Thursday 12th January 2017 – I’M STILL STRUGGLING …

… with these perishing sleep issues.

An early night, a film on the laptop and there I was, gone. Only to wake up a short while later and take an absolute age to go back to sleep again.

But I was on my travels too during the night. My niece Rachel was in Canada trying to work out some connections with associated companies and was phoning around. She asked me to help out too, and one of them that I called was a taxi company in … errr … Detroit, about 1,000 miles away. And when I did phone them up, the girl who answered the ‘phone had the air of being totally gormless, and I couldn’t understand why Rachel would – firstly – want to associate her business with a business so far away and – secondly – why she would want her business to be associated with a firm that was so clueless.

Alone again at breakfast, and then back down here to carry on with my research. I’ve been wading through this report from these Finnish geologists and found some more exciting stuff that might change a few of my – and other peoples’ – perceptions.

And that is that the Moravian missionaries in the north of Labrador kept very detailed records of day-to-day life in their mission stations for a period of more than 150 years. And you’ll see where this is leading.

In my writings, I’ve commented on several occasions about how certain places, such as the Norse landing sites, don’t look like the kind of places that I would choose for landing. But my opinions might have to change.

Labrador and Newfoundland were, in the Ice Age, covered with ice to a depth of at least 4,000 feet and that has an enormous weight. Since the end of the Ice Age and the melting of a lot of the ice, the land has slowly been rising. Obviously the weight of the ice had compressed the earth, the soil and the rock, and now the pressure is off the land, it’s springing slowly back into shape.

The Moravians kept records for this at some of their stations, and a change of level of a rise of 15 feet was recorded at one station “in one generation”. Extrapolate that out over 1,000 years and you are going to have a totally different shape of coastline, and the raised beaches that you see all along the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland give ample testimony for that.

Looking at the coastline today may give you a totally different idea of what the land might have been like in recent history.

At lunchtime I went out for my baguette and then at some point in the proceedings I crashed out for half an hour or so. A brief exchange of pleasantries with my djervushka and then the second half of my mega-meal which was just as delicious as last night.

I’ll try again to have a decent sleep and tomorrow I have work to do. I need to go to Caliburn for the washing soap, and then to the launderette to wash my clothes. I’m running out.

But winter is on its way. Snow is forecast for the next few days and the temperature is threatening to drop.

Minus 9°C might not be cold in Canadian, or even Auvergnat terms, but it’s cold enough for here.

Wednesday 11th January 2017 – WHAT A BAD NIGHT!

Just as I said, I was in bed early last night, and was soon asleep. But then I awoke at about 00:45 when a noise on the radio awoke me, so I switched off the laptop and went back to sleep.

And then it all happened.

All I can say is that I must have had a nightmare, because I had one of those dreams that was extremely disturbing and which made me sit bolt upright. and it wasn’t just the fact of the dream either but the person who was the central character and all of the people who surrounded her. It was such a graphic, disturbing dream that I couldn’t go back to sleep and ended up typing it up on the laptop to make sure that I didn’t forget it.

But I must have gone back to sleep because the alarm awoke me at 07:00, and for some reason we had a most astonishing cacophony from the church bells and I’m not quite sure why. But never mind anyone else in the building, it probably would have awoken the dead too.

At breakfast I was on my own, and then I came back down here to carry on with my research. I started to read the report of that Finnish expedition to Labrador. And it’s come up with a couple of interesting facts.

There’s a lengthy discussion of the Churchill Falls and the Bowdoin Canyon into which the Falls descends. A huge pile of statistics that will be of great interest when I start to write about my trip out in the Wilderness of Labrador to visit the Falls
Even more interestingly, you need to remember that this is the period 1937-1939, long before the discovery of the Norse remains at L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland. And yet there’s a map in the preface of this expedition’s report where they discuss the Norse settlement of Newfoundland, and as far as the small scale of the map can isolate, the expedition places Vinland in round about the same area that Helge Ingstad discovered the Norse remains (although Ingstad hesitates to identify them as “Vinland” and as you already know, I don’t think that it corresponds at all with the description given in the Norse Sagas). It’s a little-known fact that L’Anse aux Meadows was identified in 1914 as the location of “Vinland” by an insurance agent and amateur historian called William A Munn in his book “Wineland voyages;: Location of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland”, but Munn isn’t listed as a source by the Expedition, and so I’m now more intrigued than ever before about the source of this Expedition’s information about the location

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket on the corner for a baguette and came back with a black plastic box as well – another one in the waste bin and I now have a dozen of them ready for packing, whenever that might be.
And I also had a major crash-out this afternoon too, but that’s hardly a surprise.

Tea was delicious – potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy and a vegan Linda McCartney pie. That was the best meal that I’ve had for quite a while. And my djervushka from the Ukraine was there too. I have to make the most of my time with her because she’s leaving on Friday, having found a studio for herself. I wonder if she needs a flatmate?

And there are more new people here too – but I’ve not had the pleasure of their company as yet.

Tonight I’m looking forward to my bed. As well as having a shower and a shave, I have a clean bedroom and fresh bedding. I’m all set up for a good night’s sleep but whether or not I’ll have one is another thing.

Who – or what – is going to interrupt me tonight then?

Tuesday 10th January 2017 – I TIDIED UP …

… this morning. In fact I spent a good 45 minutes making sure that my room was in really good, tidy condition (just for once).

Yesterday afternoon I’d had a knock on the door from the landlord’s sidekick. Would it be okay if they came by at midday and cleaned my room and changed everything around?

Of course it would, and so I spent all of that time making sure that everything was tidy and in its place, and then just before midday I headed into town.

I took my time, bought a pile of stuff in the Delhaize and then slowly wandered back here – to find that they hadn’t been. And here I am at 21:30 and they still haven’t been.

Last night I had my early night and was well-away. But at 01:30 I awoke to a loud noise on the laptop radio. And so I turned it off again and went back to sleep. And that was how I stayed until the alarm went off.

During the night I’d been travelling too – onto a stage where I was playing bass and singing in a rock group. But for some reason I couldn’t co-ordinate the singing with the bass playing and it was all coming out wrong. In fact it was quite a nightmare.

At breakfast I was joined by my Polish housemate (but not, unfortunately my Ukrainian djervushka which was a big disappointment. And immediately after breakfast, the Pole disappeared off with his suitcase. There’s a new arrival in his room but I don’t know who it is.

So apart from shopping and tidying up, I’ve been researching again today. I’ve found some exciting stuff too – the report of a Finnish archaeological expedition to Labrador in 1937 that came to an abrupt halt as the Finns were swept up in the Winter War against the Soviets. What’s exciting about this is that they report a story that they had heard in Newfoundland about a child in Labrador who was killed by a dog-team. This was denied by the inhabitants of the town, so they report, but yet I’ve seen a death certificate of a child in the town where the death has been described as ‘killed by dogs”.

And she’s not the only child so killed either. Look at the entry for 5th July 1941 as an example.

Not only that, there was some talk of the ancient lost (if not mythical) city of Brest being at Brador Bay rather than at Old Fort, following a discovery in 1968 of Basque artefacts there. But I also found the report of an archaeological dig at the site in 2014 where they concluded that it was actually an Inuit site with Basque artefacts having been recovered from elsewhere and reused
by the Inuit.

I was alone for tea, where I finished my kidney bean whatsit (and it was as good as I expected too) and now I’ll try for yet another early night. It’s quiet in here so I may as well take advantage of it. After all, it’s doing me good.

Monday 9th January 2017 – I PAID …

… for my exciting, adventurous (and tiring) weekend today.

It was a late night of course, coming back from the football, and so that wasn’t so helpful. And then it was difficult for me to go off to sleep. It only seemed as if I’d been asleep for five minutes when the alarm went off, and it was a real struggle to go for breakfast this morning. And I wasn’t feeling much like it either.

And it went from bad to worse too. When I came downstairs afterwards, if was cold in my room so I snuggled back under the quilt to keep warm. That was at about 07:45, and the next thing that I remembered was that it was 10:10.

Out like a light!

And then it took me a while to heave myself out of my stinking pit too.

A coffee helped to revitalise me and then I continued my research into Labrador.

And I’ve made an exciting discovery too! A group of people went off to the Far North of Labrador in 1927 and they took with them one of the very first snowmobiles – a home-made job converted from a Ford Model T – a Tin Lizzy. It covered about 250 miles before a valve burned out. And the home-made repair lasted half an hour, and so the vehicle was abandoned.

And then, in 2013, a party of archaeologists discovered it and the following year they recovered it, and it’s now undergoing a process of restoration. That’s going to be exciting when it’s finished.

I have two new housemates today. There’s a Polish boy from Krakow who is just here for tonight and, separately, there’s a girl from the Ukraine. She’s here for a week and, believe me, she can come and share my samovar any time she likes.

She has the room above me, and I do wish that we were all on board that millionaire’s yacht that was commandeered by the Navy in World War II. The captain, in his cabin, found a secret button and pressed it. And the dividing wall between the captain’s room and the guest room folded down, the bed in the guest room canted up at an angle, and the captain found the second mate cascaded into bed beside him. That’s what I want for here.

So having had yet another day where I’ve not set foot out of the building, and having had my pizza and garlic bread, I’ll have an early night yet again. Let’s see how I get on tonight with a good night’s sleep.

I hope!

Sunday 8th January 2017 – WHAT A MATCH!

Absolutely!

Just two matches in Belgian professional football. Both involved travelling, but one involved a train, a metro, a tram and a long walk to a huge 60,000-seater with a crowd of about 1,500.

The second involved a train ride and a long walk to a compact modern stadium with a belting crowd, a belting atmosphere and CHEERLEADERS!

And I’m glad that I chose the match that I did, because it was one of the most exciting – not to mention the most bizarre – matches that I’ve ever seen. Not even Pionsat could conjure up a performance like the one that I saw this evening.

As far as sleeping went, I had issues yet again. It took me ages and several attempts to drop off, and when I finally did, I was awake again by 06:15. I’d been on my travels too, doing something with a group of children, trying to train them to perform office work and I was also supervising a group of former colleagues at one stage during the night.

For breakfast I was alone again, and that was how the morning went. I read through a pile of stuff on Labrador but there was nothing that caught my attention today, just for a change.

After lunch, I left the premises and walked down to Caliburn for my gloves, seeing as the weather is cold today. And once I’d done that, I walked off through the back streets taking the short cut to the railway station.

There was plenty of time before my train was due to leave, but I didn’t have to wait in the cold because it was sitting at the platform. And it was quite warm too.

And then we hit the rails and off we shot. Not to Antwerp and not to Aarschot either, but to Lier. The Herman Vanderpoortenstadion, the same football ground that we visited the other weekwhen OH Leuven was playing there.

The stadium is otherwise known as Het Lisp, and today, SK Lierse was playing Lommel United. Lommel United is a team in the Belgian Second Division that I have yet to see, and so with a choice of just two matches today, it seemed like the good choice.

A nice pleasant stroll through the thick fog took me to the ground and I warmed myself up in the pie hut under the stand with a nice hot coffee, much better than the usual football club rubbish where it’s more like coloured hot water.

But I’m clearly showing my age these days.There’s full security and searches at football grounds these days, and yet they took one look at me as I entered the ground and waved me straight on in.

I took my place in the cheap seats at the back of the stand with all of the other old fogeys, and we had the usual distraction of the cheerleaders performing on the field.

As I said last time, I’ve seen better cheerleaders than these, but at least they are here, and it gets me out of the house – and that’s quite important. I just wish I could find a seat closer to the action.

You’ll have to excuse the quality of the photos that are on here, and the fact that there are only one or two. But we were blanketed in a thick fog that was rolling across the pitch and at times, visibility was quite difficult.

And add to that the fact that the camera in the phone isn’t made for this kind of thing. It spent most of its times focusing on a fog bank rather than the action.

And so what can I tell you about the game? The fact is that both of the teams were quite evenly matched. But if anything, Lommel were much more composed on the ball and looked more confident.

And that’s what made the result so amazing.

The final score was 5-1 – in favour of … errr … Lierse SK. And that was absolutely astonishing.

I can do no more that itemise the goals that Lierse SK scored, and you’ll see exactly what I mean –

A free kick outside the area that was heading straight into the keeper’s arms with no problem or danger whatever – except a diving header at the near post at the last moment by a Lierse SK attacker
A penalty

All totally against the run of play.

I thought that the first goal in the second half would decide the match – and straight from the kick-off SK Lierse hit the post with the ball rolling along the goal-line and back into play just half an inch from the outstretched foot of an attacker.

And 30 seconds later –

A SK Lierse player runs into the penalty area with the ball. The keeper dives bravely at the attacker’s feet to block the ball, and the loose ball could have gone anywhere from here. It rolls free to an unmarked SK Lierse attacker

From there, it went from bad to worse for Lommel United.

Keeper makes a great block-cum-save from a fierce SK Lierse shot. he can’t hang on and the loose ball could go anywhere. It rolls free to an unmarked SK Lierse attacker
A shot on the volley from 35 yards that can go anywhere. It takes a vicious swerve right into the far corner of the net

Five of the luckiest goals that I have ever seen – you won’t see this kind of thing ever again. And there was still enough time for Lommel United to score a consolation goal.

But I was amazed.

On the way back I bought a bag of chips and then came back on a couple of crowded trains, changing at Aarschot.

A nice walk brought me back here and now I’m going to bed. And judging by the sounds, I have a new neighbour next door. I hope that whoever it is, he or she is quiet.

Saturday 7th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… afternoon out this afternoon. But before I tell you about that, let me tell you a little about the morning.

And it was a morning too because although I had an early night, I couldn’t drop off to sleep again. In the end I put on one of the films that I had downloaded from archive.org and as you might expect, that did the trick. In fact it did so well that I can’t now remember which film it was.

Nevertheless, I was awake before the alarm and although it took a good while to find the strength to leave the bed, I was up there quite early. And I wasn’t alone either because my housemate came up there. She left the house shortky afterwards and it seems that I am now on my own again.

After breakfast I had a peek out of the window and sure enough, we did have another fall of snow during the night and early morning. It’s not a lot but just about half an inch or so and it’s freezing cold.

Minus 3°C in fact and heavily overcast. I was planning on going to watch the football this evening at Brussels, OH Leuven against Union St Gilles, but it didn’t look as if it would be hopeful.

But I did have a nice surprise. A message from Alison. She’s in town and so did I fancy a coffee?

Accordingly I went and had a shave and shower, and changed my undies. After all, I have to look my best and smell nice. And having accomplished that, I went off uptown in the freezing sleet to do my shopping.

The town was empty and there were only a few stalls on the market. And that wasn’t a surprise as the weather was thoroughly dreadful. I did my shopping at the Delhaize and that was all that I could stand. Freezing cold, with freezing hands, I came back here.

Alison and I had a coffee (or two) and then adjourned across the road to the fritkot for lunch. A bag of chips each did us proud, and then Alison came forward with a proposition. She needs a new ski-suit for a trip she’s planning and did I fancy going with her to help her choose?

We hit the road and headed for Wavre and the huge Decathlon sports shop. It was crowded with people, mainly kids preparing for the classe de neige. Although there was a huge selection of clothes, there was some kind of issues about sizes. Either very small or very large and very little in between, which was a disappointment for her.

There’s another big sports shop, the Intersport, at Herent on the other side of Leuven and so we headed off there, calling at the English Shop on the way where I could buy some more Dandelion and Burdock, some more Linda McCartney pies and, at long last, some vegan sausages. We stashed the pies and sausages in the freezer in the kitchen with the left-over croquettes, and then headed out to Herent.

They had some beautiful clothes there but as you might expect, the stuff that I liked and that Alison liked was by far the most expensive, and the more affordable ski clothes were, well, of …shall we say … lesser quality. Entertainment was provided by a two-year-old boy trying on a ski-suit and trying out the toboggans.

We went for a coffee afterwards and then Alison brought me home. By now it was too late, and too cold to think about going out to the football. I warmed up instead and then went for tea.

I’d remembered to buy the pasta so I had a second lot of my kidney bean stuff and, as I predicted, it was even nicer tonight. And now I’m going to have an early night and take advantage of the fact that I’m on my own.

But it was a really nice afternoon out – all in favour of a “change of ideas” every now and again and it’s always nice to be with friends. If I had more friends, I’d do this more often.

Friday 6th January 2017 – I HAD ENOUGH …

… pasta left over and so tonight I made myself a big tomato dish for tea, with enough left over for the next two nights too.

Onions and garlic fried together, and then added a tin of kidney beans, a tin of Macedoine vegetables, a big handful of peanuts, assorted spices and herbs and then a big dollop of tomato sauce.

And do you know what?

It was absolutely delicious. And it should be even better over the next couple of days if it follows the usual plan.

You might remember that I was planning on an early night last night. But I couldn’t drop off to sleep early and ended up doing some work on the laptop. When I noticed the time, it was 00:45 and that was the end of my early night.

I slept right through too, and awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm went off. And if I had been anywhere during the night, I don’t remember. It was like that.

Later in the morning I went out for my baguette, just down to the supermarket on the corner, and came back with a couple more plastic crates too. I have quite a collection now – so all that I need is a Plan to inspire me to pack them with stuff. But that’s not going to happen until the Spring now at least and maybe not then either.

Apart from that, I’ve spent most of the day reading up on stuff. More stuff on North-West River. It’s the worst thesis that I’ve ever read, it has to be said, but much of the gossip that’s in it, that you don’t usually find in a thesis, has helped me answer a few questions that I’ve had running around in my mind, and also solved a problem that I’ve tried to resolve in the past about the “old road” between Goose Bay and Churchill Falls.

I’ve had a crash-out too, as you might expect, and then it was tea time. And now it’s bed-time. An early night I hope, and a good sleep I hope even more.

But before I go, I’ve found a beautiful epitaph about Labrador. It was written by Judge William Malone as he took his leave from Dillon Wallace after they had been into the Labrador wilderness in 1913 to find the final camp of Leonidas Hubbard on his disastrous expedition of 1903.

“I’m leaving the country though with a feeling of profound regret. I wish I were just going in with you instead of going home. I never had that feeling before on leaving the wilderness, but this country has exerted a peculiar fascination upon me. I understand what it was now that drew you and Hubbard on and would not let you turn back. I have learned what you meant when you called it “the lure of the Labrador wild.”

And that’s certainly how I feel each time I cross the border into Quebec. And the more that I read about Labrador, the more I realise just how much I miss it and how I want to go back there.

I’m getting all nostalgic, aren’t I?

Thursday 5th January 2017 – I HAD A …

… slightly better night last night.

In fact, I tried the usual cure for insomnia – settling down in bed to watch one of the “Bulldog Drummond” films that I had downloaded from www.archive.org and, sure enough, 10 minutes later I was definitely gone with the wind. And apart from just one awakening during the night, I was right out until 06:50. It’s been a while since I’ve beaten the alarm to awakening, isn’t it?

And I was well away during the night too. I was out last night with a boyfriend of Anne-Marie on the way to her apartment. And it had been so long that I couldn’t remember which building it was. Twice now I had seen a building that I was convinced was the one in which she was living but it was not – instead we ended up at an old cottage in a residential area of the city. I vaguely remembered her living in a disreputable, semi-derelict house in just oen room but here were maybe half a dozen or more boys of the age of her boyfriend – they had gutted the derelict parts of the house and were in the process of installing some kind of kitchen there. Where we had parked was in the street right in front of the house, blocking the street to passing traffic and I was concerned that this might cause problems for Anne-Marie with her neighbours, but then I had to try to convince myself that it wasn’t my problem – I hadn’t been driving the vehicle and it was the driver’s problem and Anne-Marie’s problem anyway, nothing to do with me.
A little later I was out with Alison. We’d been into a neighbouring town to look for an electric kettle. We’d identified a place that might sell one and so we set out to pick one up. However our way into town took us in a different direction – and it was quite confusing to arrive in this direction for a start – and so we weren’t close to this shop with the kettle so we had to look again. We ended up in a market hall, a 1920s brick-build white-emulsioned place that was in a semi-derelict condition with planks of wood shoved through the windows and dead pigeons all over the place that had been killed by poisoned corn being used. Alison mentioned a place here that might have one to sell but I wasn’t convinced that this place would have one, and that we would have to find the place that we had already identified, but how we were going to do this we had no idea.

It might sound strange about Anne-Marie making an appearance, but yesterday, someone was searching her name on the internet and they fetched up on my blog, where she’s made a couple of appearances in my past. That particularly stuck in my mind, although it clearly stuck more firmly than I imagined.

I was having breakfast when the alarm went off this morning, and then back down here I had a couple of very long missives to write. That took me right up until lunchtime, when I nipped out to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette.

After lunch, I cracked on with my website. I’ve been reading a couple University theses on life in Labrador (the Metropolitan University of Newfoundland – note the “Newfoundland”, not “Newfoundland and Labrador” – has published many of their theses on line this last couple of years) and what I’ve read has enabled me not only to find tons more stuff on North West River (the farthest northern point of Labrador that it’s possible to reach by road) but to make additions to several other pages that I have written in the past.

The trouble with all of this, as I have said in the past, is that I’m spending more time researching than writing, and what started out as being a quiet little travelog is now becoming an epic of mammoth proportions.

Not only that, I crashed out for an hour too, which is hardly a surprise seeing my early start.

For tea I finished off the other half of the can of beans, some more croquettes and the last vegan curry-burger. I’ll have to think of something else for tea tomorrow.

And now I’ll try for another early night tonight. I have just one housemate and she seems to be quite a quiet personality – she was hunched over a book eating her tea when I went upstairs to make my meal tonight.

Let’s hope that it stays like that.

Wednesday 4th January 2017 – TEA TONIGHT …

… didn’t turn out like it should have done, and that was rather disappointing.

You may remember that I fancied chips, beans and vegan sausages. But firstly, the Carrefour had no vegan sausages. And while Alison had bought me some beans and malt vinegar, the Carrefour couldn’t produce any oven chips.

Well, it could. But in the LIDL in France you can buy a 800-gram bag for about €0:99 and that’s enough for two meals. But there’s nothing like that here. Belgium really is the land of the chip and there’s nothing less than 2kgs here and I have no way of keeping that much.

In the end, I had to settle for a 1kg bag of oven croquettes which is nothing like the same, and a couple of vegan curry burgers. This was something of a let-down, I can tell you.

Last night was another disturbed night, and for no good reason too. I don’t know why I’m having difficulty sleeping just now but it’s rather upsetting. Here we’re in almost-perfect quite with just two or three other guests of good habits, and I can’t take advantage of it.

I’ve not done too much today – in fact round about lunchtime I crashed out again for half an hour. But I did make it down to the Carrefour near the football ground for shopping. And as it happens, I forgot most of the things that I had intended to buy – and I’ve run out of pasta so that’s bad news.

But tomorrow night I have more croquettes, another burger and the rest of the beans. But no more Christmas pudding- I finished off the last of that tonight.

Now I’m going to have an early night and hope for the best. I’ve not managed to free off the mouse on the new laptop so I’ll have to continue with that tomorrow. I’m wondering if I’ve managed to get a biscuit crumb stuck under the mouse key – something silly like that.

Tuesday 3rd January 2017 – IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG …

… to have problems with my new laptop, did it?

Last night I went to switch it off and we had the “there are 102 urgent upgrades to perform. Please don’t switch off your laptop”.

And so I didn’t – I went to bed instead. And despite being on my own I had a bit of a miserable night and it took me ages to go off to sleep. And then I was waking up on several occasions during the night. It was all very uncomfortable.

Breakfast didn’t take long, and then back down here to start up the laptop and “upgrade 89 of 102 in progress. Please don’t switch off your laptop”. And so I didn’t.

Instead, I found other things to do and eventually the new laptop finished its upgrades. And so I restarted it. Now, the mouse is doing all kinds of things except what I would like to do, and a manual cable mouse is only complicating the issue. I’ve no idea what’s happening here. But you’ve no idea just how much I’m fed up about this. It never rains but it pours, does it?

But here’s a thing – I’ve not set a single foot outside the building today.I had the remains of my loaf for lunch and so for tea I had rice, vegetables, mushrooms and onions. And that was nice too, even though I forgot to add my gravy to it.

So tomorrow I’ll have to think about sorting out this mouse problem as well as going shopping. The Carrefour beckons, and I fancy some oven chips, beans and vegan sausage. I hope that the Carrefour can sort me out.

I have new housemates tonight, and they all look quite respectable so I hope that they won’t disturb me too much. Maybe I’ll finally end up having a decent night’s sleep tonight.

Monday 2nd January 2017 – THE FIRST SNOWS OF WINTER …

… has covered our land during the night.

It might not be much by Canadian standards, or by German standards or even by Auvergnat standards, but it’s the first snows all the came and at least it made me smile. I was wondering whether I might miss out this year, but here we are.

I thought that it was cold last night.

And I had another bit of a bad night too. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and then we had party-time again for an hour or so round about 01:00.

During the night I’d been on my travels too. I’d been fixing a van (but not Calibuen – a big white Iveco-type) and I’d gone out for a test drive in it, even though it only had three wheels and the fourth corner was propped up on a trolley jack. When the van came back to the garage the trolley jack was still there under the van but in a different place. There was a girl featuring in this dream too but I’ve no idea who she was. But she was quite familiar.

The alarm went off at 07:00 and I was quickly upstairs for breakfast. And I wasn’t alone either – there was a middle-aged couple breakfasting there and I didn’t recognise them at all.

But there will not be too much of any of this tonight though, because unless I’m very much mistaken I’m here on my own tonight. It’s 22:20 and there’s not one other person in the building. The noisy neighbours have definitely gone (the cleaner was doing heir room this afternoon), but they don’t seem to have informed the boy who comes to see them because he was knocking on their door just now.

After breakfast I had a shower and then walked up to the hospital. And I felt sorry for the wildlife as their lake is all frozen over and the poor birds don’t know what to do. Yes, it was that cold.

I was early-ish in the reception, and quickly dealt with. They soon packed me off downstairs to the waiting room.

And wait I did, because they forgot me, and it was not until 11:15 – 45 minutes after my appointment time – that I was seen.

And the long and the short of it is that I don’t have to come back for, would you believe, four weeks. My protein count is up slightly to 2.04 but my blood count has rocketed up to 11.7, all on its own and after the low figures for the last couple of visits, that figure can’t be right. But they think it is, and hence the attempt to try me for four weeks without a visit.

I’m not going to go home though, even though I would like too. It costs me €400-odd at least to make a trip home and back, and then there’s the fatigue and the inconvenience in the middle of winter. I’ve paid to stay here until the end of February and it’s warm-ish in here, there’s breakfast provided and it’s convenient. I don’t need to go very far from here.

All in all, it’s a good idea to stay and so here I’ll sit. It’s a shame but there we are. No sense in throwing good money after bad.

For tea tonight I had the leftover vegetables with a tin of couscous vegetables and a bit of tomato sauce. Followed by Christmas pudding and custard. Now I’m ready for an early night.

if I do end up on my own tonight, i’ll hope to have a good night’s sleep. And then I need to think of a cunning plan for the next few weeks.

Sunday 1st January 2017 – IT’S 2017!

And so Happy new Year to all of my readers – both of you! And may I wish you for 2017 everything that you wished for everyone else in 2016.

And if that applies to me, then you won’t have another blog posting from me after what I wished on my housemates last night and this morning. I’ll have been struck down by a thunderbolt. It was 03:30 when they came back in and then we had the party.

Unfortunately, I was rather late going off to bed and found it really difficult to go to sleep. And then we had all of this too. I did however manage to drop off to sleep at some time during the night though because the alarm woke me up at 07:00. And in a rather childish, petulant fit of revenge I made more than a little amount of noise making breakfast etc.

Down here I had a few things to do but about 09:00 I began to feel as if I had had a really bad night so I closed my eyes. And that was that, I’m afraid, until would you believe 12:23. Yes, gone with the wind I was.

And while I didn’t go on any nocturnal rambles during the night, I had a visitor while I was away with the fairies during the morning. A young girl whom I know, Zero, who used to feature frequently in my nocturnal rambles at one time, came to visit me. I wonder what brought her to mind after all this time.

The lunchtime loaf was wonderful, as I expected, and then I wandered off down to Caliburn to bring back some more stuff. After all, I need to clean myself up ready for the hospital tomorrow .

I’ve also spent a lot of time on my 3D program – the company that hosts it was having a sale and piles of stuff were on offer at just $0:30. And I hadn’t treated myself to a Christmas present yet this year.

Tea was pizza tonight, seeing as it’s Sunday. I used the small oven and it cooked everything properly, even though the pizza needed twice as long as recommended. I’d polished off all of the garlic bread by the time that the pizza was cooked.

So now it’s another early night, although I’m not all that tired. And I wonder what my housemates will be up to later.

Sooner I find my own place to live, the better.

Saturday 31st December 2016 – NOW I REMEMBER …

… why it is that I moved to the countryside when I retired from work.

I have a whole new raft of house mates and I was out as early as 19:30 to ask them to turn the volume down. God knows what it’s going to be like by morning.

tonight though, I walked up to the city centre to see what was going on. And it’s flaming tqters out there tonight. Not quite as clod as it was last night, but taters none-the-less.

And my walk up into the city was relatively quiet and there didn’t seem to be too many people on the streets as I left here. But the closer that I approached the city centre, the closer I came to the madding crowd.

You remember on Christmas Eve that the Grote Markt was pretty empty and I was quite disappointed by that. But tonight was a completely different kettle of fish, which was something of a surprise.

So much so that they had crowd control barriers controlling admission into the square, as well as a whole raft of security guards frisking everyone who tried to enter the Square

As for me; well you know that I have issues about all of what is laughably called security and being searched. I found an entry where the people in charge were more … errr … relaxed.

But it wasn’t worth the trouble as far as I was concerned. The Grote Markt was pretty packed, and becoming more tightly packed every minute, and there was one of these discos blasting away right in the centre. Not my cup of tea at all.

So I made my excuses and left, and went for a long walk around the city.

It took me about an hour to walk everywhere that I was going. There were plenty of people about, including several who had obviously been a little too close to the barmaid’s apron.

I thought that I had left all of that behind in the UK but apparently not, so it seems.

And so I turned around and trudged my weary way homewards, where for the moment it seems to be all quiet. But I’m not holding out too much hope.

At least it gives me a peaceful opportunity to write up today’s blog without too many interruptions. I’m not sure how long it’s going to last – I hope that my new housemates move away tomorrow and go back home. I don’t like company as you know.

While you admire the remainder of this evening’s photographs, let me tell you that last night was quite a bad night as far as I was concerned.

It tok me ages to drop off to sleep and then I kept on waking up all the way through. I didn’t really have anything like a decent night’s sleep. Mind you, I must have gone to sleep at some time or other because the alarm awoke me bang on time.

I was alone at breakfast, and then came down here to carry on with some more 3D stuff. In accordance with my new resolution from yesterday, I attacked another aspect of the program – object editing.

With this, I can edit clothes, props and accessories in order to make my scenes more realistic. And later, I can have a go at creating my own objects – although that’s something for the long term.

WHat I did wasn’t all that successful, but at least it’s a start. Knowing that you aredoing somethingwrong is the first step to doing it correctly of course.

I went up town later this morning to the Delhaize to do some shopping for the weekend. Including another one of those beautiful loaves that I bought last week.

This afternoon I crashed out for awhile, did a few bits and pieces and then cooked tea, in the midst of the hordes of people who were also trying to cook. It’s a good job that I have my own pans and so on.

Although everything was cooked properly, the roast spuds weren’t roasted as much as I would have liked them to be. The sprouts though were delicious as you can imagine.

After a little rest, I headed off up town for my appointment with destiny. And you know the rest.

We’ll see how things pan out tonight and tomorrow morning. But with all of this noise and celebration, i really do wish that I was back at home

Friday 30th December 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I’ve been out and about this afternoon.

But it was something of a bad night for me. I had all the good intentions of going to bed early but just as I was settling down, Paul Rhys came on the radio.

I mentioned the other day about him – the BBC’s 3-episode series of hour-long episodes of The Saint and what excellent programmes they are and how I can listen to them all night. Sure enough, one of them came on the air just as I was settling down and so I stayed awake to listen.

I had no change of sleeping after that and so I lay awake for ages. I must have gone to sleep somehow because it was the alarm that rocked me out of my reverie.

This morning I’ve been playing around with my 3D program and I’m going to have to expand my knowledge now that I have a computer that will enable me to progress. And to find more time too because I almost missed my lunch, I was that engrossed.

After lunch I prettied myself up a little because Alison came round and we went off for a coffee and a good chat to catch up on our respective news. She also bought me a tray of baked beans, some more gravy granules, some malt vinegar and some other stuff too. Now I’m going out to buy some frozen oven chips (well, not now, I mean that now I have beans and malt vinegar) and some vegan sausages so I can vary my food intake.

I’ve also been planning on microwaved potatoes for a change too. Anything to have a varied diet.

Later this evening I had a chat with Liz on the internet and I finished off my curry. My new housemates were in the kitchen too cooking tea. It’s quite exciting in there now.

So now I’m going to try yet again for an early night. Let’s see how we manage with that.

Thursday 29th December 2016 – TODAY WAS ALMOST …

… a carbon copy of Tuesday, except that I was on my own all day today.

It took me quite a while, and several attempts, to drop off to sleep despite having an early night. But once I’d gone, that was that until about 06:45. I don’t even remember going on any nocturnal ramble either.

Early to breakfast yet again, and then I had a nice hot shower and shave to try to liven me up a little. Of course, that’s quite an impossibility, as I am the first person to admit, but at least it makes me smell nicer – for the first half-hour or so anyway.

Now that I have the new laptop I had a big play around with my 3D program this morning and I was so carried away that it wasn’t until 12:30 that I noticed the time. That meant a quick trip to the supermarket, whee I seemed to be some form of amusement to two 8 year old girls, although I’m not too sure why.

After lunch I had a good go on my website. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve been able to glean from the Dillon Wallace unpublished notes – stuff that seems not to have made it into the recorded history of North West River and the Hamilton Inlet. I shall be adding it to my stuff so as to make sure that its memory is brought forward into the modern world.

Another thing that I did, which seems to be becoming far too much of a habit these days, is to crash out. And I was away for quite a good while – it was 19:18 when I awoke in fact, so that was quite a good one.

Tea tonight was another dollop of my potato and chick pea curry and the longer it stands, the better it tastes. The last helping is for the weekend and the spices should have well-soaked in by then.

I’m not alone here tonight either. There’s a family of middle-aged people and at least one daughter in her late teens – and there’s someone else moving around in the building too. I hope that they are going to be quiet and well-behaved.

EPIC HALL

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