… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

What I did was to do something that I hadn’t done for quite a while, and that was that I got into bed and started to watch a film on the laptop. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes or so, I was off.

But if I ever lay my hands on whoever it was who left the building at 02:40 this morning, slamming the door behind them, they they will know about it. Because I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

And it was just as well because the girl in the room next door was up and about at 06:00 and she wasn’t exactly quiet either. But then you can’t pick your housemates, can you?

Anyway, I was in at breakfast at 07:00 and out by 07:30 and back down here at work.

Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened to me at the hospital yesterday.

For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, the sign on the back of the Fiat van says “Please don’t park within 3 metres …” of the rear doors, to allow the rear doors to open to admit a wheelchair.

And so the car behind is parked within 1 metre of it – right outside the entrance to a hospital.

I went up to the driver and asked him if a sign has to be written in both official languages (French and Flemish) to be legal, but as you might expect, my comment went clear over his head.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”, and reminds me of the spoof Open University course on “Understanding Irony”, which actually received several applicants.

But it’s a sad reflection of the selfish attitude of many Belgians, isn’t it?

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

I walked up to the reception desk and the woman looked at me and said “ahh, Mr Hall …” Yes, I’m even being recognised by the clerical staff in the hospital now. This is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Another thing that I have forgotten to do is to post the photo of the stuff that I bought on Sunday at the English shop.

Working clockwise around, we have Linda McCartney vegan pies, a vegan Christmas pudding, Bisto vegan gravy browning, a bottle of ginger beer, a bottle of dandelion and burdock, a bag of Bombay mix, some custard powder and, pride of place, two boxes of vegan mince pies.

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

Later this morning I went down to Caliburn to sort out some stuff to bring up here and then went down to the Carrefour. I came back with a baguette and some tomatoes, some seitan slices (for Christmas dinner), some potatoes, some carrots and some leeks as well as a couple of pots of fresh spices.

That was because, for tea, I had boiled potatoes with fresh mint, carrots with fresh rosemary, leeks and Linda McCartney vegan pie covered in thick Bisto gravy. It made such a change from my usual fare and it was absolutely delicious. It all worked out fine too, much better than my pizza did. I shall be doing more of this, as well as looking at the possibility of baked potatoes in the microwave here.

High time that I was organised.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and also did some work on my web pages.

Another thing that I did was to walk into the (unlocked) bathroom just as my nubile next-door neighbour was wrapping herself in a towel after her shower. Serves her right for not closing the door!

So now we’ll have another go at an early night. And I’ll hope for better luck too.

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