelling from their home in Munich on his way to the UK to see family. You’ve no idea just how small the world is, and regular status updates of your social networking sites, so that your friends can see where you are, make it even smaller still

Ironically, before I drove up to Belgium I was planning on coming up on the train, and if I had a few days spare, like now, I had planned to come to Knokke-Heist to stay.

And when you are feeling tired and ill and you need to stop, you find the first available hotel regardless of price. And so here I am, in Knokke-Heist of all places, at a shabby-gentille hotel at €70:00, breakfast included, and for Europe, I’m quite satisfied with what I received.

Surprisingly, there’s no fritkot in the vicinity because I went for a slow walk to look around, and I’m not taking the van out to go to look. A packet of biscuits (and my root beer) will do me for tonight.

Tomorrow, we’ll hit the bored tunnel, cheer it up and then go off to Zouteland on the island of Walcheren to see what we can find.

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 – TODAY’S THE DAY …

… that I have my defining interview at the Universiteit Ziekenhuis Leuven – the University Hospital of Leuven.

And so this morning I was up fairly early, bumping into Alison on the way downstairs.

I’d been back on my travels during the night too. Back to the UK in fact. There I was, rushing to catch a train at what was supposed to be Stafford railway station and my brother was there with me and he was holding me back by trying to have a discussion with me, talking to me about all kinds of stuff and I was rushing to catch this train and I wished that he would shut up and let me get on with it. Next to get in my way was a plant seller going on about how we all ought to buy plants and how everyone in the USA ought to learn gardening and all of this kind of thing and I wished that he would shut up too. There was then some American with a small wicker basket full of growing plants and a British guy was there with an almost-identical basket of plants that he had bought somewhere for just 3p more. And as I rushed for the train, a train was pulling in so I burst into the station and towards the stairs but then I realised that I didn’t have a ticket so I had to run off to buy one for Crewe. And then I ran down the stairs to the platform where the train was standing – a train of old-stock maroon coaches. The guard was leaning out of the window of a first-class carriage saying that it was full in there and then he stepped down from the train to a group of his colleagues led by a young female platform manager. I asked if this train was going to Crewe to which they replied that it was going to Birmingham which is of course in the opposite direction. But there was another train pulling in behind and the guard suggested that this might be the one. I asked the female manager if this was the London train (even more in the opposite direction to Crewe) and she came out with a sarcastic comment. I told her to stop making these witty remarks designed to do nothing but bring a smile tothe face of her sycophants and answer my question. And there I was, wanting to go on to Crewe and no-one would tell me which train I wanted to go to Crewe.

Alison had taken a day off work to look after me, which was very nice of her, so after breakfast we went into the centre of Leuven for a look around and a coffee. It’s been years since I’d been there and I couldn’t remember the place all that much, but Alison knew of a café where they served decent coffee so that did us fine for the morning, just chatting and watching the world go by.

At lunchtime, seeing as we were in Belgium, there’s only one place to be and sure enough, we soon found a fritkot. That would do us fine and it goes without saying that the chips were beautiful.

As for the hospital, it’s absolutely HUGE, and I do mean that. So much so that you could fit the hospital in Montlucon into the foyer and instead of having a trolley park like they do in a supermarket, they have wheelchair parks where you can borrow a wheelchair.

I had to be registered, which took ages, but at least everything was properly explained to me, not like Montlucon. They even gave me a brochure and I had a choice of language – Flemish, French and English.

“Follow the blue line” said the receptionist once she had finished with me, and about two hours and three miles later we arrived at another reception desk. My documents had arrived by internal intranet quicker than I had arrived on foot so I was told to take a seat in the waiting area. This was the corridor facing a row of doors which were the consulting rooms – 15 in all, which is a massive improvement on Montlucon.

I was summoned into n°13, which I found rather ominous, and I presented my papers. Not all of them, I have to say, because I was selective in what I let them see. Anything that might have prejudged the issue, I selectively held back as I don’t want the results from Montlucon to influence their minds. They can see all of the scans and all of the reports and all of the examinations, but nothing that suggests a diagnosis. I want them at Leuven to make their own diagnosis.

But I did let them see a letter which I personally think is quite infamous and which has annoyed me greatly. It’s a letter from the surgeon to my own doctor saying “the operation is a success and there are no after-effects to consider. Mr Hall can slowly pick up his former life bit by bit, the only constraints being the effects of his severe anaemia”.

That’s right – the only thing that is holding me back is my severe anaemia, and that’s what I went into the hospital for in the first place, and there’s no mention of them now looking for a cure for it. It’s as if they have abandoned hope of dealing with it, and that has upset me enormously. Hence my visit to Leuven.

As expected, the doctor picked up immediately on this, and was also totally confused about my 3.8 blood count. “Do they measure the blood on a different scale in France?”. But when I reassured her, she too was horrified by my problem.

After a good hour there of tests and examinations and questions (and a blood test) she excused herself, saying “I’ll have to go and have a word with my professor”. And that filled me full of optimism. You wouldn’t get this in Montlucon. And when she came back, we had a discussion and a debate, and the result is exactly the result that I wanted. I could have been detained for two or three days there, which I didn’t really want. I could have been told to go home, and come back in three weeks (or maybe not at all) qhich I am, quite frankly, not up to. But instead, they took all my papers away to read and told me to come back on 31st March at 15:30. That’s exactly what I wanted and it means that I can have a nice relaxing week by the seaside.

Alison and I then came home via the scenic route and after another lengthy chat – that took us up to about 22:30, I went off to my attic and to bed.

So why, I hear you ask, have I chosen Leuven for a second opinion?

There are a variety of reasons and I’ll do my best to explain them.

The first of which is that France, like many countries in the world (including the UK and the USA, before anyone says anything) is very chauvinistic. If I were to ask my doctor to recommend someone for a second opinion, he would probably send me to someone whom he knew in a neighbouring hospital. That’s no good, because he would only have had the same training and experience as my doctor.

The hospital at Leuven is huge, as I have said. It’s a teaching hospital – a University Hospital – so it’s constantly at the forefront of the latest news and development in medical treatment. It will(I hope) know everything about new discoveries and techniques long before the news filters down to a small rural hospital in France.

Alison was treated successfully for a very serious illness, as were a couple of other people whom she knows, and I’ve heard good things about it from my time in Brussels.

Furthermore, my experience is that the Belgians are much more cosmopolitan than most people in the world. They have no false chauvinistic national pride as such and so it’s much more likely to be the place that, if they can’t help me with my problem, a doctor would say “well, I heard about this illness being treated successfully in Los Angeles or Vladivostok”, without a hint of misplaced national pride. And with my medical insurance, I can travel the world looking for treatment.

Of course, having said that, I bet that it won’t work out at all like that. But it’s clear that Montlucon isn’t working and I’m going nowhere there. I have this medical insurance that entitles me to treatment anywhere and so I may as well make use of it. I’d be silly not to. And here in Leuven, I can speak the language after a fashion (and after a week here, I’ll speak it better too and I love the Flemish language) so all in all, it’s the ideal place for me to take my first step on the road to what is likely to be a very long and interesting journey.

And, of course, I’m amongst friends too and that’s very important. I may not have many friends but quantity is not important, it’s quality and I have some of the best friends that anyone could wish for, as events since November have proved.

Where would I be without you?

Monday 21st March 2016 – SO OFF I SET …

… from Ice-Station Zebra at 09:15, straight into the Intermarché over the road for a tomato and baguette to go with my vegan cheese for lunch. And of course, with it being Monday, there was no fresh bread. Still, start as you mean to go on, hey?

But I got my own back on the hotel for the miserable night that I’d had here. I helped myself to an extra mug of coffee, an extra orange juice and a third lump of bread to go with the jam – so saving on the heating didn’t save them anything in the long run. But as I have said before, at €35 per night plus €5:00 for the breakfast, I have no reason whatever to complain.

The drive up to Leuven was totally uneventful except that it took ages to find a boulangerie, but it was well worth the wait as the bread was beautiful. And I almost lost my way in Maubeuge, so much has it changed since I was last here years and years ago. But one thing that I discovered was that just half-an-hour from where I spent the night, on the outskirts of Laon, is an “Ibis Budget” hotel. More expensive than where I spent last night, to be sure, but the heating will probably work and they do have private facilities. As well as that, Laon has a very interesting history and is one of the places on the list of “towns to see before I die”. Consequently, I have made a note of the hotel.

But I’ve forgotten what a dirty, depressing place Belgium is. You can see it as soon as you cross the border. And the roads can match the worst that Labrador and Northern Quebec can offer. They are a disgrace to the western world. I can see now why I left the place as soon as I could.

So while I’m stopped at Heverlee Services eating my butty, let me tell you about last night’s travels.

We started off with something to do with a sandbank in the English Channel. It was only visible at low tides and then only on occasion, and there was one permanent settlement on there, with ust one permanent inhabitant. Although it was a British possession, it was accessible by some kind of causeway from the French mainland. You could see by some kind of heat-map or similar that the English Channel was very low in places and that there were these semi-submerged sandbanks all over the place.
But from there I was on my holidays, in a chalet on a sand dune somewhere. There was some bad feeling here at this place and I was the centre of it for some reason. I’d heard that some people were planning to attack me when I returned home, but I was out for a walk and going to buy some milk (I’m not sure why) and some bread from the shop. I scrambled up over a dune and came past the chalet of the owners who pointed out a sandbank to me (could this have been the earlier one that I was talking about?) but anyway I scrambled on to the camp shop. Here, I was chatting with the proprietor and he told me about one or two incidents on the camp so I told him that I’d already been attacked but I had fought off my attackers with a milk bottle and described in gory detail just how I had done it.

Alison rang me up while I was eating my butties. She was finishing work early and so she would be home by 15:00. so at 15:05 I was outside her house, with her waiting for me at the gate. She introduced me to Brian and we all had a cup of coffee.

Alison and I worked together at that weird American company – The Conference Board. That was a strange place to be – a ruthless American company operating a ruthless American employment regime and being upset by the constraints imposed upon it by European employment law. Not only that, it was living about 30 years behind the times in its commercial approach and was resisting all efforts to drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. There were only 4 of us who were anything like normal, and we had all gone within 12 months. And if I’m classing myself as “normal”, you must really all be wondering about the others.

We had such a chat and so much to talk about that I didn’t realise that it was well after 23:00 when I staggered up into the attic. She has a lovely house – an old 2 bedroom end-of-terrace house with about 5 different extensions so it’s like a labyrinth inside and it’s wonderful.

So now I’m tryng to get myself ready for my hospital appointment tomorrow. This is the crucial moment in my life so I need to be on my best form.

Sunday 20th March 2016 – JUST IN CASE ANYONE IS WONDERING …

… the big patch of oil right by where I park Caliburn is due to the fact that I didn’t notice that there was a hole in the filler neck of my oil container when I was topping him up this morning. I seem to have ended up with more oil on the floor than in Caliburn’s engine. But he’s been topped up with water too, windscreen wiper liquid, all kinds of things.

I also washed and scrubbed all of the camping gear too so that that’s all ready. And apart from the coffee, I also seem to have forgotten the matches too. But at least I can buy them en route somewhere, I suppose.

So after a memorable night, memorable in the sense that I don’t remember anything about it, except for somewhere there was a girl of about 4 or 5 and another one, dressed in red and white, aged about 12 in it somewhere, that’s my lot. I was up yet again before the alarm clock and after breakfast, prepared myself, Caliburn and Strawberry Moose for the departure. All of my paperwork is on board as well, and I’ll let the new doctor sort out what he wants from all of this.

And after lunch, which was more home-made mushroom soup (made of real home-made mushrooms of course), we set off into the mist, rather like the boy who took his girlfriend out into the fog and mist.

. Letting The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav do her work, we followed a merry, mazy ramble through the Auvergne countryside towards the expressway at Montmarault, passing by the Chateau de Puy Guillon at Vernusse, somewhere that I have certainly never seen before.

Impressive it certainly is and well-worth a photo even if the battery in the Nikon D5000 was flat so that I had to use the camera on the phone.

And you can see what I mean about the mist as well.

Once I joined the expressway, the rest of the route was without a problem and everything went according to plan, although having left the SatNav on “shortest distance” rather than changing it to “quickest route” did show me parts of Fontainebleu that I have certainly never seen before. I fuelled up as usual at the cheap fuel station at Melun and then took the Francilienne as far as the N2 where I headed off in the direction of Soissons.

This was where the fun started because, having determined not to stop until I’d passed the rear of Charles de Gaulle airport, I then couldn’t find a hotel, astonishing as it might seem. That’s not quite correct – I drove three times around Villers-Cotterets following signs to hotels that clearly only existed in the minds of the signwriters, and found a place that was nominally a three-star hotel but looked like a chateau and would have been outside my price range.

Soissons wasn’t much better either. I found all of the post hotels, like the Campanile and so on, but nothing in my price range at all but a few miles outside the town, in a place called Crouy, I found a modern type of hotel, the New Access Hotel, advertising rooms at €35:00 plus breakfast €5:00. Full of foreboding, but tired and fed up and in the dark, I went and signed in.

As I feared, it was an old Formule One, clearly sold off by Accor as it needed renovation and wasn’t worth the money spending on it, and now run by an Indian family, as most of these places all over the western world seem to be. We discussed meals and it seemed that there was a pizza delivery service nearby, so I placed my order (there was a microwave so adding my own cheese would be no problem) and went to my room.

Despite half an hour trying, I couldn’t get the heating to work and it was cold. And then the plug was so tight up against the wall that I couldn’t plug in the laptop or the battery charger for the Nikon D5000. And then I realised that I’d been there an hour and my pizza hadn’t come.

So off I trotted downstairs and saw the daughter of the hotel owners. I told her about the pizza, so she asked me if I wanted to call them to remind them. I had a better idea. “You call them and cancel it. I’ll go and find something else” – having passed a kebab and pizza place just down the road.

I passed the pizza delivery driver on the access road but it was too late by then – my tail was up. And I had the last laugh too because it turned out that where I went to was the same place as where the pizza had been ordered from, and there was a free salad included to all take-away customers, and the salad would have made a meal on its own.

So back at Ice-Station Zebra and I refused a shower in the communal facilities. I ate my pizza and salad and with no electricity to charge up the laptop (I should have done that in Caliburn on the way up) I crawled fully-clothed under the covers, kicked out the bed-bugs and settled down for the night.

Saturday 19th March 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I didn’t have to go anywhere today. And do you know what? Well, so I didn’t! The only time that I set foot out of the house was to fetch the bread from the boulangère.

Mind you, I’d been far enough on my travels during the night and so I reckoned that I owed myself day of peace and rest. The first part of last night’s adventure was quite gruesome. It concerns a man, a big businessman who was very rich whose sexual orientation was not restricted to members of the human race. Our attention had been drawn to him by looking through some old declarations that he had made of the income of a cinema that he ran, which had made a profit of just £205 but in actual fact the turnover ran into millions but was paid all out in expenses and there were various anonymous letters sent in alleging that this person was up to no good. As a result, we had this person under surveillance. We’d followed him to a party where he had met a girl who possessed the ability to transform herself into a dog and he found this to be quite interesting, so he went off with her at the end of the night. We talked to another girl at this party – she was a friend of the first girl – she wasn’t quite sure of what was happening. She was waiting for her boyfriend but it seemed as if he had deserted her for someone else. We were sympathising with her. We then picked up some news and so this girl, a small boy of about 6 or 7 and this girl piled into my car which was an E-type Jaguar hard-top with wire wheels to set off and see what was happening. One of the rear tyres on my car was damaged – there was some of the side wall which was breaking away due to the tyre having hit the kerb really hard and I hadn’t had time to change it. We shot off to the other side of this town nevertheless and found it to be under attack by aliens. This man had been parked up with this girl in his car in a quiet corner of this part of town and found himself right in the firing line. She had escaped, disguised as a dog, but he was trapped there. This girl and I had to brave the heavy fire of these aliens and run through the barrage to his car to extricate him and stick him in the back of my car. The girl who had come with me told me that she would stay behind to hold off the aliens to give me an opportunity to take this man away in my car and take him to a clinic. This was urgent because something had happened to him – whether it was to do with this girl or to do with an interaction with these aliens, but he was transforming himself into some kind of ugly monster and I had to throw a blanket over him to hide him from passers-by and from this boy. The girl gave me definite instructions where to take him – I must go to his clinic and only to his clinic because they had his records and probably knew something about his condition. So we shot off, braving the barrage of fire and with this bad tyre that was now becoming urgent and drove through the streets of this place, which bore more than a passing resemblance to Chester. On a corner of a street was another girl whom we knew and who had some connection with this man, and she was talking to the matron of the clinic where this guy usually went for treatment. We took the car round to the clinic, as the matron told us where it was, and we tried to persuade the people at the clinic to send out a stretcher and some men to take our passenger inside discreetly. However they insisted on doing things formally and we ended up being submerged in administration and paperwork while this man’ condition was deteriorating rapidly and the other girl was out on the edge of town under attack from aliens and I needed to get back there to rescue her. But this bureaucracy was stopping me from doing anything.
Later on, I was living in a house with a lot of kids and adolescents.We’d all been to church very early on one Sunday morning (which of course is highly unusual) and then we came back to start to think about breakfast. In the meantime, I’d been playing with one of the small girls, sitting her on my shoulders and giving her a run around. We had a lot of fun doing that and then came back to see the little puppy that these people had, playing around with some huge husky-type dogs and they were all having a really good time. I went of to make some toast for my breakfast but someone had already filled the grill pan with bacon. I simply put my bread on a higher level of the insert in the grill pan (we come across some astonishing items during our nocturnal rambles, don’t we?) and put that underneath the grill (why I didn’t use a toaster is something totally beyond me). I was halfway through writing an essay of some kind but I had to get up and do something, and in the meantime the girls who were involved with this bacon came downstairs and saw their bacon almost cooked so they sat down to eat it, right where I had been sitting writing my essay. I heard the two girls discussing my essay and saying that they had finished it off for me, writing that wherever I had reached in my essay was all down to feminist antagonism. I had to quickly grab hold of my essay and sit down to rewrite it and edit out their ending.

What with all of that, no-one was more surprised than me to be up and about yet again, a long time before the alarm going off. I had a nice leisurely breakfast and after the nurse had been I sat down to catch up on a pile of paperwork, an activity only briefly interrupted by my decision to go for a shower, which I can do now that my trials and tribulations at the allergy clinic are over.

This afternoon, I sat down to do my medical expenses. I need them to be up-to-date before I go off to Leuven tomorrow afternoon. Just a mere 50% of my pension this month, and that’s still with a few outstanding. It goes without saying of course that I haven’t yet had the reimbursement of the last lot that I sent in. After all, it’s only been three weeks!

We had leftovers for tea tonight, and by that I mean the leftover vegan meatballs from the other week that were put in the freezer. and like most spicy food, the longer it’s kept, the better it tastes. With spaghetti and tomato sauce they were delicious, especially washed down with home-made vegan ice cream.

So tomorrow, I’m off. But before I go I have to pack and to check Caliburn’s oil and water, and to wash and clean the camping stove. I have remembered the kettle and water but I’ve just realised that I’ve forgotten the coffee!

There’s always something, isn’t there?

Friday 18th March 2016 – DAY FIVE …

… of my hospital marathon began with yet another early start, long before the alarm went off. And what’s more, there is cause to celebrate because today is when I start the “once per day” injections. No more evening visitors! Wha-hey!

I had a nice leisurely breakfast and then set off for Montlucon. My appointment isn’t until 10:30 but I left with plenty of time because I had plenty that I needed to do.

And while I’m on the road to Montlucon, let me tell you about my voyages last night.We started off tonight with some kind of middle-class family. Their house was built over a stream and so they had had to line the stream with rocks especially up the sides of the banks so as to make some kind of solid foundations for the house to be built on. But they couldn’t find any hydrofuge cement – the cement that’s used for making waterproof joints in building materials – so we could join and then point the stones without there being any problem about the joints being affected by the damp and the water in the stream.
I was then off with Pete Dillon from London whom I knew from a few years back. We were chatting in this house somewhere and then Pete had to go off and give a quote for a job. it was one of these jobs like The 39 Steps job – the “fourth at bridge” scene from Carry On Regardless but it was to do with a position as a butler. So off he went for his interview and I stayed behind to watch another Carry On film about a girl who had to catch a train. The train was about to pull out before she could board it but she grabbed hold of some kind of trolley and her suitcase was handcuffed to her other wrist. She had to run along the platform, up in the lift, across the bridge and down the lift on the other side and back down the other platform with this trolley and her suitcase, and then make a valiant leap on board the train, trolley suitcase and all. And then there was another man also late for the train and he helped her board the train. After all of this, Pete came back, waking me up for I’d fallen asleep, and it turned out that despite all that this company had said, it was Terry who was trying to put together a team to do this job. They’d been off to this big white house to have a good look around it. Terry had given a quote that worked out at about 6 hours per person in this team, about £800 in total. I said to Pete that this worked out at quite a decent rate and he agreed with me. So off we walked, down this lane and onto this 1910s type of housing estate nominally at the top end of Crewe off to the east of the top end of Underwood Lane. This was a really nice, pleasant area, especially in the sun, with nice pleasant gardens and fronts of the houses. I remember saying that if I were ever to want to come back to live in Crewe, this would be an area that would be high on my list. I told him that I lived in Gainsborough Road and he told me that he lived in Fallowfield. I said that there were some nice areas of Fallowfield, so he challenged me to name any. Of course, knowing Fallowfield, I couldn’t even think of one and I was really struggling about this.
It was now Day Three (of what, I have no idea) and we were doing something about testing cricket bats and we’d become quite good at this. In the end, our batting techniques were being used by the England cricket team and they got up to quite a quick score in one of the matches. They then realised that they had left part of their equipment behind so someone had to return for it. This person discovered that someone had left his mobile phone behind and the sound recorder was running and you could hear all of the antics of the team. This led to it being called “Whacko” after the Jimmy Edwards radio programme.

First stop in Montlucon was the Laboratory. I have to pay them for their services since I came out of hospital and they need to be up-to-date as I won’t be using them now for a while. And next stop was the surgical equipment shop. I hadn’t realised that I had had to pay for the surgical stockings that I had had to wear while I was in hospital. But they had sent me a bill and all of this was in the vicinity.

Round the corner to the hospital and I couldn’t resist taking this photo of part of the building, even if the camera on the phone didn’t do it justice. This must be where old-timers like Yours Truly bring our fizzy pop so that it can be examined.

And so reflecting upon this, I went off for my scan.

This injection that I had to have for the scan was just like something for a cow. It was huge. But they fitted me with a drain so that they could let it into my bloodstream as required. It took ages to do and it wasn’t until 11:20 that I was turfed out. Chief body-scanner hadn’t had chance to look at my photos but he promised to ring me (not that I would be there) to tell me what he had seen.

On the way out, I was buttonholed by the receptionist of the body-scanners. They had realised that I’m a private patient and so I needed to sign a form so that they could submit it to my insurance company for reimbursement. I thought to myself “at last! An efficient hospital department with its finger on the pulse!”.

I nipped upstairs to pick up my papers but the blasted, perishing doctor hadn’t done them despite me 10:30 au plus tard. I had to wait until – yes – 12:25 before he let me have my papers – a whole hour and more and so I had missed the Tax Office and I needed to pay them too for the consultations. Totally pathetic!

And that’s not all that is totally pathetic either. I’m supposed to be taking things easy and not exerting myself, and here I am, on my FIFTH day back at the hospital for something that is nothing whatever to do with my illness either. This is just completely miserable. I won’t ever recover like this!

Anyway, I went off to LeClerc for some shopping and then back to the Carrefour for some chips and vegetables – and much to my surprise the chips and veg were warm. And then I had to loiter around until 14:00 and the opening of the Tax Office.

They were very friendly in the Tax Office but that didn’t alter the fact that I had to wait half an hour for them to try to make the printer work so that I could have some receipts for my payments, but that didn’t work either. It just wasn’t my day, was it?

I finally made it back to my house at about 16:30 and then, for once, I could take it easy without having to rush home to Liz and Terry’s for the nurse and an injection. And I forgot that, with it being Friday night, it’s chips night there too.

So now, it’s yet another early night because, try as I might, I can’t shake off these morning injections quite yet.

Thursday 17th March 2016 – IT’S DAY FOUR …

…of my hospital marathon – the day that I had a marathon session in the allergy clinic, just by way of a change. And just by way of a change I was up a long while before the alarm went off too

And that surprised me immensely because I hadn’t ‘arf been on my travels during the night too.

I started off at the allergy clinic (I can’t keep away from here, can I?) and we were making up a soundtrack tape – don’t ask me why – and we found a record featuring someone singing but there were also loads and loads of background noises of all kinds of things that represented actions and items that were taking place in the song. We were listening to it. Liz was only listening with half an ear to it and all of a sudden she pricked up her ears – “did I hear a fox?”. “I think that it’s something on this record” I replied. We played the record back two or three times and, sure enough, there was some kind of reference in it to a fox, and the fox is barking away in the background.
Liz made a subsequent appearance too, in reference to a school trip that she was organising. In fact, she wasn’t really organising it because it was now September and the kids had been back at school for three or four weeks. The aim of this trip was that it was some kind of field trip which involved the children being away for a few days and this was to take place at the end of December. So much time and trouble had gone into the organisation of all of this but people had forgotten to tell the parents about it and it was only now that people at the school were discussing the presentation of the event to the parents. But Liz’s school was in such a poor, deprived area that it was obvious that not many of the families – Group B families was how she described them – would be able to afford the trip and wouldn’t have the possibility to save up between now and the date that payment needed to be made so that their children could go. So rather than be an exclusive trip and not allow some of the poorer kids to go, they were talking about postponing this trip to another year and maybe a few months later in the year so that everyone would have a chance to save up for it.
Next stop was back in Crewe, where I was going for a walk. and I’d been for a walk down Market Street, passing underneath the Cumberland Bridge at the bottom and into Middlewich Street (where we were a few weeks ago, as you might recall). As I was crossing the road I had to start to run as a car came around the corner under the bridge from Market Street at something of a speed on the wrong side of the road, which is actually the right side of the road because we are talking about the UK, although for some reason I wasn’t aware of this. So I had to make a run for the pavement. I had the idea that the road under the bridge was a one-way street, which it wasn’t as vehicles were coming from both directions. Anyway, I was around the corner by now and walking up Middlewich Street and a bus was coming down the street, travelling quite quickly. he reached the bottom and swung round to the right to go underneath the bridge but a car came hurtling out from somewhere under the bridge, shot off up the side of the railway line where there is no road, causing the bus to jam on his brakes. He only just missed this car. I carried on with my walk and it was dark by now. I’d been chatting to a couple of people whom I’d met on my travels but by now I had arrived at a place that was a bank. It had a cash-point which was in the basement, and there were people in there using it. It occurred to me to go and check my English bank account so went downstairs. I pulled out my card ready to use and while I was waiting my turn I noticed that there was something like a shop counter down here, with money all over the place, but no-one had taken any notice at all of this money. I already had a fair bit of money in my wallet, by the way. While I was sorting myself out, another person came down the steps behind me so I told him to go ahead – I’ll be a minute or two yet. he looked at me strangely and said “do you always carry that enormous amount of money around with you?”. I said “no” and carried on doing what I was already doing. But he stood there watching me. I told him again to go ahead and use the machine but he just stood there. I was starting to sense that we were going to have some kind of confrontation but just then, one of my friends from Brussels came in and came downstairs to use the cash point. He (my friend) asked me “what’s 212 plus 212?” as if this was the key to his PIN. I was having to be very vague in my reply because of this other person lurking around in the vicinity. But now of course there were two of us in there, both of whom were likely to be potential victims for this guy loitering around on the stairs.
We haven’t finished yet either, for there was some other part of the dream going on about my youngest sister. She was with a friend and they both drifted in and out somewhere along the way. But in the meantime there was a man who had come from the UK and was now in the USA who had travelled all around the USA on something of an extended holiday. He’d retired from work and there was a great deal of confusion about his pension arrangements, what employment pensions he was entitled to and what he was going to receive. In the end, after a great deal of argument and discussion, he’d been to his former employer who had promised to look into everything. This was an oil company, and the people there decided to make a presentation to him. They gave him an old oil drum which, while not sounding as it it was very much, was actually quite symbolic because it had fallen off a ship somewhere off the coast of New England and washed all the way down along the eastern coast of America (regardless of prevailing winds, tides and ocean currents), round Cape Horn and the Tierra del Fuego and then back up the western coast of America (regardless of prevailing winds etc) and had been recovered again near Seattle. They presented it to him as a symbol of his own voyage all around the USA. Eventually, it worked out that they had found three pension entitlements for him and so he could live happily ever after.

And so you can see why I was astonished by my early night.

On the way to Montlucon through the snow, which dramatically cleared by the time that we reached Pionsat, and then it was quite straightforward as far as the hospital, although I did stop for some cash at the bank on the edge of the town, seeing how the nurse will probably want paying this weekend before I go. And being nice and early at the allergy clinic, that meant of course that they were all late.

But I did happen to notice the first E-plate on the car park. It was a, EA — KK registration so I reckon that it’s about three weeks since they first came out. They now seem to be slowing down to well over two years a letter.

At the allergy clinic, first thing that they did when they arrived was ask me to take off my upper clothes and to check my body. Then they sat me down in a comfortable chair (or what passes for a comfortable chair around there), gave me a couple of injections and then started to squirt something out of a syringe into my mouth – something quite minty and also quite bitter. Then they told me to take a drink of water.

This was how we went on for much of the day. I’ve no idea what it was that they had given me but they ought to have given something to the room and the chair to stop them spinning around while I was trying to sit there quietly and do some work on my Canada notes.

They brought up some food too, but it was, as I expected, some meat (there seems no point in going to an allergy clinic and telling them about your allergies if they are going to totally ignore them, is there?). I was prepared for this however, and had brought along some vegan cheese and tomato butties. But we did have coffee too and that wasn’t too bad.

When I’d finished and the room had stopped spinning, I went off to find Caliburn and then I headed back to my place for an hour or so to gather up some of my possessions, or such that I could remember of them.

And the snow had gone, much to my surprise and pleasure. It was in fact quite warm and I felt a little better once I had warmed up.

Back at Liz and Terry’s, I had another early night. I need to build up my strength prior to leaving because it’s a long way to Brussels, even if I am going to do it in a couple of steps. The days when I could do a full day’s work and then drive the 800kms between Brussels and my Farm through the night – they seem to be long-gone now.

Wednesday 16th March 2016 – HOW WE LAUGHED …

… when the nurse said something last night about it going to snow today. And so would you have done, given the glorious day we had yesterday.

But coming back from Montlucon, and passing through Villebret where you start to climb up into the Combrailles, I saw a few suspicious-looking white flakes being blown about in the sky. By the time I climbed up over the Font Nanaud and down the other side towards St Gervais, the sky was clear again but about half an hour after arriving back here, we got the lot. There’s now about 10mm of snow outside and it’s still falling.

Yes, and I have to go back (GRRRRR!) to Montlucon and the hospital tomorrow too. I arrived there nice and early but had to wait for almost three quarters of an hour before I was seen properly by the nurse. She examined where I’d been injected and where I’d been patched, and told me that there is some reaction so I need to return for further tests.

You don’t need me to tell you what I think of that.

But anyway, off up to the day hospital and the blood transfusion. My favourite nurse and my second-favourite student were there and once more there was a decent and convivial crowd in the room. We all had quite a laugh and a good time, which made us all feel better and helped the time pass by.

Lunch was the usual disgusting muck but at least it was something, I suppose. And although I was finished by 14:30 I told them that I wasn’t leaving until I had had my mid-afternoon coffee.

On the way back from Montlucon I got myself lost in the back streets trying to find the short cut to LIDL. I needed some of my vitamin B12 juice and some sparkling water, and I also bought a couple of big packets of crisps and some packets of sweets to nibble on while I’m driving to Leuven. And they sell 1-litre bottles of orange juice in there and they are just the thing to drink in the van while I’m driving but as usual, Bane of Britain forgot to buy any.

I was going to go back home for a couple of hours afterwards too but it was rather cold and that made me think for a moment, and then with the white stuff, I decided that being back in the warmth and off the road was a much better plan.

And here I am and there I’ll be in a moment – in bed. I’m not going for a walk tonight as I’ve walked far enough today (as well as going all around the hospital I had to go off to find the Records Department to pick up a copy of my file to take to Leuven).

And while I’m on the subject of files and records, I did ask the doctor there to prepare his file and records ready for me to pick up. And so I went to see his secretary and it will come as no surprise to you all to learn that he hasn’t done so. I told her “Friday at the latest” (well, actually vendredi au plus tard, but you get the idea).

So I hope that I have a more interesting and exciting sleep than I did last night. I was out like a light in a very deep sleep and the only recollection of what happened was what was on the dictaphone. And we were dealing with football issues yet again.

We were talking about the Controle Technique in football (well, exactly!) and one of the issues in this is that the player concerned has to take a penalty kick. Now it doesn’t matter whether the player scores or misses, or whether it’s saved by the keeper – it’s all down to whether the player is capable of kicking the ball in that situation. One player having his Controle Technique came out onto the field. He was wearing a red football shirt with his name on the back – a really long name that ended with Platini. He was preparing to take the kick but we noticed that underneath his shirt he was wearing a Father Christmas outfit complete with hood trimmed in white and with a white bobble – and his hood is up on his head. He runs in to take the penalty as soon as the whistle is blown, but almost immediately the whistle is blown again to stop the kick being taken, in order to order him to put his hood down so that the controller could see his head and face. And so he does, and then he runs in and takes the kick again. However the keeper is really quick off his line and manages to block the ball with his knees. The ball thus ricochets off his knees up into the air. Now the goal that they are using for this is actually an over-bridge, so it’s clearly the correct dimensions for a goal underneath it. The ball balloons up and over the bridge past the people who are crossing the bridge and then back down the other side and goes quite a way away. The man who has taken the penalty now needs another ball to do something different and so he climbs up the side of the cutting which this bridge crosses, and plucks another ball that was in a bush that was growing on the top of the cutting, so they can continue this Controle Technique.

After all of that, I was down here early yet again, breakfasted and off on the road at 07:30 with the coffee in my Tim Hortons thermal mug. The drive was pretty uneventful with no-one in my way and even though I stopped at the bank to add to the fighting fund, I was at the hospital for 08:20.

I spent most of the day dealing with my Canada 2014 voyage for the month of September. I’ve now arrived back on Nova Scotia (travelling backwards of course) but then I had to start from the other end at Montreal and reach as far as the Sorel – St Ignace ferry across the St Lawrence because there’s a gap in my notes. I know that they are there because I remember transcribing them and I’m sure that I’ve seen them, but they are probably out of order so I’ll need to find them – and the easiest way to find them is to start at the other and and file the stuff from there, and eventually I’ll come across them.

That’s a nice job for me tomorrow then, seeing as how I have to spend all blasted day in that perishing mausoleum.

Tuesday 15th March 2016 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… for a walk after lunch this afternoon.

And quite right too, because it really was a beautiful day.

I took my time and slowly walked to the end of the lane and then up the main road for 400 metres or so to the turning to Toureix, enjoying the warm temperature of the sunny spring afternoon. From here, you can look down the hill to the turning to Le Fournial and further on over the Gorge de la Sioule.

And I learnt something new today too, which is always a good thing. There’s a huge steel mill about 10 miles from here, right out the other side of Les Ancizes in the countryside. It’s the most surprising thing to find in the countryside and I’ve always wondered why. And now I know the answer.

It turns out that when the built the Viaduc des Fades at the turn of the 20th Century, they correctly identified the potential of the water in the Gorge de la Sioule as a source for hydro-electric generation.

They weren’t wrong either. Today, there’s a big modern dam right across the valley but back in those days 100 years ago they installed a basic, simple hydro-electric turbine which produced its first electricity in 1917.

And then they discovered something important. The generator was a success but they had overlooked to find a market for the electricity. No-one around here had electricity in those days and the transmission of electrical energy was in its infancy and there was nothing like a National Grid to distribute the power.

And so if they couldn’t send the electricity out to clients, they needed to bring in a client from elsewhere. And hence the arrival of Duval’s.

As you know, I had an early night last night. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and once I’d gone off, I remembered almost nothing. I really must have been exhausted. There are just snippets of this and that on the dictaphone that don’t mean much, but then I suppose that after the marathon epics of the last couple of nights, you would welcome the rest.

We started off at the football again during one of my nocturnal rambles and strangely enough, when I awoke in the middle of the night I could name the entire Sheffield United starting line-up but in the time that it took me to reach for the dictaphone, the whole lot had disappeared completely. There was a small guy leading the attack and another small guy in the team and he had been whingeing at me about something or other that had actually started off this particular dream. And I couldn’t recall that either.
But not to worry. I was soon back to sleep, going off somewhere with Liz in her Volkswagen and all of a sudden she came over really, really ill and I had to help her back to the car. I called Terry and he appeared too, so we both helped her back. He was really upset and panicking abut how ill she was and being really nice to her, encouraging her back to the car even though she was in agony. Back home, I was making this salad with rice and chick peas, all kinds of things. I was having to boil up these ingredients separately to go into this rice and someone else was helping me. Liz was there supervising and giving directions. We had boiled up something for quite some time and stuck it in this salad but there was something else on the boil, which I thought was something quick and so I tipped that into the salad as well. It turned out to be dried chick peas so I asked Liz how long they needed to be cooked, as I imagined that it was quite some time. She said that they needed just 2 minutes, and so seeing as they had been on the boil for longer than that, that was OK. I then was curious to know why, if they only needed two minutes, we hadn’t cooked them with the rest of the food. All of this, by the way, was going on in the really cramped kitchen that we had in Davenport Avenue when we were kids.

That was basically it, I suppose. But then I was awake early and downstairs before the alarm went off. I’ve not done too much though because I’m still not in the mood for very much, but I’ve finished off all of the notes for 2015 and done the dictaphone notes for October 2014 and part of them for September 2014 too. But my heart wasn’t in it really – I could do with a change of scenery right now but I’m in no fit condition to do anything about it.

I’m on the move tomorrow anyway because I have the hospital. The allergy clinic followed by the blood transfusion service. Neither of these would have been necessary had the removal of my spleen done its job, but it’s no use crying over spilt milk now.

And so I suppose that I’d better have an early night.

And you can all have an early night too. Only 903 words tonight – I’m clearly losing my grip.

And quote of the week must be that from Terry, listening with only half an ear to the football on TV –
“Manchester City have SEX OFFENDERS in the team tonight???”
“No, Terry” I replied. “He said ‘six defenders'”.

Monday 14th March 2016 – WELL THAT’S ME TOTALLY P155ED OFF!

I had my blood test at the hospital this morning, and the blood count has gone down yet again to 8.1. And that’s despite having a blood transfusion the other day. The operation that I had to go through 6 or 7 weeks ago has clearly done no good whatever and I might just as well have saved myself the agony.

The thing that gets me though is that no-one in the hospital seems to care. Here they are, messing about with allergy tests for a different medication to deal with the immunity issues following the removal of the spleen, and on Friday I’m in hospital for a scan on my lung to see where this blood clot (the one in my lung that I picked up in hospital) has got to.

But as to my underlying illness and the causes of it, and any potential solution – not a word!

What made me even more depressed about all of this is that while I was sitting in the allergy clinic with all of these patches and injections and so on, I was editing all of the photos that I took in Montreal and sorting out all of the notes that relate thereto. And then I got to thinking about just how much I enjoyed the city and how much I felt at home there. And then I reached a conclusion.

And that is that seeing as how no-one cares, then I don’t either. if nothing definite comes out of my visit to Leuven next week and they can’t sort something out, then I’m on the next plane to Montreal. I’ll find a quiet room in a house somewhere around the Cote des Neiges, which really is my favourite part of Montreal, and let nature take its course.

I can’t go on like this. it’s nothing short of purgatory for me to have to go through all of what I’m going through and for no good purpose either. I may as well not be here and be somewhere else instead, whether in this world, the New World or even the next world.

What didn’t help matters very much was that I had another one of those comfortable, reassuring dreams where everything went according to plan, our hero got the girl and we both walked off together into the sunset and all of that – something that never ever happened to me in real life and how I wished that it had.

I was back playing in my rock group from the 1970s again and we were totally unrehearsed – we hadn’t played together for years and we were featuring in a venue somewhere. This was downstairs in a basement somewhere, rather like Enoch’s in Crewe used to be, and we weren’t even sure what numbers we were going to play, never mind how we were going to play them. This went on and we didn’t have all that much idea about what we were going to do. We spent so much time discussing and debating it that we weren’t actually getting anything done. There were quite a few of our friends there, including one particular girl whom I fancied and who I was trying to impress, who were coming to see us and so we HAD to be organised. Came the afternoon of the gig and we decided that we would have a rehearsal. I headed off towards the rehearsal room, carrying my bass guitar and there was some girl, whom I had seen vaguely back in the past but I hadn’t particularly noticed very much, came over to me and asked me if my guitar was a Gibson SG. I told her to count the strings, which she did, and agreed that there were just four of them. And so I told her that it was in fact a Gibson EB3. We started to talk about bass guitars and musical instruments, and she said that she had a mandolin with four strings on it. Of course – a mandolin – that brings back Lindisfarne and “Road to Kingdom Come” and “No Time to Lose”, all of that kind of thing. We ended up having quite a chat about this kind of thing, and she said that she could actually play some Lindisfarne music on the mandolin. It’s always been my ambition to play in a folk-rock group like Lindisfarne so I egged her on to go and fetch her mandolin,which she did and we had a brief jam session. After that, we wandered off together hand in hand. As I said earlier, this was another one of these comfortable situations and I wish that I could remember who she was, or even what she looked like – rather different from the Girl from Worleston the other night whose face is still vividly fixed in my mind. Anyway, off we went, hand in hand and there were a few people loitering in the vicinity who noticed the pair of us together like that and gave a little smile to each other. We walked to a rocky wall where there were a few seating areas set into it at various levels – just flat, grassy areas. I invited her to sit down with me but she said that she had other things to do and didn’t have the time. I continued to encourage her to sit down, she continued to be doubtful and it was at this moment that I woke up rather dramatically and shattered the illusion, much to my dismay.
After the usual crawl down the corridor I ended up at the football – Nantwich Town in fact. And while Nantwich Town might have a new ground, down on Kingsley Fields, this match wasn’t being played there. And neither was it being played on their old ground at Jackson Avenue either, but in the street in London Road right more-or-less outside Churche’s Mansions. I was watching the game, with about 4 or 5 others (huge crowds they have in Nantwich), a couple of girls and a couple of kids, having a kick-around with the balls.There was a really strong, swirling wind blowing that was creating havoc and on one occasion, much to my surprise, I actually caught the match ball one-handed, swerving around in the wind as it went out of play and that was really impressive. For the rest of it, the conditions were really difficult and catching the ball, even a simple catch, was really difficult if not impossible. We were actually watching this at the back of a river and the house rear yards backed right onto it. One small boy was climbing over the back wall and the wooden fence on top and lost his footing, sliding straight down into the river and emerging all covered in green slime. That certainly looked unhealthy! All of these houses had basements that were well below the level of the water but were somehow really dry. I wouldn’t have liked to have lived down in there, although there were people quite happily doing so. There were two teenage girls watching this football match and they lived in one of the houses. At half-time they went back to their house where the mother was cleaning the room of one of these girls, and one of the girsl asked the other what she would like for breakfast. The other replied that she would like one round of cheese on toast with half a packet of crisps and a coffee. I said “breakfast? It’s getting on for 10:30 and most of us had eaten breakfast long before this match kicked off”. But anyway, the first girl dragged a big metal wood-stove out from a corner into the middle of her little basement room ready to fill it and light it to make the toast and put the kettle on. They asked me what I would like to which I replied that I’d had my breakfast a long time ago, but I’ll have a cup of coffee with them. They next asked me what coffee I wanted and what mug I wanted and I thought that they weren’t half making life complicated when all that I wanted was a simple cup of coffee.

But anyway, enough of this. I was up early enough, breakfasted and on the road by 07:40. And what a beautiful morning it was too. I was in Montlucon at the hospital by 08:30 and in the comfy chair by the power point at 08:40 too.

I had the blood test, as I mentioned, and then had the drain fitted, and then injected and patched with all kinds of things. My companion from the other day was there too and we had quite a chat. And while I might have won the “mine’s bigger than yours” competition by having the largest lump on my arm, I felt really sorry for her with all of the tests that she was going through and the mess that they had made of her arm. In consolation, I let her have my mid-morning cake to cheer her up.

We had quite a few moments of humour too, including when one of the others asked if she could leave the room to use the bathroom.
“You’re supposed to raise your hand” I retorted.
“Just like school” said someone else.
At least, despite everything else, there’s a good feeling of cameraderie there in that clinic and the nurse is a really good sport too, which is good.

But the bad side of this is that I’ve had a few adverse reactions so I need to come in again. I explained my situation, all of my hospital appointments and my visit to Belgium and as a result, exceptionally, they can fit me in provisionally at 09:00 on Thursday.

I mentioned that at this rate I ought to be looking for an apartment here in the vicinity of the hospital and asked the young girl here with me whether she had a spare bed in her room. She said she did, but her mother wouldn’t like it. I asked “who cares about your mother?” which made everyone smile, but didn’t have the desired effect.

Not that I expected it to either, but there you go.

As for the blood test though, it’s on the limit of the blood transfusion level, but that’s not good enough for me. I’m off to Leuven next week – 800-odd kilometres by road – and I need to be on my best form for the journey. So what I’ve done is to change my little one-hour appointment back at the allergy clinic from tomorrow to Wednesday at 09:00 seeing as how there was a space, and then went up to the day-hospital and persuaded them to take me in straight afterwards for a blood transfusion. That way, then at least I’ll be in something-like reasonable health to undertake the journey. Coming back won’t be too much of a problem as I don’t have a time-limit for that so if I’m tiring out, I can take a good rest and carry on later.

But as I also said earlier, I’m thoroughly depressed by the way that all of this is panning out. I’m thoroughly hating the past, hating the present and hating the future too.

To cheer myself up, I went to Carrefour and the Flunch to have a plate of chips and vegetables but that was a waste of time as they were stone-cold. Liz had given me a little shopping list that involved going to Grande Frais and the Carrefour so I bought the necessary and looked for something else to cheer me up but there wan’t anything there that took my fancy. That’s always the case when you’re in the middle of a black depression – nothing will pull you out of the pit.

Back home – for only an hour as Liz wanted the shopping by 16:00 – I still couldn’t find my copy of Paint Shop Pro or anything else that I needed. But there was a little issue that the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater was off the temperature scale. I had to drain off 5 litres of the water and put 5 litres of cold water into it. I’ve also plugged the fridge into the main circuit so that it’ll now be working 24 hours per day. I’ll have to do something because with no-one there drawing any current, there’s tons of surplus electricity and it’s all dumped into the hot water.

Yes, 41 amps of surplus energy was being generated when I arrived and the cables to the immersion heater element were stone-cold – a far cry from 6 months ago when they overheated at half of that and I had to rewire everything. All of this, the temperature in the water and the amps that the cables are currently … "ohh! Very good!" – ed … handling just goes to show how much current was being lost by the rubbishy cables that I had been using. Decent cables, even half the diameter, properly crimped and soldered, is definitely the way to go and I wish that my soldering techniques would improve.

However, if things continue like this, my soldering techniques won’t be an issue.

I stopped for diesel on the way back and also to the pharmacie at Pionsat for the next lot of anti-biotic prescriptions (which wouldn’t have been necessary except for this spenectomie, and what a waste … "you’ve done that already" – ed … and then back to Liz and Terry’s.

After tea, which was a stir-fry with the stuff that I had bought earlier, I said “sod it!” and went to bed. I’ve had enough disappointments for one day. I’d already crashed out for half an hour on the sofa and it was beyond me to keep on going – not when I wasn’t in the mood to go on fighting.

Tomorrow is another day. Let’s see how we get on with that. Not any better, I bet.

I’ll leave you all to sit and read this rubbish – all 2322 words of it.

And serve you all right too!

EPIC HALL

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