… for my landlord. He came all the way here with a new flourescent tube for my little room, and I didn’t use it.

I was in bed listening to radio programmes on the laptop, long before it went dark. And I must have crashed out completely because I remember nothing until waking up to switch off the laptop round about midnight. And that was about that until 06:33 when I awoke. And I did feel much better after that.

But here’s the most exciting news of today, and that is that I may well have found somewhere else to stay for the 11 weeks that I need a place. I had a reply from a kind-of tourist hostel and so I went off to have a look at it. It’s right by the Sint Jacobsplein where the famous fritkot is situated, which is extremely handy and very well-situated for the hospital. It’s a big house which, admittedly, has seen better days, but nevertheless, it’s still quite acceptable.

I’m having a single room all to myself, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. Everything is provided – wi-fi, bed-linen, cleaning and so on, and there’s a breakfast included in the price – and it’s going to cost me about €26 per night. It’s more than I wanted to pay, of course, but it’s here and it’s now, and a lot less that I would have to pay in a hotel. And, of course, once I’m in, I’m in and if I need to extend my stay for any reason, I can do that from the comfort of within rather than from out in the street in some kind of desperation.

As well as that, the included breakfast will save me some money. The presence of a kitchen will help me in this respect too – I can live on tinned food and so won’t have to pay for meals out in the evening. I reckon that if I’m careful, I can keep within my means but there won’t be a lot spare.

Anyway, it’s all now reserved and I’ve paid a (substantial) deposit. Just watch the place burn down now.

Apart from that, we have the internet working. The college’s intranet runs on an underlying public access internet network and one of the students here let me have the access code for the public access part of it, which was quite nice of her. So now it’s all systems go.

We had a torrential rainstorm at lunchtime too about half an hour after I went out to the shops for my lunch stuff, and so I was rather caught out in it and was soaked to the skin. It’s a long time since I’ve been out in a rainstorm quite like that and my baguette was all soggy in places.

Tonight for tea, I finished off the kidney beans and mixed veg from last night, along with some pasta and tomato sauce. And, of course, the spicy cake and soya dessert for pudding.

Now, I’m going to have an early night and a good sleep. I’m off gallivanting tomorrow.

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