Even though I’d had an early night last night, I slept right through the night and didn’t remember a thing. I didn’t leave the bed once and it’s been a long time since that has happened. I did have some kind of nocturnal ramble though, but all that remains in my head is meeting Sue, a girl whom I knew from Swindon, taking her by surprise as I stuck my head around the door where she was working, and there was also some kind of road transport that consisted of a vehicle from the 1920s but with no engine – instead there was some kind of rotary pedal arrangement that required two people to operate it – something similar to a pedalo.
It took me ages to pluck up the courage to leave my comfortable bed – I’m feEling the strain now, that’s for sure. But then I went for something of a walk to find a boulangerie , without a great deal of success. There was a street market today, and an artisan-baker had a stand there, but she was selling “normal” bread by the kilo and not a baguette in sight.
I ended up at the little Carrefour supermarket in town and bought a baguette and a couple of other things from there and then wandered off to the car park to pick up from Caliburn what I need for lunch, falling almost immediately upon a boulangerie – and then another one about 100 metres away. But that wasn’t all that I fell upon. Around the corner at the back of the hotel is an Indian restaurant. They advertise a vegetarian curry with plain rice, with side dishes such as a garlic naam, and the prices looked so reasonable so that I’ll be going that way tonight to see what it all tastes like. It’s been years since I’ve had a good meal from an Indian restaurant – Montreal last August in fact.
From what I saw of Givet, it’s a pretty little place. A small French town with a maze of narrow streets. It’s clearly seen much better days, like most places in France, but its history is impressive. There’s a huge citadel that is perched on a headland and overlooks the town and in ordinary circumstances I would have gone up there. But these, unfortunately, are not ordinary times as we all know.
Back at the hotel I didn’t move very far at first, but at 13:20 they came around to clean the hotel room so I had to wander off outside for half an hour to take the air and go for a stroll along the river. And after lunch, I crashed out for a couple of hours, despite my mega-sleep last night.
I didn’t do very much at all later on, except to go out for my meal. And I need to be careful about saying that it was something of a disappointment. Stoke on Trent it isn’t, of course, and it’s something astonishing, as I will be the first to admit, to find an Indian restaurant in a town like Givet. That’s a fact worth celebrating on its own and I don’t regret having gone there for my evening meal. These kinds of places deserve all of our encouragement and support.
Back at the hotel, I climbed wearily up the stairs and into my bedroom. I switched on the laptop and discovered that the internet speed and strength had collapsed. I waited for about half an hour to load up the internet but I crashed out long before anything had loaded.
About an hour later, I woke up with the radio still playing, so I switched off the laptop and went back to sleep.
