Category Archives: krefel

Saturday 29th October 2016 – IT NEVER RAINS …

… but it pours, doesn’t it?

I decided that in order to changer mes idées, as the French so aptly put it, I’d go out of town this lunchtime and do my shopping out at Kessel-LO, to give me a good opportunity to have a wander around.

And the net result of my external perambulations?

The Fortis Bank there has swallowed my bank card.

That’s all that I need, isn’t it? Lurching from one disaster to another while I’m here this last two or three weeks. I’m getting totally fed up of this. It’s about time that something went right with me for a change.

But at least I’d managed to go to Bio-Planet and buy some more vegan cheese and a beautiful baguette, as well as helping myself to the free samples and the complementary coffee. I bought some stuff (but nothing exciting) in Carrefour that I need to tide me over until Thursday when (hopefully) I’ll leave here and I had a good look around in Krefel to see what they had in the way of electrical appliances. But there was nothing that particularly excited me.

Last night, it didn’t take me long to go to sleep. And once I was asleep, I stayed asleep (except for one trip down the corridor). I awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm, and for once, I was washed and breakfasted and back in my room by 07:45.

My voyage last night was something of a strange parallel to real life. I was somewhere in north-west England, Lancaster or the like, and I had a few days spare. I was torn between going back home to Crewe for a short while or finding somewhere to stay up there. The idea of going to Silloth appealed to me, but I had a look at the map, which was in a holder up above my head in Caliburn and found the town of Oxenhope right on the coast not too far from where I was (and Oxenhope is of course miles away from the sea in real life) I could see that it was fairly large with a port and harbour, with a main street running along the front and so I reckoned that I would go there. But I couldn’t get Caliburn to start – and that was painful. We also had two children – rather like two kids that I know in real life – and they appeared on my voyages for some reason or other.

After breakfast, I had a little doze and did a few bits and pieces and round about 11:30 I wandered off down to Caliburn and out to Kessel-Lo.

Back here, it ended up being a late lunch and then I attacked the web site again. I’ve been working on it again and I’ve amended three web pages, this one, this one and this one. Stuff from my 2015 voyage needed to be added into the first two pages, and that led to adjustments on the third page.

I had a good chat with Liz and another one of my friends on the internet too. It’s certainly been a marvellous invention, hasn’t it?

Tonight, I finished off my curry from yesterday and now I’m planning on yet another early night. i’ll hopefully make the most of it because the clocks go back tonight. Back 100 years for those of you who voted for the Brexit.

But for me, it means that I might have an extra hour in bed asleep.

But I’ve heard all of that before.

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Thursday 12th May 2016 – HA HA HA!

Who was it who said something about “an early night” last night then?

For not only having stayed awake to watch a Mr Moto film (starring Peter Lorre in the title role), I stayed awake and awake and awake, and I was still tossing and turning at 03:45 this morning. So much for my predictions.

But I did manage to drop off to sleep at some point, and I was back at my old school, with a pile of girls, climbing up (not down) a rope of sheets trying to get in through a window or onto a balcony. And as for why I might be doing this, I’m afraid that I don’t have the foggiest. It’s gone clean out of my mind.

For the first time in ages I slept right through until the alarm went off and, resisting the temptation to turn over and go back to sleep, I went off for breakfast. Mind you, I paid for it later on in the day, crashing out at about 17:00 for an hour or so.

bio planet tiensesteenweg bierbeek kessel lo belgiumAfter breakfast, I went off on a prowl with the intention of exploring this famous bio shop in the Tiensestraat in Bierbeek about which I had heard so much. I’d driven past it the other evening but I didn’t have time to stop.

It’s certainly good at what it does, that’s for sure, but for me it was a little disappointing because there was none of the vegan cheese that I like. There was some – a kind of spreading mozzarella substitute – so I bought a couple of packs to see how it goes

knacker diabolique vegan sausages bio planet tiensesteenweg bierbeek kessel lo belgiumI also bought a beautiful seeded baguette for lunch (which tasted delicious) and a couple of raisin buns, but I’ll be passing on the Knacker diabolique vegan sausages though. No matter how nice they looked, I couldn’t cope with the name.

But here’s another example of me having to change my national stereotypes. This shop, the Bio Planet, is another establishment that offers free coffee to customers, and there are a few broken biscuits to sample too, so I’ve added it to my ever-increasing list.

Things are definitely looking up here in Belgium.

low energy consumption fridges krefel tiensesteenweg bierbeek kessel-lo belgiumAnd that’s not all either.

Just across the road is a Krefel electrical appliance shop so I went over there for a butcher’s. And I was astonished – really astonished. When have you EVER seen a standard-size domestic fridge that has a rated annual consumption of just 64 kilowatts per year? That is amazing.

And if you think that the fridge next to it, the one with freezer compartment, is equally astonishing at 98 kilowatts per year, there was one further down the row that had a rated consumption of just 93 kilowatts per year

low energy consumption freezer krefel tiensesteenweg bierbeek kessel lo belgiumAnd if that isn’t enough, the best is yet to come. Here in the shop was a standard-size freezer with an annual consumption of 101 kilowatts per annum.

This figure, and the one of 64 kw/A for the fridge, are figures that I have never ever seen for these appliances and had I been in a better place in my life right now, the fridge and freeze would be coming back home with me.

The fridge actually uses much less energy than the little 12-volt fridge that I have, and the freezer would go nicely in the barn running off the solar panels and wind turbine in there. I’d be set up for life with this lot.

vegan cheese carrefour tiensesteenweg bierbeek kessel lo belgiumYou may remember the other day that I was moaning that my vegan cheese had been “tidied away” from the fridge at Sint Pieters. I knew that I wouldn’t have time to go back to Brussels for more and how I’d be stuck for my next series of travels.

But no longer, because here in the Carrefour – a mainstream supermarket – they are now selling vegan cheese slices too, and at about two-thirds the price of anywhere else over here. I was equally as astonished by this.

Yes, things are definitely looking up in Belgium right now.

Back here, I’ve pushed on with updating the older bits of the blog. In a mad fit of enthusiasm I’ve done all of January 2011 and I’m stuck well into February. But I won’t be going much further than this for now because I’m leaving here tomorrow as you know. I’m going to have a check-up and then I’m hitting the road.

I did mention that I crashed out this afternoon, and I had a strange occurrence when I awoke. I had a dizzy spell and was staggering around in here for five minutes until I sat down and gathered my wits (it doesn’t take me very long these days).

And for tea, I had pasta and ratatouille followed by spicy loaf and soya cream for pudding. Now I’m off to bed and I shan’t say anything more because I don’t want to tempt fate.

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