… once famously said, “THERE’S ONE THING I ALWAYS GOTTA SAY – IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE BACK HOME”.

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … this is really the only place where I’ve ever felt comfortable – really at home. And when I fell in through the door this afternoon I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Having lain awake last night listening to a Paul Temple episode, I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave the bed at 05:10 this morning.

But leave it I did. It didn’t take long to tidy up and make my sandwiches.

By 05:35 I was on my way down the street.

On the way into the station I stopped to have a good look at the Martelarenplein now that most of the work has been completed, to see what they are up to these days.

And by the looks of things, Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane. There’s a forest springing up outside the railway station right now. I wonder if they are going to be there permanently.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen trees and the like springing up in all kinds of unlikely places, presumably as part of this “green drive”. But they will need much more than this.

And it was a good job that I arrived at the railway station quite early.

The 06:33 to Brussels was running quite late and I might have been pushed for time. But the 06:08 was here, an AM96 multiple unit going to De Panne via the airport and Brussels and that will give me plenty of time. I prefer to be early rather than running around against the clock in a panic.

There was nearly an hour to wait in Brussels so I nipped into the Carrefour for a small bottle of water. Just recently I seem to have developed the kind of thirst that you could photograph and I only had a couple of cans of energy drink on me. They won’t go far.

They posted the platform for my train to Paris quite early today, which is quite unusual.

There are two trainsets in this train. 4539 is one of the PBA – Paris Brussels Amsterdam – trainsets and 4344, the one on which I travelled, is one of the PBKA – Paris Brussels Cologne Amsterdam – trainsets.

And it’s a good job that they had two trainsets on the job thins morning because it was packed to the gunwhales. I think that I must have been the only person who didn’t have a neighbour.

We arrived in Paris bang on time which was just as well because I’m not going from Montparnasse today. Having booked my voyage differently because of my stopover in Paris I was free to choose a different return and there was a quicker way of going home – from St Lazare via Caen.

However, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last week when I wanted to go sightseeing, the metro was closed. When I wanted to go to St Lazare today, it was the turn of RER Line E to be closed.

It took me a few minutes to work out where I needed to go in order to reach St Lazare – on the normal metro Line 5 to “Republique” and then Line 3. That will take an age and I don’t have much time. And when I missed the first Metro train by a whisker I thought that my goose was cooked.

To my surprise things rattled on nicely (for a change) and I burst onto the platform at St Lazare with 5 minutes to go.

They were making the train ready to leave so I scrambled aboard quite quickly.

The train is one of the Bombardier Regio 2N double-deckers that run the line between Gare St Lazare, Caen and Cherbourg.

They are quite comfortable and if I have the opportunity I’ll be going this way again because I made a startling discovery. On board the train is a coffee machine and the coffee that it produces is quite reasonable.

And so drinking coffee and reading a copy of Carl Rafn’s “Antiquities Americanae” of 1837 – the first “modern” work to take seriously the Norse visits to North America, We hurtled off to Caen.

At Caen my train was already in so I had to leg it across the station.

THis one was packed out as well and I think that I managed to grab the last free seat. And we were soon off on our way to Granville, where I took this photo. My train is on the right and the train in the reverse direction, from Rennes to Caen, is on the left.

The crowds had thinned out somewhat by the time that we arrived in Granville. But nevertheless it shows you just how ridiculous it was when they tried to run this route with an express bus.

On the way down into town I called in at Carrefour here too. It’s pizza day tomorrow of course and I need fresh mushrooms

IN town I had an errand to perform.

But first I had a look around at the town centre. It’s Saturday today so it’s market day complete with charcoal-burning barbecue lorry much to the chagrin of the previous mayor who tried to stop them. And the kiddies’ roundabout is back too after a little break.

But I had to go to the chemist’s. I’d ordered some Aranesp for my injections before going to Leuven and I had forgotten to pick it up. To my surprise it was still there and hadn’t been thrown away.

Mind you, I did ask the owner if I had to pay rent for the storage of the device.

And now, with the batch that they gave me at the hospital, I now have enough to sink a ship.

It was a dreadful stagger up the hill this afternoon.

For the first stretch I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. One was at the viewpoint overlooking the Bar Ephemère, “Chez Maguie”. That’s now properly up and running for the summer season and will soon be drawing in the crowds.

There were a few people down there this afternoon too which wasn’t surprising because it was quite a warm and sunny afternoon.

But there weren’t any boulonauts down there this afternoon. I don’t know where they have gone to. It’s not like them to miss out on the opportunity.

The further up the hill I went, the quicker I seemed to have recovered my second wind.

From another breathing point I could see right into the chantier naval and took a photo, not that it will turn out too well because it’s only the NIKON 1 J5 with the standard lens.

Le Roc A La Mauve III is still in there (I think) but what had caught my eye was the trawler that was in there. I couldn’t read what was written on the beam but it looked like the letter J with a number indicating that it’s a Jersey-registered vessel.

So what’s she doing here that she can’t have done to her in St Helier?

No prizes for guessing who is tied up at the fish processing plant today.

It is of course L’Omerta, currently afloat because the tide is in but she’s unattended by the looks of things so I imagine that once the tide goes out she’ll settle down in the silt as she usually does just there.

There’s another boat behind her too but I can’t tell who she is from this position. She may well be unattended too because there is no activity on the quayside as there usually is when there are fishing boats unloading or having something done to them.

a href=”https://www.erichall.eu/images/2205/22050044.html”>Most of the other fishing boats were, as far as I can see, all in the inner harbour. It looks as if they are all having the day off.

The Channel Island ferries weren’t there today either. The service has restarted because they have been seen bringing passengers into St Helier, so they must all be still out there working.

But there’s a visitor in the harbour over there on the left. She looks very much like the dredger, St-Gilles Croix-de Vie to me. But what’s she doing here in port now? She usually comes here earlier in the year when there is less pleasure traffic.

Eventually I made it back home but it killed me bringing my suitcase upstairs. There was tons of stuff in it today with having to bring home three months’ worth of medication and three months’ of vegan cheese and vegan mayonnaise.

When I went to open the windows to let in some air I noticed that there was a wedding going on at the Civic Rooms.

While we’re on the subject of weddings … “well, one of us is” – ed … someone attending a wedding a couple of years ago parked in the parking place of a neighbour of mine.

When she said something to them about it, they gave her a torrent of abuse.

Not to be outdone, she went into the apartment, dressed in her best clothes, and went and gate-crashed the wedding reception and helped herself to free food and drink for the afternoon.

Having made a coffee I came in here to start work and ended up crashing out. I was totally wasted after my efforts today.

Later on, I recovered in time for the football. Caernarfon Town v Cardiff Metropolitan. A game that wasn’t a classic but flowed from end to end and was eventually won by Caernarfon 1-0. Probably the right result.

After tea I had to work myself up to write my notes. I was dead on my feet and I have a feeling that it’s going to be a bad day tomorrow. I know all of the symptoms right now.

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… disturbs me is when I walk into the pharmacy at the hospital to pick up the medication that they had to order for me yesterday, one of the cashiers recognises me and hands me my package without even asking for my name or any identification.

So much for my idea of passing inaperçu – “un-noticed” as I go round and round on my petit bonhomme de chemin. I’m becoming far too well-known for my own good and for my own liking.

Better news though was that I actually had a decent night’s sleep last night once I actually managed to drop off to sleep and there wasn’t a great deal of tossing and turning.

Despite there being no alarm, I was wide-awake at 07:40 and up and about, wandering around at 08:30.

After the medication, including the first of the new once; I had a listen to the dictaphone. And my sleep must have been so deep because there wasn’t as much on there as there has been of late.

However we were at a fishing port or pleasure beach or harbour at Cornwall last night. A fire had broken out and the pier was completely burnt away. All of the waterside houses down one side of the estuary against which the pier was located, because the pier ran from the end of this estuary up alongside the banks of it. All of the houses and businesses on that side of it were burnt away. You could see up into the river that was there without any impediment whatsoever. everyone had moved away from this town because its livelihood was over. A couple of people had been to look and the stone pillars of the pier were still there. They reckoned that they could build a pier on these stone pillars that would be above water at low tide and under water at high tide and put a couple of wind turbines on there. They could still use it for anchoring ships etc. They were looking at it. Then they decided that they would have a collection around the town or everyone’s old ash because some of the stuff that they had burnt was really good quality coal. The ash in it had solidified and would make an ideal base for rebuilding the pier so they went round collecting everyone’s ash bins and checking the quality of the ash ready to use to start rebuilding the pier.

Today I’ve been writing up more notes for my forthcoming radio programmes. With nothing much else to do today I’ve been doing my best to keep busy to stop my mind from wandering off into the deep and dark recesses full of cobwebs in my head where all kinds of different thoughts loiter around.

But as well as that I’ve also had a very long conversation that went on for almost two hours this morning. Not with Rosemary, I hasten to add – she’s far too busy dealing with the family of Ukrainian refugees who have come to live in her little cottage – but in fact with Liz.

That’s the first time that we’ve had such a chat since she moved away. There was a lot to say by both of us. There has been a lot of water that has flown under the bridge in that time.

It was really nice to catch up with everything too. I miss having good friends around the place to whom I can pour out my heart. It’s lovely having Alison, for example, but it’s only for a couple of days per month and usually when things are going according to plan.

After Liz and I finished I had to nip to the shops. I didn’t have any bread in the place.

For a change I went the back way to the shop in the Tiensestraat. I’ve not been this way for quite some considerable time and the last time that I passed by they were replacing the roof on this buildins.

But now, they have modernised the entire place and it looks totally different from HOW IT LOOKED in October 2020.

And now you can see the benefits of this photo index that I prepared over the last few months.

Back here I had lunch and then headed off into town and the hospital for my medication

In the Herbert Hooverplein on Friday is the big open-air market.

it finishes round about lunchtime and everyone would “fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away” like “the cares that infest the day” in Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done”.

But there is one here who hasn’t folded his tent quite yet. He’s not yet hitched his lorry up to his trailer.

But here I found out a little more about the megaphone. I had noticed that there was something written on it that said “Hearhere.be”. There were a few signs scattered around the park just here advertising it.

It turns out that it’s some kind of acoustic artwork taking place all over Belgium and presumably the megaphone that we have seen is an example thereof.

And so I wandered off into the town centre and the megaphone at the Grote Markt to find out more

But I couldn’t approach the megaphone because there was some kind of open-air theatre taking place. Two actors, complete with props, were reading a play to the watching public. All eight of us.

It wasn’t what I would call a popular affair.

So off I went through the town centre and down the hill towards the Brusselsestraat and the hospital to pick up my medication.

The mystery of the marquee at the velodrome in the Brusselsestraat is resolved as well.

There’s a book fair taking place in there this weekend and they were busy filling up the shelves with books as I walked past.

Someone had left the door open so I took full advantage and pointed my camera through it to take a photo – not that you could see all that much.

The papier maché cow was quite impressive though, although what that has to do with a book fair I really don’t know.

It was really quite hot this afternoon so it was something of a struggle up the hill this afternoon. I made it right the way to the top without stopping though, due almost entirely to the fact that I didn’t have anything to carry.

When we were here yesterday we saw all of the activity going on with the hospital car park.

We’d seen a tarmac ripper having its claws installed, and today we could see that it’s been hard at work and much of the tarmac has already disappeared. It’s going to be quite a task by the looks of things.

As I mentioned earlier, at the pharmacy the cashier gave me my missing medication and so I picked up my bag, turned tail and headed back down the hill again towards home in the heat

At least the walk will do me some good.

When I was on my travels yesterday looking at that redevelopment site I’d seen in the distance some more building work.

This is taking place in the Kruisstraat. It’s another one of these famous Belgian projects where they knock down everything of a building except the facade and rebuild an entirely new building behind it.

There was quite a scandal about a similar situation in Brussels when I lived there. There was a beautiful building with a magnificent marble staircase that the authorities wanted to keep so there was some kind of preservation order on it.

But that only covered the facade apparently so they kept the facade and swept everything else, including the staircase, away.

One thing that we noticed last month when we had a look at the bike rack in the kruisstraat was the strange propulsion system of a bicycle there.

The bike was still there today so I took a better photo of it. And I do have to say that I’m not convinced by the wisdom of a toothed drivebelt rather than a proper chain drive.

On the way back I popped into Delhaize. With not coming back for three months I’d better buy more vegan cheese and mayonnaise to keep me going. And then I went to the vegan ice cream shop only to find that it was closed down and up for sale.

It’s just not my day is it?

Back here I crashed out yet again, but 120% of my daily activity on the fitbit will probably account for a lot of that.

In order to revive myself I had a coffee and then finished off the notes for this radio programme

Tea tonight was sausage beans and chips and now I’m going to tidy everything up ready to leave tomorrow and then I’ll be off to bed

Its strange, but I can’t wait to go home. I miss my little apartment. It’s the first place where I’ve ever lived that has felt like home.

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… exctly how a table-tennis ball feels.

Apparently there is so much liquid in my body that hasn’t been evacuated that moving it around is what is putting my heart under strain.

And so we’re back in the nephrology department again which was where we started. Knocked back across the fence

As to the question of “how come it suddenly happened overnight rather than a gradual decline?”, well, there was no response to that.

And so it looks as if I’m fated to carry this heart issue around with me until the end of my days. And at this rate, it’s not going to be for long.

At least last night was a rather better night than many have been just recently, even if it did take me an age to go off to sleep. But once I’d gone off I didn’t awaken all that often.

During the night I didn’t go very far – theoretically speaking. We started off back in the war again. We were in the regiment that was leading the advance. When we came to a place that had several lakes and plenty of rocks our regiment was split in 2. One was sent clockwise around these lakes and the other one was sent anti-clockwise round the lakes. We set off on our journey going clockwise. We made really good time. We had a couple of young people with us who had just joined up. We looked after those. We advanced really quite well and made quite some distance. In the end as we went round a corner around the shore of one of these lakes we suddenly collided with a group of people coming through the rocks. We had our guns at the ready, they had their guns at the ready. We fired a few bursts at each other but it turned out to be the other half of the regiment who had come round the other way. We pitched camp for the night together. One or two people were flown out on an aeroplane to make a report and the rest of us settled down for the night.

And there was also a dream about the taxis again. I can’t remember very much of it. It ended up with us having done some tidying up. We had a huge stack of oil in the kitchen in these 5-litre containers and no-one seemed to remind me very much about it. We’d had a visitor, someone who worked on a farm saying that he was having someone around in the morning to lengthen something and shorten something else. I was talking about the time that someone told me that you would probably be able to fit a Leyland cylinder head onto the block of another engine and we managed to have it running. We exchanged a few reminiscences but there wee definitely things about the cars moving around and driving around but I can’t remember a thing about that really. There was much more to it than this.

The alarm was set for 07:00 and just for a change I managed to fall out of bed something-like quickly which is a change, the way things are happening these days.

A quick run-round looking for things, making my butties, all of that kind of thing, and I hit the streets bang-on 08:00 where I was wept up by the crowds and carried off away towards the hospital.

My route took me into town and past the loud-hailer that we saw yesterday.

For a change, I had some time to have a look around it but surprisingly there wasn’t anything at all to tell anyone what is was supposed to be and why it was there.

Belgium is a country that is well-known for its surrealism, as anyone who has visited the country will know, even down to the shop assistants who have a totally new slant on “customer service”, so the idea of finding bizarre things like this dotted around he place is nothing new.

But a little explanation would be nice once in a while.

There was however an explanation as to what was happening at the velodrome yesterday.

There’s some kind of grandstand at the velodrome where spectators can sit in the hope of actually catching someone using it for the purpose for which it was intended, and the back wall of the aforementioned has a series of displays and advertisements.

One of the notices was advertising the “Club Velodroom”, having a meeting yesterday from 13:00 to 16:00. That must have been the occasion that I caught when I was out and about on my walk yesterday afternoon

It’s surprising that seeing as it’s the “Club Velodroom” there wasn’t any cycling involved in the meeting.

A little further on down the Brusselsestraat I stopped off to look at what was going on at this redevelopment site.

The rubble piles seem to be changing shape although they don’t seem to be changing in volume. Although there are plenty of vehicles and workmen on the site it’s difficult to identify any progress that they have made since we were last here.

The surviving medieval tower is still there though, surrounded by scaffolding and its protective netting. That’s something that is quite reassuring. I can think of many cases where there has been an “accidental manoeuvre of a bulldozer” or a “suspicious fire” that has removed a historic monument from a valuable redevelopment site.

On one occasion I actually wrote a REDEVELOPER’S GUIDE to historic sites, based on a considerable amount of experience.

There are a couple of other building sites on which we are keeping a rather watchful eye.

This is the one in the Kapucijnenvoer that backs onto the Zongang. We’ve watched this building rise up from the ground over the last year or so.

They’ve been putting the cladding on the front of the building just recently and we saw some of it go on, but this particular part of the cladding is quite new. I’m sure that I would have noticed something as bizarre as this the last time that I came past this way had it been here.

The other building site in the vicinity is this one here further down the Kapucijnenvoer.

They had begun to add the second floor to the structure the last time that we were here, so I was keen to see how things were progressing. And the answer was “not very far”.

There was a lorry, which you can see on the left of this image, with a load of slabs that they are using to build up the walls and one of the cranes is busy unloading them.

And so next time that we are here we might see something of a difference. I know that it’s a big building covering a large surface area but it’ll take for ever to finish it at this rate.

Something else that is tking for ever to finish is this electrical work in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan.

We’ve seen this dug up and repaired and then dug up again on numerous occasions over the last few years but it seems now that they have dug it up and are leaving it like this for the foreseeable future.

The number of times that I have staggered past it on my way to the hospital I really can’t remember.

And I almost ended up making this trip my final one. Someone on a cycle took absolutely no notice of the pedestrian crossing with me on it and we ended up having a “discussion” about the situation

There’s yet more building work of some description going on on the hospital’s car park.

From a distance I thought that they might have been digging holes in which to plant trees as part of this green environmental drive, but when I looked down into the holes I noticed a whole web of cables there.

Presumably then it’s something to do with the rest of he electrical work that’s going on in the vicinity. It’s something else which presumably will become much clearer with the passage of time.

If it’s for lighting, we’ll have to wait until later in the year to see the results.

For some reason that I don’t understand I must have been quite quick today walking to the hospital because I was in plenty of time. Not that it did me any good because I still had to wait for my appointment.

The first thing that they did was to give me an echograph and then they pushed me out into the waiting room for the second part of the examination. That was an electro-scan and when she had finished with me she took me and the results to the doctor.

That was when I had my rather disagreeable discussion. Well, I don’t suppose that it was disagreeable because these people are experts and know their jobs. But it’s simply rather bizarre that I have something that they can’t find. I reckon that I’m just not made the same way as everyone else.

At one point he squeezed my leg and asked me “did that hurt?”. And there I was, wondering how they were going to fix that hole in the ceiling that my head had just made.

He’s also given me a new medication to take. This reduction in my medication didn’t last long, did it?

In the Oncology Day Centre they interviewed me as usual, took a blood sample and then coupled me up to my blood transfusion.

The doctor came and discussed my case and I told him of my latest symptoms, including the fact that in the time that I had taken to take off my elasticated stockings and wash them, my foot and ankle swelled up.

He went off to discuss the latest developments with the Professor who oversees my case and then came back to tell me some startling news – that they want to try me out with three months away from treatment. Come back on the 5th August or whenever it is.

That has taken me by surprise. I would have thought that with new developments they would have been more interested in following me up more closely. What am I going to do now?

The answer to that question was to fall asleep. I crashed out for half an hour.

On the way home I called in to the chemist. And the bill for the medication came to €500 give or take a few coppers. At least the hospital gave me a pile of Aranesp to take home.

When we were coming up the hill towards the hospital we noticed the building work going on on the car park.

While I had been in the hospital someone had come past with a lorry and dropped off a tarmac ripper. It was now unloaded, sitting on the tarmac and the mechanic was busily fitting the ripping teeth onto the belt underneath the machine.

And so it looks as if resurfacing of the car park is on the agenda too, once they have ripped off all of the old stuff.

There’s some kind of major project going on here then and it doesn’t just involve electricity work them.

For a change I went back home a different way, down the Goudsbloenstraat.

It’s a street down which I walked on many occasions when I first came to live here but it’s changing quite rapidly. I can’t remember what building was there but whatever it was, it’s gone now.

The site has been cleared away and planning permission seems to have been given for the site for it to have new apartments built on there

Now that things are drawing to a close at the building in the Kapucijnenvoer, I’ll have to come back this way and keep an eye on the proceedings

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing is the roadworks in the Moneigneur van Waeyenberghlaan

They are now finished and have been for many months They now seem to be turning their attention to the road system around the “Blauwe Hoek” or “Blue Corner” That’s all been dug up now and it looks as if there’s a new drain being laid in there too

Construction work in the town is never-ending and there will be plenty to watch in the course of the next year or so I reckon

But right now I’m going to head off home Liz has sent me a message saying that she wants to talk.

There was something going on in the Grote Markt too as I passed through.

There are what they call “hartlopers”, “runners from the heart” who have just come pouring out of the town hall. There were a few jogging around the town too.

Back here I had a quick shower and a change of clothes and then had a little chat with Liz. That took me up to the time to go and catch my bus for Alison’s house.

There is a big drive for putting people onto public transport but that’s no use if the buses don’t come, like mine didn’t. I had to wait for half an hour in the rain.

Alison had cooked something nice and then we had a lengthy chat about this and that – the various things that have happened to us just recently. It’s good to exchange news when there is news to exchange.

Back here I had a lengthy mail to write and then it was time to write up my notes. With 134% of my daily target reached today, I’ll switch off the alarm tomorrow. I have to go to the pharmacy at the hospital to pick up some medication that they needed to order and that will do me for my daily activity I reckon.

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May the fourth be with you!

As for me, I’m not suite sure what was with me today but I’ve been a very busy boy. The only cure for what’s wrong with me at the moment is, as I said yesterday, plenty of work to take my mind off things and so I’ve buckled down and done a pile of stuff.

For a change I had a reasonable night last night. Probably having taken one of my night-time pills before going to bed might have contributed to that. But even so, it was still quite interesting because I’d been off on my travels during the night.

World War II was being fought. The armies were opposite each other in a trench each. From our side, whichever side that was, someone held up a huge red square type of banner that looked like a Manchester United type of banner when you were close to it. Someone held it up and the firing stopped. A troop of soldiers and cavalry went over into no-man’s land where they met someone coming from the enemy’s side. They had a long conference while we were still in the trenches. Slowly people got up from the trenches and started to move around on top. One group went over to inspect this huge orange bunker that was just in front of the trenches. We noticed that it had several holes like miniature golf holes in it. One of them was so much deeper than the others but that was like a supply hole. People would drop things into this little hole and it would go down out of harm’s reach into this thing so that someone could then open it from underneath and take out whatever was in there. Gradually the news percolated around that an armistice had been signed so we all slowly left the trenches. We found some water, rain water that was full of pulverised brick dust and cement dust s we washed our hands together in this hoping that the action of the dust would grind out all of the dirt and everything that was ingrained into our hands but no matter how I tried, I just could not get my hands clean no matter how many times I washed them.

And then there was some kind of football tournament taking place at Wistaston Green. It involved a girl who was playing against a team. She was out in the street and they were in their gardens. She had to kick the ball towards them and they kicked it back. The big team scored a goal by kicking the ball into the garden of the house next door. I was there and I asked the name of the guy who had kicked it. They told me so I made a note. They carried on playing and he did the same again, or someone else did it. They told me who it was who had done it and they said “Clarke with an H” so I imagined that it was spelt “KHlarke”. Then he said that they had changed now and had un front a “Clarke with an L” so I was trying to think how you would spell that “Clarke with an H because that also has an L”? This girl took a kick and almost scored a goal with it. One of them pointed to the river valley behind her and said “you don’t want to try to win because in that valley is all swamp and everything. You’ll have a hell of a time down there with everything rusting. She replied that she’d seen some places down there that were waterlogged.

Finally I’d been in the English shop or some kind of shop and bought a packet of traditional English butter biscuits, don’t ask me how. I was sitting there eating them. A discussion started about all different kinds of things and something came round about waste, how everything ought to be re-used. Nothing should be thrown away. I pointed to my biscuits and said that the crumbs from these would go to make apple cider vinegar and that’s the way that I’d bought them from this shop that would do this kind of thing. Someone made a remark about me with some of these biscuits but I didn’t pay that much attention. Just then my brother and one of his friends came past. My brother saw these biscuits and just put his hand in my bag and helped himself to one. There were only about half a dozen. Then one of his friends started to make extremely broad hints about the biscuits do I had to give him one as well. Then I found that someone had only eaten half of one as well and put the other half on the dashboard of my car which annoyed me somewhat. I got into the car to start. They had been playing with my music and it wasn’t the music that I’d been listening to. I had to scroll through all the different channels and different storages to try to find the music that I’d been listening to but I couldn’t find it. I was in such a bad mood. My car had actually been driven into a parking space instead of reversing in. That annoyed me intensely. I had to reverse out into the street. There was a whole line of traffic. I started to reverse thinking that someone would stop and let me out but they all carried on. In the end we ended up in a log-jam where I couldn’t move because I was at the wrong angle to go back in again and cars going past me couldn’t go past because I was in the way. It was all total chaos now.

So no TOTGA last night. That was a disappointment and no mistake.

So having dealt with the dictaphone (which took long enough, as you can tell) I sat down to start work.

WHat I’ve done is to write out the notes for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing on Monday. It’s not easy to do that on the laptop with steam-driven internet. I’m used to 64GB of RAM, a 4.7Ghz processor and hard-wired internet.

As a result that took me right up to a late lunch. But at least it’s done and dusted.

Having had a late lunch I wandered off out for my afternoon walk.

And this afternoon I hadn’t gone far before I ground to a halt.

Just down the road in the Brusselsestraat is one of the Halls of Residence for the University and it looked as if they were having a party this afternoon.

They had marquees and beer tents, a bouncy castle, all kinds of sideshows and a disco bashing out the music oud enough to awaken the dead in the cemetery across the road.

There was someone at the entrance collecting admission money and issuing tickets but I fooled them. I went in through the exit.

And I did too. Quite seriously.

In town I went into FNAC to see what was happening but there was nothing whatever of any interest so I tried my luck in the Diestsestraat. But with the same result.

At Origin’O I bought some vegan sausages for back home and a can of that fiery ginger beer to drink as I walked round. They had a pile of it in a cold display and it was quite warm outside.

My walk took me down the street to the bridge in the Brouwerstraat.

It’s here that the River Dijle – or is it the River Leie? – flows underneath the bridge here. There’s a path, the Handbooghof, that runs down alongside it. It was looking quite nice this afternoon in the sun so I took a photograph of it.

But it’s one of these places that needs a good tidy-up. There is so much more that they could do with the place to make it look quite attractive. I’m sure that the people who live in those modern apartments across the river would appreciate it.

Maybe they will do something when they have finished restoring the medieval city walls.

There’s a length of wall that runs down here alongside the footpath and they have been restoring it for a couple of years. Although they don’t seem to be going quickly, it’s quite a skilful job involving a lot of precision manual labour and it isn’t easy to do it.

When I rebuild my collapsed wall, I didn’t have any artistic design to follow.

As I walked past I noticed that the door onto the site was open so I stuck my head in, only to find myself nose-to-nose with a security guard.

And so in the best traditions of the News of the Screws, I “made my excuses and left”.

Further on down the path I turned into the Brusselsestraat.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the back of the velodrome here they had laid out a hardstanding that they use for events. Today though they have put a marquee on the site.

It’s quite a substantial erection too with proper sides and doors, so it looks as if it’s going to be something important.

That’s something else that I’ll have to inspect when I’m out and about on my way home from the hospital – if they let me out tomorrow.

Who knows what they have in store for me tomorrow?

There was another racket coming from nearby too so I went to have a look as I was passing by.

It looks as if some people have set up a disco at the velodrome and they are having a little dancing session.

So what’s going on in the town today with all of the music and all of the students having a good dance? I can’t recall anything special happening today that would merit all of this.

But while we’re on the subject of the velodrome, when was the last time we actually saw someone taking advantage of it with a bicycle?

And while we’re on the subject of bicycles … “well, one of us is” – ed … here’s an interesting photo.

That bike there is what they call in Dutch and Flemish a bakfiets and they are used for transporting small goods. But they also have another use too, as you can see in this photo. Taking the kids around in the bakfiets is quite a common pastime in Leuven.

At Delhaize I remembered the coffee (because I’d run out) and the baked beans and then headed for home.

Back here I had a nice shower and a good clothes-washing session and then regrettably I crashed out good and proper in the middle of a Paul Temple episode on the computer.

Later on I carried on with the work in order to distract me from my woes. I’ve now paired off two weeks’ worth of music for the radio programmes.

And that wasn’t easy with the small screen and using a pen and paper instead of a whiteboard and washable marker. I couldn’t see anything very much at all of what I was doing

That took me up to the time for my Welsh conversation class revision and as a result I didn’t have my tea until after 21:30.

That’s what I call “working” – and it’s just as well because it keeps me busy and stops me dwelling on what might have been over the last 22 – or was it 30? – years had the time have been right and things have been different.

At least tomorrow I’ll have far too much to worry about than to think about anything else.

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… luck this afternoon to be able to see inside that building on the Rector de Somerplein.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few months ago a building that had been used for years as an office had closed down and they began to smash out the inside.

A couple of months ago I managed a quick glance in but this afternoon while I was out and about in town I noticed that everyone had knocked off and gone home, and the tarpaulin that they had fitted across the front was blowing in the wind.

“An opportunity far too good to miss” I thought to myself. I whipped out the NIKON 1 J5 and poked it through the grille at the front.

Et voilà

At least it was better luck than I had last night trying to go to sleep. It seems to make no difference what time I go to bed, I simply can’t sleep these days and that’s beginning to get on my nerves. It must be my guilty conscience, I reckon.

However I must have gone off to sleep at some point because there were tonnes of stuff on the dictaphone from my travels during the night.

And once more, it was quite a fight to tear myself off the mattress this morning when then alarms went off. I failed miserably with the first and second alarms and although it was something of quite a struggle, I did manage to beat the third alarm – only just.

There was a Welsh lesson this morning so I had to do things with a rush as we were starting early as our tutor had a medical appointment.

And to my surprise it passed off quite well too. I don’t know what I’d done wrong but I seemed to have remembered most of what I needed this week.

The one good thing about having an early lesson was that it stopped me feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in self-pity for a change. Half the problem is that I have too much time on my hands. If I were at home I’d have plenty of distractions to keep me occupied.

After lunch I had a go at the dictaphone notes to see where I’d been during the night. I’d started out with Jerry Kobalenko, one of my Arctic explorer friends. We were out in the Atlantic and getting into some kayaks to paddle north. As the story changed and continued Jerry became a girl. I know who she is but I can’t think of her or where I met her. We were there on the high seas getting out of this boat trying to pack our things that were floating around on top of the water. We were having to put them in a couple of holdalls that would be strapped to the kayak. Of course it would make the kayak top-heavy so it was going to be interesting to see how we could make it to land like that without being swamped. I noticed that the boat on which we sailed, it could have been THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR had only one propeller blade. All the others had sheared off. There was my little wind turbine on there but it wasn’t doing all that much. I had another alternative energy machine on there but I can’t remember what that was. In the meantime our ship was reported missing. We’d been in the company of another ship for a while but then there was an ice field and we’d separated but hadn’t rejoined the other ship afterwards so we were listed as missing. People were starting to be worried about us and search for us but we were still afloat, still a way out in the Atlantic busy trying to organise these kayaks so that we could get out of the water as we were actually in the water by this time starting to pack then get into the kayaks and paddle away through these waves and the storm in top-heavy kayaks

And then there was a group of us on board ship again. Me, another woman, her boyfriend (it could well have been my friends from Nicorps). There were a few small girls. Once again one of these small girls had taken a fancy to me and was hanging around with me. During the evening they had a kind-of ship’s party out on the open deck. It was starting to become somewhat out of hand. The woman and her husband, they wouldn’t dance together. He wouldn’t dance with her. A person took him and made him eat something, some powder, and used him as a kind-of sacrificial altar where they decked him out with candles etc using some kind of magical incantation to make people dance a kind of crocodile around him. This woman worked out that what they had actually given the husband was strychnine. We all thought that it would kill him, at least make him impotent. She took a mouthful of it and we all wondered why. She said that it was to do with some way of making him immune to disease. We couldn’t work out exactly why but there were all these people dancing around. There was such a feeling of deep and utter tragedy happening. Then one of these little girls, the one who had taken a shine to me, started to dance with me too.

Later on I stepped right back into that dream of all of us on that boat, these dancing people being separated and so on. It was at that point where the women were dancing and the men were standing still before the one who had been picked out to be the sacrificial altar, somewhere around there.

We were back in Crewe. There was some kind of family event going on. We were in the High Street. By this time the railway line to Chester was a footpath and there was the old railway line that was also a footpath. We were discussing what had happened on someone’s wedding night where Malcolm had had rather too much to drink and had been fooling around round here by the steps onto the abandoned railway lines and had been arrested. It was around here where we bumped into TOTGA, a very crestfallen-looking TOTGA too. She’d been in a fight with a group of girls. It turned out that someone had suspected her of sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend. She showed me a photo of a girl and said “that’s the girl who hit me”. I asked her how she was. She said that she’d hurt her hand so I took her hand. She was very reluctant to let me but I kissed it better like you do to a kid. That made her recoil a little. The conversation went on about the particular fight that had happened completely out of the blue. She knew absolutely nothing about it. It just flared up in the street from nothing.

But this is not the time for TOTGA to be unhappy.

It goes without saying that talking about sacrificial altars and the like, there was much more to it than this. But you really don’t want to know about it, especially if you are just about to have a meal.

This seemed to be a good time for me to go out for my afternoon walk. There were a few things that I needed in town.

Down the Tiensestraat I strolled and ended up on the corner of the Herbert Hooverplein and the Tavern Universum.

Over the last few months we’ve been watching the developments here as they have been ripping out the interior and so on.

The skip over there on the left is full of rubble so it looks as if it’s going to be a while before the work is finished and the tavern reopens.

In the meantime, there’s plenty of excitement in the Square itself.

The fountain over there is now working again after the winter and there are a couple of kids having no end of fun running about and soaking themselves as the fountain erupts in a fury.

It just goes to show you the resilience of kids. It’s not exactly midsummer this afternoon and I bet that the water over there is pretty cold.

From there I headed off into town, past the building that we saw earlier in the Rector de Somerplein.

The Grote Markt is well-known for all kinds of exciting temporary displays and we’ve seen a few in our time over the 6 years since I’ve been coming here.

THis month they have a giant megaphone over there although why it’s there and what it’s advertising, I wasn’t able to identify. I shall have to have a closer look on Thursday when I’m on my way to Castle Anthrax.

But whether or not I have time is something else. My first appointment is at 09:30which means that I have to be off on my travels at 08:00 and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage that.

At the Delhaize I stocked up on vegan cheese and vegan garlic mayonnaise for home, as well as some Iced Tea and banan-flavoured soya milk. However I forgot the coffee and baked beans and so I’ll have to go again when I go to buy the vegan sausages at the Origin’o or whatever it’s called these days.

Back here I had to choose the music for the final radio programme of this next batch. And of course the first track that I chose and which will open up the programme had to be YET ANOTHER ONE that touched a nerve.
“Well maybe I’m just thinking that the rooms are all on fire
Every time that you walk in the room
Well there is magic all around you, if I do say so myself…
I have known this much longer than I’ve known you”

So having now had tea, I’m going to sit quietly and not do very much before I’m off to bed. If I’m lucky I might be able to have a good sleep but I’m not holding my breath.

Maybe I ought to have someone come and tuck me in every night and read me a story, but let’s not go getting all broody again, hey?

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… stresses and emotions of the weekend I’ve had something of a very quiet day today recovering from it all.

In fact, last night I was i bed by 22:00 feeling totally exhausted but even so, I couldn’t sleep for ages. And when I eventually went off to sleep I awoke quite early – at about 06:40 to be precise.

Nevertheless I tried my best to go back to sleep but it didn’t work and I finally gave it up and left my bed at 08:40 to tackle whatever the day might bring me.

First off, I had to go to the shop down the hill for food supplies. I wasn’t feeling anything like it but they weren’t the usual health problems. In fact, I’m still even now not recovered from the emotional impact of what happened at the weekend.

If it’s anything like what happened to me after the end of those missing three days on the THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR I’ll be like this for quite a while.

On my way down to Delhaize I had a look up the Weldadigheidsstraat.

Last time we were looking up there, there was a rather large crane in the street, and it’s still there this time too. There must be a great deal of work going on down there.

At Delhaize I stocked up with the food that I need for the next few days and a bottle of wine for the manager here after his help with those refugees last time I was here, and then I staggered back here in the heat.

Having had breakfast and washed my clothes from the weekend I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And I’d travelled some distance too. A boy with whom I was quite friendly at school appeared in this. There were a few of us who had put an advert in a paper for a drummer. He contacted us. I wasn’t sure that he realised who I was at first. He was saying that since his Grammar School days he’d put on 16 stone in weight playing the drums. he and his son made a right pair of big people. he was determined to lose all this excess weight as much as he could as quick as he could. We started having a talk about forming a new group, the 4 of us, 2 guitarists, a keyboard player and me, bassist, and a few other people who turned up to see about having a decent line-up.

And then I can’t remember who I was with now but it was the north of Scotland in the middle of winter. Minus 16°C outside and minus 3°C inside the car. We’d been to where we’d had to go to and turned round on our way back. There was a discussion between the 2 of us about the trip because he said that I’d picked the longest way back from where we were to Glasgow which according to his route plan was 9 hours and something. I said that we’d done it in 6 hours to reach here and the weather hadn’t deteriorated all that much so I don’t think that it would take us any longer. We drove back and were just passing through some kind of big city when I suddenly noticed a sign so I yelled “stop! Stop! Do a U-turn! Quick!”. He did a U-turn quickly and I had him turn left. We ended up at a fish and chip shop right by Partick Thistle’s football ground. We piled out and went into this chip shop to go to fetch something to eat. The woman in charge said that she would give a portion of chips to everyone who ordered anything so my friend asked “even if you jut ordered chips?”. She replied “yes, you can have chips and chips if you want”. I was going to have chips but I had a look and couldn’t see what else I could have with my chips. Then I suddenly remembered the dream that I’d had about having a bridie and remembering a dream when I’m in the middle of another dream is pretty impressive stuff, isn’t it?. I thought to myself that this is the opportunity for me to have a bridie but of course being a vegan I didn’t really want one. I was trying to debate with myself what I could have to go with my chips to make a nice meal

Last night I was also running a petrol station on Nantwich Road in Crewe, the one that used to be Alan Pond’s. It was open from 07:00 until 02:00 and I’d be there from midnight to 09:00 getting everything ready. TOTGA was there as well. She was talking about her childhood – she was only young – and her mother etc. I can’t remember a great deal of what was happening there.

Then finally I was in North America somewhere in a big city, in a poor quarter where there was a big open air market with vegetables, fruit etc. Something happened and there was a riot. This went on for quite a while. The police and military were called in to control it. Someone was about to throw a molotov cocktail when he was hit by a rubber bullet so the molotov cocktail broke, the petrol went all over him and set him alight. This caused things to become completely out-of-hand. In the end everything was calmed down. I was back a couple of years later. The market was all clean and modernised. There was much more choice, more stuff available and looked a lot better. They were saying that all these new vegetables had come onto the market and changed the way of life of the people who were living there. Someone was giving a speech about this. He was reminding them not to hesitate to rebel if everything wasn’t going their way in the future because it was the only way that they could get things to work better for them. There was some old woman giving a speech about the weapons that they had used when they were rebelling against the Government 70 years ago and so on.

The rest of the day I’ve spent doing one of two things – either sorting out music for the next series of radio programmes or else falling asleep on the sofa. And twice so far I’ve dropped the laptop on the floor when I’ve finally been overwhelmed.

Regrettably, I’ve not finished sorting out the music either. It’s taken me much longer than it usually does, for some rather obvious reasons as I have already explained.

Tea was a burger with pasta and tomato sauce, and now I’m writing up my notes ready for going to bed.

And there’s ANOTHER SONG going round in my head – another one off my acoustic playlist like the one yesterday.
“I’ll trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday to be holding that young body next to mine”.
Yes, wouldn’t I just?

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… not actually sitting in a rainbow but sitting in my little room in Leuven.

Actually a different room, one without steps and stairs which is just as well because I’ve been struggling a bit more than usual with them this last couple of days. All of that walking has taken its toll; I reckon.

And I’m on my own as well. The company that I had over the weekend has now gone home.

Although it was quite a struggle for a variety of reasons. Firstly, staying awake talking until 02:00 meant that when the alarm went off (yes, Sunday, with an alarm!) at 08:00 I was the only one who was up and about.

Nothing on the dictaphone from through the night though, which is no surprise. However I do have some kind of recollection of watching TOTGA disappearing down out of my sight on an escalator. And that’s far more significant than any of you lot actually realise.

Eventually we went out for a very leisurely breakfast at the place where we had gone yesterday and that took a lot of time because we weren’t in any rush.

There were however trains and planes to catch so we set off to the airport via the metro and the RER.

Saying goodbye was very difficult but I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that was that I now know why Castor turned her back on me and walked away to her plane without looking behind her when she did back then. If saying goodbye at times like this afternoon is difficult, then saying goodbye and knowing that it’s for ever (if anything is for ever) must have been harder still.

The train out to the airport was pretty empty but the one back into Paris was crowded. Furthermore there was a squadron of ticket inspectors and that upset quite a lot of people

Because I hadn’t known what time check-in was to be at the airport I hadn’t really known which train to book to go on to Brussels so in the end I had a wait of about two and a half hours But time passes quickly when there’s good music to hear

There was a TGV sitting at one of the platforms while I was waiting and as time drew on I began to realise that it was in fact my train.

It’s one of the Paris-Brussels-Köln-Amsterdam “PBKA” trainsets and it was packed to capacity. I didn’t notice a single spare seat. I was sitting in one seat of a group of four and that was quite inconvenient for the other passengers when I dozed off for 10 minutes.

However, during my waking hours I was reading a few notes about inter alia the forced relocation of Inuit from the town of Hebron in Labrador in the late 1950s. Another one of many “Joey Smallwood” scandals, I’m afraid.

We arrived bang on time in Brussels and I wandered off to the Carrefour for some pasta and tomato sauce for tea.

And then I went to find a train to Leuven. But instead I found a man carrying a giant teddy-bear and another one carrying a giant banana on an adjacent platform. Whatever that was all supposed to be I didn’t know and it wasn’t possible to find out

But as usual, I’m gratified to know that when I walk around with STRAWBERRY MOOSE tucked under my arm, I am not alone. Lots of other people are doing something similar.

Maybe I started a new fashion.

This afternoon I had to wait for a while for a train. They are four trains per hour but they don’t run every 15 minutes as you would expect. 3 of them run at 10-minute intervals and then there’s a half-hour gap. And of course, I timed my exit from the supermarket to correspond with the gap

When the train pulled in to Brussels it took me by surprise.

It’s a train from Oostende to Eupen and that’s usually a push-me-pull-you being pushed towards Eupen with the engine at the Oostende end but this one had an engine at the Eupen end.

It was crowded to the gunwhales but I was one of the very few people who managed to be on my own there without a neighbour. And to my surprise I managed to stay awake for the whole journey without falling asleep and ending up in Welkenraedt.

This is what’s going on at the Eupen end of the train.

It is in fact a push-me-pull-you being pushed from the rear, as you can tell by the driver’s cab at the front of the coach, but for some reason they’ve put a locomotive onto the train right in front of the driver’s cab.

Presumably the driver of the train is in the locomotive and not in the driver’s cab of the train. He won’t be able to see too much if he’s still in his little cab.

But not of the foregoing explains the reason as to why they have done it.

Out of curiosity I waited around (and for a good while too) to see whether or not there was a locomotive behind the train pushing it along.

There’s certainly one there but of course I can’t say what rôle it’s playing in the movement of the train.

Here in my little lodging they’ve given me a different room as I mentioned. It’s quite nice and comfortable but there’s no toaster. I’ll have to arrange that tomorrow morning.

Tea was pasta and tomato sauce with one of the burgers that I brought with me.

And now, I’m going to bed. I’ve switched off the alarms and I’m going to have a lie-in to recover for the weekend.

It was an excellent weekend with good company, and it made me realise how much of my life might have been different had this happened 30 years ago, or 22 years ago, or at any other time when a certain someone slipped through my evil clutches in the past.

Anyway, HERE’S A SONG to celebrate today, and what never was and what might have been but probably never will be, world without end.

+1

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… arrange a weekend’s sightseeing in Paris on the weekend that one of the main metro lines through the tourist attractions of Paris is closed

Consequently 13.8 kilometres and 21798 paces on the fitbit tells its own story of what I’ve been up to today.

But starting as I mean to go on, having lived on my own for so long I forget about how different other people are from how I behave. I was up, showered, shaved, had a coffee and typed out my notes from the dictaphone and still had to sit around on a sofa for 20 minutes.

Of course, that’s no reflection on anyone else. It’s a reflection of how my life has changed over the last 30 years (with a couple of exceptions here and there) and how I’m simply accustomed for doing” for myself and not for other people.

Whether or not it’s a bad habit remains to be seen. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, particularly one as old as me, and as I don’t think that I’ll ever be having company on a permanent basis again so I don’t really want to change. But it’s symbolic, I suppose, of how my life has evolved.

Just now I mentioned the dictaphone. There were indeed some entries on there, but nothing like as many as I thought. Have I been dictating into my hand again, or have I been dreaming that I’ve been dictating? Or am I simply imagining it?

Anyway I was doing something on a zodiac last night – I can’t remember what it was – but it was to do with films and so on that I’d made, someone from a place where I’d used to work had rung up and asked to speak to someone and then put me through to probably TOTGA I reckon who was still at school but was out working at a cinema in the afternoon. They wanted to get in touch with me so I rang them back the next morning.

At some time during the night my friend from Munich breezed in and asked “where is she?” … “where is who?” – ed … and then breezed out again before I could give him an answer which I thought was strange.

Eventually we were ready and we hit the streets. Having seen how much the breakfast costs in this hotel and how little choice there was for those on a restricted diet, we headed off down the hill to a little café where they did a very simple but adequate breakfast for a much more democratic price.

Then we hit the metro and ended up running up against the buffers down there. The end result was that instead of starting at the Bastille and going to the Eiffel Tower, we did the route in reverse and on foot.

We started off at the Trocadero where there is the Museum of Dance.

And we were entertained by a troupe of dancers on the steps that lead down to the river. They were doing some kind of mime act that had gone way over my head, but then again dance isn’t my thing.

Years of taking little sisters to dancing class has though enabled me to understand what’s happening and I can still vaguely remember the five positions of your hands and feet in ballet but anything after that is way beyond my comprehension.

What is much more my style of thing is watching the barges go past on the river.

The other week we saw plenty of them in and around Cologne and one day I’ll write up my notes about the trip but at the moment it’s this one here that’s attracted my attention.

Although her name is clearly indicated I was trying to identify her flag or other insignia, without any success at all. But Bayard is the name of a mythical horse in medieval French literature so it’s likely that the barge has received its name in that respect.

It’s not likely to be named after the American general who gave his name to a fort in New Mexico.

Apart from the flotilla of pleasure boats there wasn’t anything else of interest going on down on the water although I’m always hypnotised by the smell.

Eventually I managed to pull myself away and we went for a wander around by the Eiffel Tower. Not underneath it as it’s all fenced off these days and there are all kinds of security checkpoints to pass.

Instead, the whiff of a crepe stand had caught someone’s attention so we headed off there for a snack. Not for me of course. Milk and eggs don’t feature anywhere on my diet. I took a couple of photographs for posterity – not mine, of course. My immortality is assured by you lot.

We walked back through the Trocadero and then up the Avenue Kleber to the Arc de Triomphe.

There were the usual crowds loitering around as you might expect where there’s a tourist attraction. Normally I try to steer clear of these places but when you are in company, you have to bend to the will of others.

We had the choice of going over there to stand underneath it and see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but instead we decided upon a different plan and headed off up the Champs Elysees.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that one thing that features quite prominently on these pages is photographs of people taking photographs.

In Paris you are rather spoilt for choice in that respect, especially in the axe touristique but this one of people doing just that in the Champs Elysees was a photo that was crying out to be taken, and I’ll probably end up paying the penalty for it at some point later in the proceedings.

And from here we went off for another coffee. It’s a long and dusty road down here and the opportunity to sit down, take the weight off your feet and relax is something else not to be missed.

Down at the bottom end of the Champs Elysees is the Tuileries.

This site was originally marshland and the home of various small craftsmen who made roofing times but was gradually bought up by the ruling monarchs of France as the size and importance of the Louvre increased.

It’s now an impressive public garden with ponds and fountains and the like and anyone who is anybody will come here to hire a folding chair and to relax – including us of course, because we are quite important in our own way, but we were just passing through

Down at the far end right across from the Louvre is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.

This was built to celebrate Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 and is said to be a replica of the Arch of Septimus Severius in Rome, built to celebrate the victory of himself and his sons over the Parthians at the end of the second century.

In this case I’ll have to take their word of that because I can’t remember all that much of my visit to Rome. I was too busy helping Marianne on her pilgrimage around the Seven Holy Churches of the city in the Holy Year of whenever it was.

The Pope said that those who accomplished the pilgrimage would receive absolution for their sins and Marianne was quite keen on that idea. But as I visited the churches too, I suppose that that means that I have received absolution too.

Who’d have thought it?

We crossed the road from here and found ourselve< face-to-face with the Louvre.

It’s been about 30 years since I last came here so as we’d all been inside at one time or another and the admission charge isn’t for the faint-hearted we decided to give it a miss.

Instead we wandered off outside the palace grounds towards the river and set our course for the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame. It’s been a while since I was last here and I was keen to see how things had developed.

As we crossed over the bridge on our way to the island I noticed another boat disappearing off into the horizon.

It was actually a cruise boat that i had seen as we were walking down. And it was crowded with tourists too. They must be doing a roaring trade on the river.

There was also a zodiac going past, as I noticed shortly afterwards. That had about half a dozen people on board and that’s much more like my idea of travelling on a river like this to see the sights.

That’s something else that I’ll have to investigate.

You’ll have noticed the crowds of people on the edge of the river just here.

Although you can’t see anything, there was actually a jazz band – a fanfare – performing there and they had drawn quite a crowd.

As we had passed by their spec I had leant over the wall and tried to take a photo of them but it didn’t work unfortunately.

This one is no better because you can’t actually see anything. The standard lens on the NIKON 1 J5 isn’t up to this kind of thing.

The one of the Eiffel Tower isn’t any better either and for the same reason.

However I had to take it because everywhere where we went this morning in the vicinity of the tower we had the sun in our eyes and a photo wouldn’t have worked out.

Once on the island we walked along the river for a while past the Orfevres and I’m glad that they didn’t know that I was coming because that’s the headquarters of the Paris police.

When I’m in that kind of vicinity I usually try to keep a low profile. “Old sins cast long shadows”.

We eventually arrived at the Cathédral de Notre Dame.

And a sorry, sad sight it looked too. One of the finest examples of Gothic art known to mankind, the fire in April 2019 destroyed it and regardless of what anyone says, the craftsmanship simply isn’t there these days to rebuild it in the original fashion and I fear that there will be quite a few corners cut.

They are talking about having it restored and open for visits and worship in 2024 but I wonder what kind of optimistic target that might be

We had another closer look at it and decided that we would go round and approach it from the rear to see what was going on there.

But we were side-tracked first of all by a souvenir shop and then by a café where a waiter took the mickey out of a word that I used that is an Auvergnat dialect word not used in Paris.

That’s something about which I’ve heard so many times from various people but it’s the first time that I’ve ever experienced it

There was more souvenir shopping to be done so that involved a trip on a functioning metro line.

We came up for air at the “Opera” metro station by the Academie Nationale De Musique building.

From there we pushed on to the retail outlet at the Hard Rock Cafe to buy a few things and then headed back on the metro to the hotel.

Now being washed, showered and changed (while I did some work on the computer) we headed off for a meal at the Indian restaurant that I’d seen earlier. And my vegetable curry with rice and naam bread was delicious. I’ll remember that place again.

Just down the road from there is the Moulin Rouge which was all lit up for the evening so I took a photo and then wandered home.

On the way back I had an encounter with one of the resident street drunks and after we had exchanged a few words he asked me “are you Belgian”?

It seems that I’ve retained my Belgiam accent from the 15 years that I lived there, as well as the Auvergnat words from my sejour there as well. I must be becoming really cosmopolitan these days.

So now that I’ve written up my notes I’ll see how the rest of the evening develops.

The night is young and who knows what the passage of time will bring?

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… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting in a rather posh hotel just off the Place Clichy in Paris a mere cockstride from the Moulin Rouge.

And I use the word “we” because I am not alone, and I’m not talking about Strawberry Moose either.

With having had the news that they are going to discuss my heart issues on Thursday when I’m at hospital, one of my friends has rushed to be by my bedside for a long weekend to give me some moral support ready for the (af)fray.

Although whether “moral” is the correct word to be using whenever I’m involved in anything is another consideration completely.

As for who it is, well, let’s just say that it’s someone who features quite regularly in these pages, in a virtual way of course and almost always when I’m on my nocturnal rambles. The rest, you can figure out for yourselves.

These people who figure in my nocturnal rambles by the way – they are real people just in case you are in any doubt. If they are fictitious or imaginary, I say so.

And so how did I prepare for this monumental event?

Well, by going to bed nice and early, and then not being able to sleep a single wink.

And I really do mean that as well. I was lying in bed for 8 hours until the alarm went off at 06:00, watching every hour, every minute, every second tick by. Nevertheless, when the alarm went off at 06:00 I leapt from my bed with alacrity – and you thought that I was on my own there as well, didn’t you?

First task was to back up the files from yesterday onto the little memory stick that I carry with me so that I can back up the portable computer. Then I had butties to make for the journey and with the bread that was left over I had a thick slice of toast with a strong coffee. I have to keep going somehow.

Surprisingly, I had a shower and a clean-up too. I need to look my best.

Having given the apartment the once-over with the bleach I headed off out with my suitcase to head to the railway station.

And by the looks of things I was the only person out there this morning. Most of the fishing boats were tied up at the pontoon there.

No Channel Island ferries though. I would have expected the back by now ready to do sea trials and all of that kind of thing before setting off with fare-paying passengers. After all, they have modified the pontoons at the ferry terminal since they last set out and they are leaving it rather late to check that they are suitable.

There was one trawler at least out at sea working through the night. As I watched, she came back into port.

As to her identity, I do recognise her but I can’t put a name to her. I was far too busy looking over at the ferry terminal because that was rather busy this morning.

Over there I can see the two Joly France ferries and also Chausiaise, the little freighter that runs out to the Ile de Chausey. It looks as if they are expecting to have a busy day today. There have certainly been plenty of people around the town. I must have tripped over hundreds of them.

My route down the hill into town takes me past the ruined houses that were burnt out in the fire.

The temporary roofing job has been finished now by the looks of things and you can see what they have done to make the properties waterproof while discussions about liability and repair continue.

But what the outcome will be is anyone’s guess. I can’t see the middle one – the worst of the three – ever being repaired.

Once more, I didn’t really feel like it. The hike up the hill is slowly killing me but I’m resisting all temptation to take the bus. I have to keep on in there fighting it out

When I eventually arrived at the station I had to wait for a while before my train came in. At least it was a nice morning for a change.

As usual it was one of the Gec Alstom Regiolis trainsets. Well, two trainsets actually and there weren’t all that many people on board so we could all spread out.

However it was fairly crowded by the time that we arrived in Paris but even so, I managed to avoid having company and was thus able to do quite a bit that I would otherwise never have done.

My trainset was actually the one farthest away from the head of the platform at Granville so it was the one nearest the head of the platform in Paris.

That gave me an opportunity to photograph it before I headed off out of the station and down the road on my way to the entrance to the Metro in the Rue de Départ.

Before joining my train I picked up another block of tickets and some tickets for the airport too. And then when I arrived at the Gare du Nord i legged down through the labyrinth underneath as far as the Metro line 2 where I was going to pick up another train going west

This is a photo that I couldn’t resist taking while I was waiting for my next train.

If they really are having a grillade no-stop then in the words of the old song “no one knows what goes on behind closed doors”

Three stations down the line I alighted from my train and headed off on foot for my hotel which, surprisingly, is not too far from the Moulin Rouge (like about 200 yards).

My room was (surprisingly) available so I was checked straight in. And I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that is that I’ve not stayed in too many posher dumps than this. I’m afraid to take off my boots in here.

But I didn’t stay long because I had other fish to fry, like back to the Gare du Nord and then out to the airport where I arrived considerably earlier than intended so I had a long wait. But what’s a long wait when you have decent music to listen to?

Eventually my partner in crime turned up and we fought our way back through the crowds to the hotel.

Later o we went across the road to the Lebanese Restaurant and had a delicious tea. And the chat about old times started – after all, it has been years since we last met in person – but it seemed that current topics of the day were more … well … topical I suppose.

But not to worry – there’s a whole weekend yet to fill in the gaps in our lives.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing. And that is that as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I don’t have too many friends but those I have are the best in the world.

Where else would you find someone who would leap onto an aeroplane and come to hold your hand for a few days at moments of crisis like this? You don’t get many of them to the Pound, I’ll tell you that!

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