And I’m not quite sure about where to start either.

I could, I suppose, make a start by telling you all about last night’s nocturnal ramble. And that was such a confused, jumbled, rambling voyage too and I’ve probably forgotten most of it.

But I do remember leading a party of other motorists to Granville but it was nothing like the Granville as we know it, and the road to there was even more different. Doing it in the semi-dark was another thing too, especially as there were no signposts. However I had been there once before and I could remember the way – at least everything looked familiar like the roundabout near the yacht harbour where we had to turn left. At a certain moment we left the main road and were driving along a farm track where there was suddenly a terrific drop. I remembered a drop, but nothing as terrific as this one but it had to be here because there was no other way that resembled this. Everyone else looked in a panic but I pressed on down the slope and it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.
At some other time during the night I ended up in Bill Badger, my old BMC half-ton van from the 1970s. I’d put it back on the road after more than 20 years and it was running fine. I’d done some work on the engine too and that had me thinking about “why don’t I find a BMC 1622 diesel engine and fit that in the vehicle?”
From there I drifted into YLO, my first Cortina mkIV and I was going round to visit some sportsman. Much to my surprise he was living in very modest circumstances, the only sign of affluence being a small sailing boat in his garden that he was restoring. There was a notice on the gate to the effect that “no matter what, the boat isn’t for sale so don’t waste my time and yours enquiring”. He explained to me that his wife had just given birth and people always though that when you were there with new family commitments that took up much of your time, your hobbies would be the first to go, and go quickly and cheap too. I sympathised, explaining that I had a Transit van and another vehicle up on ramps in my garden right now.
Somewhere in all of this my mother put in an appearance. I’m not sure why. She was being assailed by a couple of women and even though I had no time for her at all, I couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for what she was suffering.

So there I was, at 05:20 sitting on the edge of the bed typing out all of this before I forgot it, despite the fact that with a long and exhausting day ahead of me, I needed all the sleep that I could get.

So an early breakfast etc, and organising myself, packing and the like. Ant at 08:30 I was at the supermarket buying a bottle of drink and a baguette.

Having made my butties I went off to hand in my keys and book the room for my next session, giving a big stroke to the cat on my way past.

It was here that today all started to go wrong, if you don’t consider awakening at 05:20 to be wrong.

My next visit here coincides with the big Werchter Rock festival in mid-Belgium, so there is no room at the inn. Not at any other inn in the region so I have been told. And I can’t change my appointment at Castle Anthrax because it fits in nicely with my other arrangements. And I can’t book a hotel in Brussels because I’m in Caliburn and there’s nowhere reasonable to leave him.

But there’s always a Plan B. It’s been years since I’ve been to Liège and I hardly know the city so I might book a hotel there and that will give me an opportunity to go for a wander around the city. I might even at last get to visit Welkenraedt – something that I’ve been trying to do for 45 years since I first saw it as a train destination at Oostende in the early 70s

Not only that, it’s easy to escape from too – avoids the necessity to struggle through the traffic on the edge of Brussels. There’s a motorway that goes from there to France via Charleroi instead.

But it’s still annoying.

At the station I didn’t have to wait too long for a train. It was another Oostende train and so it was heaving with holidaymakers. I ended up being crammed into a corner with about 20 young German kids, several crates of beer and a music centre playing “oompah” music.

That was certainly not what I wanted at that time of the morning, but at least I had a seat. So I can’t complain too much. Especially as one of the boys actually offered me a beer (which I of course declined).

At the Gare du Midi I didn’t have to wait too long for the TGV to be called and to my surprise it was already in the station so we could take our seats and settle down in comfort.

But that was to no avail because the train didn’t move. After a while we were told to dismount. We were apparently having a “technical problem”. They called for a new trainset and they coupled that up to the next TGV so we were half an hour late leaving Bruxelles-Midi.

I went in search of the train manager and made a fuss about my connection to Granville. We had a lengthy discussion and in the end she endorsed my ticket to Granville to the effect that I would miss my train due to their fault and not mine.

We pulled into Gare du Nord 35 minutes late, not 30 minutes late – and that extra 5 minutes proved to be crucial as we shall see.

There’s an RER “express” that does part of the route of Metro Line 4 missing out several stations, so I gambled on that as far as Les Halles. It was indeed much quicker but whatever time I saved was lost by having a long walk between platforms so it wasn’t any quicker really. But I have timed the journey in the past going on Line 5 and then Line 4 and I know full well that I didn’t have enough time today so it was a gamble to nothing.

At Montparnasse I rushed as quickly as I could but it’s a long way, and I reached my platform just in time to see my train departing. For the first time since 1992 I wished that I was back in the UK where the trains run when they feel like it and only pretend that there’s a timetable.

This meant a trip all the way back to the ticket office. It’s possible to travel to Granville on the TGV to Rennes and then the Caen and Cherbourg train from there, alighting at Folligny where there’s a bus that connects with the train. But that goes at 14:14 and by the time I’d walked all the way back to the ticket office and queued to see a counter clerk, that train had long-gone.

The clerk wasn’t all that helpful and I was in no mood for her light-hearted attempts at laughter. She refused to consider finding me an alternative route (far too much effort of course) and so there was no alternative but to wait three hours for the next train.

Another marathon walk back to my platform where I ate my butties and read my book. And listened to the desperate news that “the train arriving from Granville” … which will be the one that will be taking me back … “has been delayed by 40 minutes due to a signal failure”.

But to give them their due, as soon as it arrived and the passengers alighted and the crew had checked it for lost property, we were immediately waved on board. They hadn’t had time to clean it so it was something of a mess, but I didn’t want to wait around for another half an hour. 10 minutes late was quite enough.

During the whole route back I was in something of a daze. That 05:20 start had done me no favours whatsoever and the marathon dash and consequent stress had made things even worse. I wasn’t in much of a state to pay much attention to what was going on.

To make things worse, in view of everything that had happened today I was going to treat myself to a bus back home. But the last bus goes at 20:00 and we arrived back at 20:10 so that was that i had to walk.

And to make things even worse, the only bakery open in the town at that time of night had sold out of bread and buns for tomorrow.

It was a very long drag up the hill and I was stopped by a couple of tourists who needed directions.

So back here after all of that and I’m not up to much at all. I couldn’t even face making any tea. I’m going to go to bed and sleep until I awake. After all, tomorrow is another day.

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