Tag Archives: early night

Friday 31st March 2017 – I HAD A NICE AFTERNOON …

… out this afternoon. Liz and Terry, who are in the area somewhere, came to visit me. The first time that I have seen Liz for over a year.

But last night was an awful night; For some totally unknown reason I just couldn’t go to sleep. I’ve no idea why – it wasn’t that the bed here is uncomfortable or that there was a lot of noise – it must be my guilty conscience I suppose.

And it was a struggle to leave the bed though for breakfast. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have really cold soya milk, really cold orange juice and really cold fruit puree. I felt so much better after that.

There were things that needed to be done around here now that I have a reliable internet connection – tons of stuff that I need to download – and then I had an appointment to see an apartment. And it was a nice place too and it’s currently at the top of my list. It has one bedroom, private parking, well within my budget and in a beautiful stone building from the 18th Century BUT it’s at the rear of the building and so doesn’t face the sea. Had it been at the front of the building I would have signed for it on the spot. But there you go.

After lunch I had a doze – and then Liz and Terry came round to awaken me from my reverie. We had a good chat, went for a coffee and then for a drive up and down the coast looking at neighbouring villages to see if there might be anything suitable there.

It’s a beautiful coast just here and with the sun shining out it was a delicious afternoon. St Pair-sur-Mer is particularly beautiful. But I ended up having a “wobble” and so we had to come home. I crashed out for an hour or so as soon as I returned.

I’ve had my tea now – more of last night’s effort “lengthened” by a tin of mushrooms. So I’m having a little relax before bedtime. I’ve had a busy day and with my bad night last night I feel that an early night is called for.

Wednesday 15th March 2017 – THAT WASN’T A VERY NICE …

… night at all.

Not for any shortcomings of the hotel, I hasten to add. This was in fact one of the better Première Classe hotels (but still not as good as the one at Maubeuge last year of course) but nevertheless it took me an age to go off to sleep and then I tossed and turned a good while during the night.

A hot shower brought me round – sort-of-ish, and a good breakfast followed. I had a rest for a while afterwards, and then edited some music tracks so that I have some custom alarm calls and ringtones on my new telephone.

First stop was the Cora supermarket around the corner. And here was a thing.

Those of you with long memories will remember back many years ago about the Morrisons supermarket at Reading where the car park had a height barrier “to stop travellers entering the car park”, but also keeping out anyone with a high vehicle.

Here, they seem to have the same issues, but nevertheless they have managed to make a parking space for high vehicles and here’s a rather dirty Caliburn to prove it.

I’ve hit on a new plan for eating out in hotels, which I’ll explain later. It involves a visit to the shops and the purchase of certain items. But while the supermarket was good and objects at a reasonable price, the woman on the check-outs was useless. Far too busy talking to her friends in the queue to concentrate on what she was doing and as a result she was making mistake after mistake. Not a very good advertisement at all for the store.

Having given Caliburn a really good wash, I had a slow drive through the countryside towards the south-west and into the watershed of the River Loire.

Destination was the town of Toucy, still in the département of the Yonne. I’d driven through here on several occasions 9 or 10 years ago and I’d noticed the old railway artefacts here in the town. Today was the day that I had decided to come to see what was going on

The place was all locked up, and looked as if it had been that way for 10 years. Everything was rusting and decayed, including these beautiful diesel multiple-unit panorama cars.

The driver’s cabin is very interesting, isn’t it? But that kind of thing would never work in the UK with the restricted loading gauge on British railways.

The only British railway network with anything resembling a Continental loading gauge, the Great Central, was closed down in the 1960s.

This was probably the most short-sighted of all of the short-sighted railway “economy” measures of the Beeching era, and replacing it today for the HS2 network is costing the UK billions and billions of Pounds.

That’s the trouble with the UK of course – it’s all down to short-term economies and there isn’t an ounce of long-term vision in anything that the country does.

And they are going to find out that for themselves once Brexit begins to bite.

But leaving aside yet another good rant for a while, I carried on with my wandering around the railway … errr … museum.

As you can see, the exhibits, such as they are, have clearly seen better days and there doesn’t look as if there is anything going on here. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the way of restoration or renovation taking place on the … errr … exhibits here. They are just parked up and abandoned.

This is probably one of the saddest exhibits here on the site.

I don’t know anything very much about French railway locomotives and the like, but this looks as if it’s something quite unusual and interesting – far too interesting to be just stuck here in a siding and left to rot away.

It’s all quite depressing, wandering around here and seeing all of this.

These little locomotives were quite interesting. Yard shunters, I reckon, and made by Baudet Donon and Roussel in the early 1950s.

It’s a little-known fact that this company is actually the successor of the company founded by Gustave Eiffel, he of the tower fame. The company branched out into the construction of railway locomotives and multiple-units, and quite a lot of the company’s equipment found its way onto the French railway network during the period of modernisation after World War II.

These little machines weigh a mere 14 tonnes, are just under 6 metres in length and flat-out, they will travel at all of 16kph.

Mind you, with a Renault 60 horse-power PETROL engine, 8-speed gearbox and chain drive, you aren’t going to get much more out of her.

They were the first locomotives to come of the new SNCF standardisation process after the War and replaced all kinds of assorted yard shunters, including horses and, in at least one case, oxen.

They were essentially a temporary measure and withdrawal of the class started in 1979.

Railway tourism seems to be the up-and-coming thing these days, and this can be accomplished in many different ways.

You might also remember when we were in New Brunswick, Canada, back in October last year, that we saw that old railway bicycle that I admired so much. Combine the two together, and you’ll end up with something like this.

Mind you, it would be really exciting meeting another similar vehicle coming the other way on a single-track line. “Survival of the fittest” is what springs immediately to mind.

There’s a pile of narrow-gauge railway equipment here too, and they have laid some kind of track to accommodate it.

It looks very much like mining or quarrying equipment to me, although there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of mining around here and I’ve no idea where there might be a quarry.

But like everything else around here, it’s all lying around abandoned and there’s no signage or anything to indicate what all of it might be

One thing is quite clear though.

In the past, I’ve been totally scathing of what passes for “preservation” of railway and other historical artefacts in North America. Having seen what is (or isn’t) going on here, I’m going to have to keep my mouth closed, or else start eating some rather large helpings of humble pie.

I couldn’t leave the site though without taking a photo of this sorry machine.

It’s a Van Hool Alizée of the mid-1980s, lying here abandoned in the yard, and it brings back many happy memories for me. 25-30 years ago, I was earning my living travelling around Europe in one of these with piles of tourists when I worked for Shearings Holidays.

Beautiful machines, especially when built on a Volvo chassis, but this one is rear-engined so at first I thought that it might be a Scania. However,it turns out to be a MAN and I never had the opportunity to drive one of these.

Ohhh happy days!

As you may (or may not) know, I have a degree in Historical Technology and just down the road from Toucy is Guedelon.

Guedelon is an extremely interesting place and very high on my list of places to visit because what they are actually doing is building a Medieval castle from scratch.

Not only that, they are using nothing but construction techniques of the period, including man-powered cranes and the like.

You can imagine therefore that this was a place that was also very high on my list of places to visit, and so I set off chaud-pied, as they might say around here, to see what I could see.

But regular readers of this rubbish will know exactly what I discovered when I arrived here.

That’s right. The place is closed “for the season” and despite all of the people wandering around the site pretending to work, it wasn’t possible for me to gain admittance, even just for the purpose of taking a few photos.

That was something that I found extremely miserable.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom because as I arrived at Cosne-Cours sur Loire, I encountered this magnificent beast, and it’s another sad and sorry machine having been abandoned to the elements, despite its rarity value.

It’s a Delahaye fourgonette – I reckon a type B163 – and it’s the type of chassis preferred by the French fire brigades in the early 1950s for the building of specialist vehicles.

But it’s rather a shame to see it sitting here out in the open in a field like this. As I said – I’ll have to stop criticising the North Americans.

By now, it’s time for (a very late) lunch and so I head into the town. The River Loire passes by here in all its magnificence and there’s a nice park across the river from the town that’s a very suitable place to stop.

And, as you have probably noticed, the clouds have gone, the sun is out and there’s a beautiful blue sky to sit and watch me as I eat. It’s a marvellous afternoon and I intend to make the most of it.

The town itself is another one of these beautiful, cramped Medieval cities that has unfortunately seen better days.

There seems to have been a settlement here in Prehistoric times and there was certainly a … errr .. Gallo-Roman settlement called Condate here.

With its comparatively easy crossing of the Loire here, it was the centre of several confrontations throughout history. As far as the British are concerned, its claim to fame was that during the Hundred Years War, Henry V was marching here to meet the Burgundian Army in 1422 when he caught dysentery and died.

His premature death effectively marked the end of any serious hopes that the English might have had of making a permanent conquest of France.

By the 17th Century there was a thriving metallurgical industry here and this was the basis of the wealth of the town. It manufactured fittings for the French naval industry and these were shipped out down the Loire to the naval shipyards downriver.

However the French railway network caused a decline in navigation on the Loire and the metallurgical industry closed down in the 1870s. Some vestiges of the industry lingered on for a while but it all eventually petered out and led to the slow decline of the town.

Today though, it’s the second-largest town in the département of the Nievre after Nevers and as a result it’s become something of an important regional administrative centre.

There’s a beautiful suspension bridge here across the river and this is what had attracted me to the town. I’d never had the time to stop here before.

Unfortunately it’s not the original bridge here. That dated from 1833 but unfortunately that was destroyed during the Second World War. The bridge that’s here today dates from the 1950s but nevertheless, it’s still a magnificent structure and the setting here is tremendous.

Having had a nice walk and a good relax to read my book, I headed off to my hotel. It’s a little place right out of the way in the countryside about 2 miles from the river.

But I’m not alone here- not at all. There’s a 1944 Dodge Lorry – a veteran of the US Army parked here in the barn by the side of my room. It’s certainly the right hotel for me, isn’t it?

And my room is nice and cosy too. This was a good choice.

Tea tonight was something so simple that I’m really surprised that I have never ever considered it before. It’s so easy too, especially in a hotel bedroom and I shall be doing this kind of thing more often.

Half a tin of potatoes, half a tin of mixed vegetables, half a tin of mushrooms and some lettuce all mixed up in salad dressing. Followed by a soya dessert and a chocolate soya drink, with one of these packets of fruit-and-nut mix.

Simple, effective and healthy. You can’t say fairer than that.

And I’ve had a shower, washed my undies and now I’m settling down for the night. See you in the morning.

Friday 3rd March 2017 – PHEW!

I’m totally exhausted!

That was a horrible night, that was. It took me ages to go off to sleep and I forget how many times that I awoke. I had a rather disturbing voyage during the night, and you don’t want to hear about it as you are probably eating your tea by now.

A shower brought me round and then down to breakfast. I was second down but at least my window seat was free. Not that it did me much good because there was no-one walking by. I wasn’t all that hungry either.

Back up in my room I had a chat with Alison and Hannah on the internet, packed my new suitcase (which is actually bigger than the old one) and hit the streets. The old suitcase was consigned to the vuilnisbakje at the hotel, which is a shame because it would still be useful for storing stuff, but it can’t be helped. I don’t want to drag that about with me everywhere.

At the railway station I had a stroke of luck as well. I’d bought my ticket for the 10:08 train to the airport, changing at Gent St Pieters, but as I rounded the corner into the train shed, they were just announcing the departure of the 09:40 direct to Brussels. That made much more sense to me as it gave me many more airport options – and so I leapt aboard.

That was an easy route into Brussels, to be sure, without changing trains – or even seats – and I was in good time too. I could dash across to the hotel – the Hotel Midi-Zuid – where I’ll be for the next few days.

My room wasn’t ready, which was no surprise at all at 11:00, but they had a consigne where I could leave my luggage. And that was what I was really after. Having done that, I headed back to the Gare du Midi and hopped on the next train to the Airport at Zaventem.

I had to wait for a while but soon enough my niece’s daughter Hannah appeared. She’s from Canada of course but she’s on a student exchange right now in Madrid. There was a cheap flight opportunity to Brussels this weekend, and this is the reason why I’ve been hanging around.

We were on the train back to Brussels and back to the Hotel Midi-Zuid. Hannah’s room was ready but mine wasn’t, but never mind. Hannah was soon down, and we went off for a walk.

Our route was the old coach driving route that I used to do around the city centre, but with a couple of short pedestrian refinements. Stops for a couple of coffees here and there, a visit to the odd museum or two, and then a meal, and we were back here by 21:00, totally exhausted and I’ll pay for this effort, that’s for sure.

So I’m going to have an early night to give my legs a chance to ease off. I’ll have a shower later to help me to relax and then I’ll feel so much better. But right now, I’m putting my feet up.

Thursday 2nd March 2017 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

… having had a decent, long walk or two during the day yesterday was that I was in no fit state this morning.

It took me a while to go off to sleep, and I was flat out until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. Firstly, I was the adviser to a Politician who bore a most remarkable resemblance to a certain new Transatlantic Politician. I was dismayed with his plans and decided to resign my position, but I felt that many of the plans had been designed with that aim in view. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to hang around.
A little later, I was back on the buses – working for a coach company that was based in a town that bore more than just a passing resemblance to Middlewich. Two of our coaches, carrying football supporters who had been to watch Northwich Victoria, and they pulled into our yard. By the time that I had caught up with them, they had been parked in a really difficult position in an alcove and I was amazed at how the drivers had managed to park them there. Only one coach was able to go on to drop off everyone so some folk had to be left behind, and this led to all kinds of confusion and anguish in the depot amongst the passengers.

Two families were ahead of me at breakfast, and one of them was sitting in my place right in the window. I had to sit somewhere else.

Back up here, I had the opportunity to go to meet Sean in Gent but I wasn’t up to it and was obliged to decline. instead, I had a good relax on my bed for a while.

After all, the weather wasn’t fit for anyone to be outside. The wind was whipping up quite a storm and there was no-one on the promenade.

You can see exactly what I mean by looking at how the waves are pounding away on this ship as it was trying to negotiate its way into the harbour. And there weren’t any other ships around in the vicinity as there usually are.

It really was rough out there.

But I couldn’t stay in my stinking little pit all day – I had things to do. And it was on my travels that I saw the aforementioned ship, the Bellini coming into port.

She’s another Luxembourg-registered ship, and stands much more chance of sailing up the Moselle River because she displaces just over 2000 tonnes. She’s a chemical tanker and was built in 2000.

But I can’t understand how it is that just recently Luxembourg has now acquired a merchant marine.

It is rather reminiscent of the story about when Austria joined NATO and was introducing its officials to the other members. One of the officials was described as “our Minister of Marine”.
“Don’t be silly” said Solana, the NATO President. “Austria is a landlocked country. How come it has a Minister of Marine?”
“Well,” replied the Austrian President. “Bulgaria has a Minister of Culture, Belgium has a Minister of Justice, so we are going to have a Minster of Marine”

I had a look around the other hotels here to see what the prices might be like, but there was nothing that might give me much of a better deal, and I ended up at the Delhaize to buy lunch. Grapes were on special offer, two punnets for the price of one and that was cheap too, so I stocked up.

On the way back I went for a prowl around the shops to look for a new bag to replace the suitcase on which the handle broke on the way here.

I ended up in a shop called Kruidvat, and this all caught my eye. Weigh-your-own sweets, but with allergy labels. When did you ever see that? I had to buy 100 grams as a gesture of solidarity.

They also had a suitable tote bag thing with wheels. The cheapest that I had seen, and it looked it too, all at €12:99. But needs must when the devil drives so I liberated an example. If it does me until I return home (where I have a choice of several) it will be fine.

Back here, I was dismayed to discover that they hadn’t cleaned my room. but not to worry – I made myself some butties seeing as it was lunchtime. Baguette, tomato and vegan cheese followed by a bunch of grapes.And then I … errr … closed my eyes for a couple of minutes.

At 15:30 a banging on my door awoke me. The cleaners wanted to do the room. I went out for a coffee – to that good place where I was yesterday, and watched the people on the promenade (because the wind had eased) being blown all around.

After that, I had a good walk and was back here for 17:00 in my nice clean room.

This is my restaurant from last night, the La Margarita where I had my good Italian penne last night.

But I’d noticed the one next to it. This certainly wasn’t here last November, so today I went to check it out. And sure enough, it’s a Syrian restaurant called the Damas and advertises falafel.

As a result of this exploration, I decided that this would be my port of call for tonight.

And wasn’t that a good decision? Here’s my falafelschotel and this little lot cost me all of a mere €8:50 and if there is better value for this anywhere in Oostende, I’d love to be able to find it.

The people who run it are Syrian refugees from Aleppo, and it nails the lie that these people are coming to Western Europe to sponge off the State.

Hard-working people who can cook meals like this should be welcomed anywhere and everywhere.

So there’s no-one on line to chat to tonight, so I’m off to bed for an early night. My hectic weekend starts tomorrow at about 12:30 so I want to be on form.

Monday 20th February 2017 – I’M BACK …

… in the bad sleep rhythm again unfortunately. Last night was one of those like I was havong a few nights ago, tossing, turning, waking up, unable to go back to sleep.

MInd you, I was asleep enought to go on my travels. To Tibet, I told myself, but it was actually Nepal where I was – with no Chinese soldiers about. I was crossing the country and in the centre was some guy who was restoring these three-wheeled motorcycle things that had a motorcycle front and a flatbed at the back for the carriage of goods. They had all kinds of weird vehicles there and I was really keen to buy something unusual to take home, so I had quite a chat with this guy. But I was in a hurry to be on my way so I continued on my trip. Later that evening I was looking for a hotel but I realised that I had left the country and that was a shame – I hadn’t thought about it at the time but it would have been a good idea and a feather in my cap to have stayed for a night in Nepal/Tibet and add it to the list of countries where I had stayed.

My Dutch/Russian friend was at breakfast and so was the other guy, so they talked amongst themselves and left me to it. But the other guy is leaving today so the Dutch guy and I tomorrow are going to empty all of the fridges, clean them, and throw away everything that doesn’t belong to us.

Later that morning I went up to the hospital to see the Welfare girl. I need a prognostic of my condition because it’s possible that if they acknowledge that my health will deteriorate, I might be able to claim an extra allowance for home help, and that will be nice. But she wasn’t so hopeful that this kind of thing will be possible.

After lunch I got on the phone to the people in Evaux les Bains. Caliburn still has his bump in the rear and the insurance company says that this garage can fix it for me. You remember that I visited there in December for an inspection of Caliburn. He’s booked in for Monday 13th March and they will let me have a rental vehicle while Caliburn is being fixed. They’ll also be dealing with the rust issues on the nearside sill.

As usual, I had a crash out and then I went up to make tea. Oven chips, beans and veggie burgers, followed by the last of the pineapples and vegan ice cream.

I’ll be having an early night now and getting ready for yet another day out tomorrow.

Wednesday 15th February 2017 – THERE’S GOING TO BE …

… a change of plan in the near future. No matter what they say to me at the hospital on 27th February, I shan’t be going home the following day as it now seems that I have other fish to fry

While you admire the Botanical Gardens, or Jardin Botanique or Kruidtuin of Leuven, where I went a-wandering this afternoon, I can fill you in about my day today.

Although I was late going off to sleep, I slept solidly until about 06:30 when I was awoken by whatever it is that awoke me. No chance of going back to sleep and so I fretted and frittered in my bed until the alarm went off, and then I climbed upstairs to see where we were with the breakfast

Someone who had passed by during the night had left us some bread for breakfast, although there wasn’t much else (although they did pass by today and stock up) so the bread that I had saved from my baguette yesterday wasn’t needed.

However, given a quick 20 seconds in the microwave at lunchtime, it freshened up really well so that I only ate half of the baguette that I bought today. I’ll freshen that off tomorrow and that will save me having to buy one on Friday.

And that’s just as well too, because I ain’t gonna be here on Friday. I have things to do, places to go, people to see.

During the morning I had a pile of stuff to do. This involving sending out a huge raft of e-mails and having an intense discussion with someone on the internet, as a result of all of which I now have to stay on here in Belgium for an extra week or so.

Not that I’m complaining of course – it’s nice to have all of these changes of plans, even if it does mean that my return home will be postponed for yet another week. I’ve probably forgotten where my house is by now

While I was out buying my baguette I noticed that there were no fewer than 5 black plastic storage boxes in the rubbish skip. One of them was pretty well crushed about but the other four were good, so I liberated them on the way back here.

It’s quite ironic that I took three down to Caliburn the other day in order to make a bit more space here, and just a couple of days later I’ve ended up with more than I started with.

After lunch I occupied myself with some tidying up in here, getting rid of another pile of paperwork, and the place looks a little more tidy here than it did previously.

And then I wandered down to Caliburn. I wasn’t sure what I needed to do down there but I went all the same. Started him up and let him tick over for 15 minutes. I did some tidying up in the back and just brought back some bottles of drink and a soya milk.

It was such a nice afternoon that I walked back the long way through the Botanical Gardens. It really was beautiful in there, and the smells were totally overpowering.

The bulbs were starting to sprout too and it all looked and smelt very much like spring in there. There weren’t many people in there but everyone seemed to be enjoying it. And quite right too.

Back here I had a crash out for a while and then went off to make tea. I remembered to put the olives in tonight’s kidney bean mix, and I also remembered to take up my pineapple rings to eat with my vegan ice-cream.

And another one of my housemates has invited me out for a drink. There are a lot of lonely people in places like this.

So now it’s another early night, to see if I can have a good sleep. I could do with it after all of this excitement today.

Sunday 12th February 2017- AND FINALLY …

… I had the sleep for which I’d been waiting for a few weeks.

It was quite early last night that I took to my bed and that was that. I vaguely remember awakening to switch off the laptop, and then nothing whatever until the alarm went off. If I had been on my travels during the night, I know nothing about it.

Not only that, I must have gone back to sleep after that because the second alarm at 07:15 awoke me yet again. It was rather late that struggled up to breakfast, where I was completely on my own.

Back down here I dozed off for an hour or so, and all of that constitutes the best sleep that I’ve had for ages and I’m so grateful for that. And once I’d come round afterwards and gathered my wits, which doesn’t take too long these days, I attacked the photo and the text for yesterday’s blog. I’d gone to sleep last night without having even started it.

During the course of the morning I had a chat with Liz and with The One That Got Away, and that took me nicely up to lunchtime, when I encountered one of my housemates downing a bowl of soup.

Excitement this afternoon though. The guy who used to live here sent me a message to say that he was in the bar down the road, and would I like to join him? Regular readers of this rubbish remark that I need to get out more often, and this was a good chance.

However, I didn’t stay out too long because Morton were playing Rangers and I was hoping to find it streamed somewhere on the internet (which it wasn’t). But in any case, it was just as well because they lost. The only pne of the teams that I follow who did manage to lose this weekend (Crewe Alex, Bangor Ciy and OH Leuven all managed to win).

This evening I made a pizza and garlic bread for tea, and they were delicious.

So after my nice relaxing day, I’m going for another early night to see if I can have as good a sleep as I had last night. That was wonderful.

Saturday 12th February 2017 – THEY’VE DONE IT AGAIN!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that 5 weeks ago we went off to Lier to watch Lommel United play. And despite how well Lommel played, they conceded five really extraordinary and unlucky goals.

Today, OH Leuven were at home, and playing Lommel United. This is a real bottom-of-the-table clash which was a really important match for OH Leuven to win if they are to put any distance between themselves and the bottom of the table.

And it all started to go wrong for OH Leuven on the tenth minute. A corner put high into the OH Leuven penalty area, a Lommel United player falls to the floor, and the referee blows for a penalty. It was down at the far end of the field through the gloom and the mist of the evening (it was quite foggy again) and I couldn’t see what happened so I’ve no idea whether or not I agreed with the decision. Not that it made any difference because the decision was made, and a goal was scored.

So OH leuven had fallen behind in this important match, but it didn’t matter because sure enough, Lommel United’s self-destruct button went off again. On the attack down the centre of the field about 25 yards out, the OH Leuven n°31 Storm had a shot on goal. It was covered by the goalkeeper but the ball hit one of his own players on the back, looped up into the air, and dropped right into the opposite corner of the net.

If this wasn’t bad enough, 10 minutes later was even worse. With the Lommel United defence in something of a panic, the OH Leuven right winger broke down to the touch-line and drove a hard cross low into the penalty area. A Lommel United player stuck out a foot to stop the ball, and diverted it straight into his own net.

And that was that!

Last night was the worst night yet. I was still wide awake at 03:30, totally unable to go off to sleep. At some point I did manage to drop off to sleep, and struggled upstairs to breakfast at 07:00. I didn’t eat much of it. One of my two rounds of toast and more than half of my muesli ended up in the bin, and that’s a rare event isn’t it?

Back down here afterwards, I set the alarm for 11:00 and went back to bed and sleep. However, by 09:30 I was back awake again and I can get on and do stuff.

Not for long though. Alison sent me a text message, to say that she was in a café in town. Would I like to join her?

It was just as well that I’d had a good wash earlier this morning so it didn’t take me long to be on my way. Given the snow and the freezing cold outside, I put on two pairs of trousers. You remember that I have an over-size pair that I brought back from Canada. I couldn’t remember why I had this pair, but it all became clear the other week when I went off to Lier in minus 4°C or whatever it was.

Alison and I had a good chat over coffee, and then went round the corner to the fritkot for lunch. I had a falafel wrap which was more than enough, despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten very much at all for breakfast.

We went for a walk around the shops afterwards, and then back to another café to warm ourselves after the walk because it really was freezing outside. Alison then went off for her bus, and I took a walk down the Naamsestraat towards the football ground.

I was waylaid on several occasions down the street

There was an archway kind of thing on the right-hand side of the street that led into a courtyard. I hadn’t noticed this place before and seeing as there was no-one about and no “private property” notice, I went in there for a butcher’s.

Down at the far end of the courtyard was a low wall and so I nipped down there to peer over the top to see what I could see. The Naamsestraat up to this point was something of a climb, and the street then descended towards the football ground.

At this point, possibly the highest point in the street, there seems to be something of a scarp slope down to the River Dijle, and you can see right across the valley to the block of flats that are in the distance, at the end of the Kapucijnenvoer.

or, at least, you could, if the weather had been better

Had I been some kind of Lord or nobleman during the Iron Age or the early Medieval period, this is just the kind of place where I would have wanted to erect my fortress.

These natural defences (the scarp slope and the ascents up the main street in both directions) would be very useful and save me a lot of work when it came to building my fortifications. It’s very hard for a marauding army to charge uphill and even a few simple defences could bring it to a halt.

The presence of some kind of stately mansion such as this (I wasn’t able to find out what it might have been) is some kind of indication that an important family has lived here for a while.

Even if it was formerly some kind of religious institution, the land would inevitable have been donated by someone important. And it’s quite a usual procedure, as we have mentioned many times in the past, for a small chapel attached to an early fortress to eventually increase in size and importance and over-grow the medieval defences as the need for religion increased and the need for defence diminished.

That’s why it’s quite common to find large churches built on what look like some very impressive castle mounds

The gardens of the big building were landscaped and looked really nice, but there was no indication as to whether this was a public park or not.

Had the weather been nice and had I not been in something of a rush, I might have been tempted to go for a wander around. But the football was beckoning and so I didn’t want to hang about too long.

Besides, I was freezing to death standing here and it wasn’t very pleasant to hand around and take photos. I’ll end up with frostbite or something

There’s a music shop close by, so I went for an explore. Unfortunately, although there was a reasonable stock on display, it was all mainstream equipment with nothing particular that caught my eye.

Now this is how to enjoy yourself at a football match. Here they are, munching on a huge hamburger and clutching a tray of six beer glasses. It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?

When I took up my seat at the ground, there was almost nobody in the stadium. But as the two teams ran out onto the pitch, the masses swarmed out of the beer tent and took their places in the stands. We ended up with 2,300-odd people in the crowd.

And despite all of the empty spaces in the ground, some old goat had a good moan about how I was sitting in his seat.

I found that quite amusing, but not as amusing as many years ago when I was in Southport one Saturday afternoon and to pass the time, had gone along to Haig Avenue where Southport Reserves were playing. 30 people in the ground, and I was leaning on a crash barrier, one of about only 10 people standing on the “popular side”, when some other old goat came along and said “that’s my space there where you are standing”.
.

I’ve told you about the highlights of the match, but that kind of thing doesn’t explain everything that went on.

Kostovski, the big Macedonian centre-forward, was in the thick of the action, bulldozing his way through the defence. But after the penalty award, he went down like a sack of bricks under a challenge in the Lommel United penalty area. The referee waved at him to get to his feet, and my opinion was that Kostovski was lucky that he didn’t receive a yellow card. But while he was beating his fists on the ground in frustration, he was caught offside as OH Leuven regained possession of the ball. This kind of thing makes me despair of footballers.

However, round about 25 minutes or so, he was taken off the field with a foot injury. His replacement was a player called Loemba, who was a winger. This left Casagolda up front on his own, and this rather blunted the OH Leuven attack. Not only that, Loemba was not having a good day at the office.

If that wasn’t enough, after about 80 minutes or so, The OH Leuven manager took off Casagolda, and brought on yet another winger, the n°10 who had played so well against AFC Tubize a few weeks ago. And so now we were treated to some really rapid OH Leuven breakaways down the field and down the wings, but with not a soul up in the penalty area to receive the ball and take on the Lommel United keeper. On several occasions, the OH Leuven wingers were just run to earth in the corner by the Lommel United full-backs.

On the way back, I went to the Carrefour to do my weekend’s shopping. I remembered to buy my bread but I forgot my olives. I also bought some more of that vegan lemon sorbet and a few fresh-fruit packs seeing as they were reduced in price.

Back here, I wasn’t all that hungry so I had a couple of rounds of cheese on toast.

Liz was on line when I switched on the laptop so we had a good chat. But I couldn’t last out. I’d not had my sleep this afternoon and I’d had a bad night too. I was out of it, and curled up and went off to sleep quite early.

Monday 6th February 2017 – I CERTAINLY PAID …

… for my day out yesterday.

Once I finally managed to drop off to sleep, I was out like a light – dead to the world in fact. I felt nothing at all until the alarm went off, and I didn’t feel very much after that either.

After breakfast, I came back down here and went back to sleep, where I stayed until 09:30. Flat out.

Once I’d come round and had a coffee to rouse myself from my stupor, I made a start on my blog entry from yesterday. I’d crashed out pretty quickly after I’d returned home last night, without doing very much at all except to edit some of the photos.

I managed to go round for the baguette from the supermarket and as they had carrots on special offer I bought a punnet for cooking – remember that I have some meat pies to eat. On the way back, I recovered two more black plastic boxes.

But it was a struggle to go there, just as it is to climb the stairs. Apart from the muscle that I pulled last night as I arrived home, I have a pain in my left foot, pains in my knees and in my groin as well as in a few other places too.

Cracking on with my magnum opus, it finished up with 18 photos and a magnificent 3331 words, which is a record for a day’s entry under any circumstances and deserves a medal all on its own. I was exhausted.

Liz came on line too and we had a little chat too.

Tea was exciting – I boiled a few potatoes and carrots, and while they were doing I fried some onions and garlic in turmeric and cumin. Once the onions were cooked I added the par-boiled potatoes and carrots, and a tin of lentils and a tin of vegetables, some pepper and a stock cube.

There was enough for four meals, which is fine seeing as I have found the long-missing seal for one of the glass storage jars. One helping with rice and a banana drink went down a treat. It was delicious.

Now I’m going to have an early night and catch up with my recovery. I knew that I would have to pay for my day out yesterday, so I’m not all that bothered.

I hope that I’ll be feeling better tomorrow.

Saturday 4th February 2017 – YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… how it is that I’m blogging so early tonight.

The answer is that I’m not that hungry and I don’t feel like eating anything. In fact, I left half my breakfast this morning, and also some of my lunch. I’m clearly not all that well again, and I can’t understand why, because I feel all right in myself.

I had a good sleep too, just for a change. So much so that I hadn’t switched off the laptop properly, and it took ages to reboot afterwards. And I haven’t been out shopping either because I don’t really need anything this weekend – not even a baguette.

For lunch, I had an invitation out. Or, rather, I invited someone out for lunch. Hans is on his travels back to Germany and was passing through this morning. He had a couple of hours to spare and so I invited him for a coffee. Then we went down to the Asian fast-food place for a quick curry.

Back here this afternoon, I had a crash out for half an hour, something that seems to be becoming a habit these days.

And that’s my lot.

But tomorrow, I’m off out for the day is the weather holds out. OH Leuven are playing away at Roeselare and they are a team that I’ve yet to see – and I haven’t been to Roeselare for 20 years at least. It’s a long way to the football ground from the town centre so I’ll be starting early and having a wander around the town instead.

That is – if the weather holds out.

So now I’m going to have a quiet evening and then an early night.

Sunday 29th January 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… afternoon!

Alison sent me a message – “I’m going to the English Shop. Do you need anything?”

My reply was simple and to the point. “Why don’t I come with you?”

And so Alison came to pick meup and we went off to the shop. I came back with vegan sausages, vegan pies, dandelion and burdock pop and some Bombay mix. So that’s me set up for the next few weeks, isn’t it? The pies out there are delicious and go down well with spuds and veg. But I also have more kidney bean stuff and a pizza to eat too, so I’m not short of food.

After that, we went for a coffee and then for a meal. We tried a new fritkot as the usual one is undergoing renovation and … shock! horror! the guy in there knows me from somewhere. Dunno where, but he greeted me like a long-lost friend, and that’s uncomfortable. And he made a reference to where we had met but he spoke so fast that I didn’t understand it.

Last night, I had a good sleep – for a change. I tried the usual tactic of watching a Bulldog Drummond film in bed. And that was me stark out. I’d been on my travels too, to visit a couple that I know on the Wirral. But they had moved house and were living on the ground floor in a terraced house. It seemed that they only had one room – I asked about upstairs and they said that this was a different flat, and as for the other room, this was lived in by a girl who had some kind of unusual attachment to the male person in this couple. In fact, all-in-all, I know someone – or two people in fact – who would be very uncomfortable with the significance of this dream.

The trouble with going to bed early and crashing stark out is that you wake up early. And I was awake long before 06:00 too. but I didn’t go up for breakfast until the usual 07:00. I was on my own up there too.

And to my dismay I found that I’d forgotten my loaf yesterday. I had to go out and buy a baguette and even at 08:30 they had sold out. I had to have bread rolls instead.

But this morning has been busy. Editing a pile of photos and a few blog entries, discussing a few things with friends on the internet and watching a football match on the internet from yesterday.

So now, let’s try another Bulldog Drummond film. See if this sends me off to sleep. After all, it’s hospital tomorrow!

Monday 23rd January 2017 – I PAID …

… for my exciting weekend today, as you might expect. Struggled to finish my lunch before I crashed out, and then was gone until about 16:30. Completely too, and it was a struggle to come round again.

Last night didn’t help much though. I struggled to go to sleep – it took ages to drop off but at least I had a deep undisturbed sleep – until 06:30 when my Eastern European housemates awoke. They are reasonably quiet in their behaviour so I can’t complain too much, but 06:30 is rather early to start running around and showering and all of that.

They remembered to bring breakfast around so at least we had fresh bread today. But they had forgotten to empty the waste bin for a couple of days running now so that’s overflowing now.

After breakfast, I had a slow steady morning and then went for a walk. I need some shopping so I decided to walk right down to the Carrefour by the football ground. And I’m glad that I did too because they were selling 1-litre tubs of vegan citron sorbet for just €2:00, as well as large tins of pineapple slices for €0:59. That means that my puddings for the next few days will be extremely interesting.

Of course, this afternoon passed by without much of a whimper and I was talking to my little-niece Hannah on the internet. She’s come to Madrid for 6 months under a University exchange scheme and that will do her good. I’m all in favour of young people broadening their horizons as much as they possibly can.

Tonight I had my pizza and garlic bread for tea, and now I’m having an early night for I’m having visitors tomorrow.

I’ve had more visits here than I ever had living back in the Auvergne haven’t I? At least there’s some benefit to living here, isn’t there?

Wednesday 18th January 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… was something a bit more like it too.

Although it took me ages to go off to sleep (I was reading Vaino Tanner’s notes on the Finnish expedition to Labrador until something silly in the morning) I ended up soundly asleep until the Eastern European workmen awoke me at 06:30. They were actually quite quiet during the night which was very a pleasant surprise.

On my own at breakfast, I came back down here and … errr … went back under the bedclothes to keep warm (it was minus 5°C outside). The next thing that I remembered was that it was 11:10. I’d slept for 3 hours without any difficulty at all.

Braving the freezing cold I nipped out to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette and an apple – I’ve run out of fruit in here. But making my butties at lunchtime, I was joined by a Far-Eastern woman and another man whom I don’t recall having seen before.

I pressed on with my expedition notes this afternoon in between crashing out somewhat. We’ve hit the anthropological stuff now, and he talks at great length about the Inuit. He’s tentatively identified a new race of Inuit round about the 15th Century that began to push aside the Thule Inuit, but fails to draw the obvious conclusion from his notes

Although now discredited by almost everyone despite the efforts of James Enterline in his book Viking America: The Norse Crossings and Their Legacy, the obvious conclusion has quite a logical ring to it – in that with the Little Ice Age descending on Greenland in the mid-14th Century and the Norse settlers being cut off from Iceland by the dramatic deterioration in weather, the only way for the Norse to escape the weather would be to head west and live off the ocean instead of the land.

Like many Europeans since then – in fact right up until the early 20th century, the quickest way for a new settler to assimilate traditional survival skills in a hostile environment is to take a native spouse who can teach you the necessary skills. Most of the population of Labrador are descendants of mixed unions of European men and Inuit women, and had the Norse assimilated (and there is no reason to suppose that they didn’t – they aren’t likely to have sat around and starved or frozen to death), there would be a completely mixed gene pool within just a couple of generations. And with their better technology and knowledge of iron, they would quickly have overwhelmed the less-developed Thule culture.

And the timescale fits too.

Liz and I had a good chat on the laptop later and then I went for tea. I was on my own for most of the time except for a young family with a baby (so we have this to deal with tonight).

Now I’m off for a shower and a change of clothes, and then I’ll be having an early night.

Tuesday 17th January 2017 – THIS REALLY WAS …

… delicious tonight – and if the improvement overnight is anything to go by, it’s going to be magnificent by the time that I get to the last portion.

On a plate too – not out of a saucepan either. And because it looked so nice and the presentation was so good, I took a photo of it. Just imagine it with some fennel and coriander leaves sprinkled over the top.

And I wasn’t alone in the kitchen either. I have been invaded by a pile of Eastern European workmen. There are at least five of them and they were eating away in the kitchen when I went up there. They seem friendly enough inasmuch as we could understand each other, but I wonder how noisy they are going to be.

That’s quite a good point on which to ponder too, because for once, last night, I had my best sleep for ages. In bed early, crashed out quickly enough, awoke to switch off the laptop and then I remember nothing at all until the alarm clock went off.

Well, that’s not quite correct either because I’d been on a mega-ramble during the night. And a mega-ramble it was too. I was with the girl who has been described in these pages as “The One That Got Away”. We’d gone to buy a caravan from some kind of second-hand car sales place. We’d turned up as soon as the place opened, explained what we wanted, and were told to wait. And wait we did, for five hours at least until we lost patience. We then went off in search of a salesman but ended up with the female secretary again, the one whom we had seen as we arrived. She wouldn’t put us in touch with a salesman instead but came out with a variety of reasons why we couldn’t see one – all kinds of silly statements such as “if we moved he caravan what is going to happen about the bare, worn patch where the caravan is sitting?”. Despite the silliness of the questions and the ease with which we could answer the questions and solve the problem, she just came up with even more silly problems and we weren’t getting anywhere with this.

A little later I was with the father of Zero, a girl who sometimes accompanies me on my travels although she wasn’t out there tonight. We were driving somewhere in Canada at the back of Montreal.The road that we were taking was a road that I didn’t know but at a T-junction where we hit a main road, I suddenly recognised the road and where we were – we had just come a different way round. We were very low on fuel but it didn’t really matter because I knew that along this road was a big “Shell” service station where we could stop.

We haven’t finished yet either. I was back at school, and it was here that I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It was just a case of getting on as best as I could – the same for a few other people who were having similar problems. One boy in particular was having a hard time coming to terms with his illness and I had to keep on telling him to pull himself together. But then he put in another appearance, moping around, and although I could only see him from behind I was convinced that it was him, so I snapped at him to “pull himself together”. He turned round and it wasn’t him but a good friend of mine whose wife was ill, and I immediately regretted having said what I had said. We ended up having a chat about our various problems but it wasn’t doing anyone any good.

Yes, with a night like that, I can do with another half-dozen

I was alone at breakfast, and then came back down here to carry on with my work. I’m still on the notes of that Finnish expedition and we are discussing vegetation right now. I’m up to page 424 and that’s about half-way. I can’t wait to get onto the history and anthropology bits, but whenever that might be, I really have no idea.

What is interesting though is that they haven’t actually gone into the interior – I suppose that in 1937-39 the interior of Labrador is pretty much unexplored. They are making interpretations of the interior based on other people’s published voyages and I note that the works of Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace are referred to quite often, as well as the notes of an explorer by the name of AP Low who went into the interior in the late 19th century in a canoe.

As an aside, it was Low’s badly-drawn maps that led Leonidas Hubbard up a creek without a paddle on his ill-fated voyage of 1903. Low only recorded one river at the end of Grand Lake when there are in fact three, the Beaver, the Susan and the Naskaupi, and Hubbard could only find one – but the wrong one.

I’ve had a play around with my 3D program too, as well as a good crash-out after lunch. So soon after lunch that I hadn’t even drunk my lunchtime coffee.

And I made it to the supermarket for my baguette today. There were also a couple of black plastic storage boxes in the rubbish, so I’ve liberated those too. I really do need to take some down to Caliburn as my room is filling up. At the last count there’s 11 of them in here.

Now here’s a thing.

Parked in the Kruisstraat this morning was an almost-new BMW saloon. And a short while after it pulled up and the owner disappeared, another car pulled up.

The driver was extremely interested in the vehicle and stopped, took out a camera, and snapped it about a dozen times from all angles, including a close-up of the rear number-plate and of the wheels.

And then he got back into his car and drove off.

Of course, I’m making no suggestion or allegation whatever. In fact, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m quite often pulling up at the side of the road to take photos of vehicles parked in the street or in people’s driveway.

But not of brand-new BMWs though, and it did look rather weird to me. But without any doubt he had a good reason for doing it.

So now, I’m going to try to have an early night again. Despite all of the new arrivals, I hope that my sleep will be as good as last night’s!

Sunday 15th January 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about suffering today for my efforts of yesterday.

Although I had a brief awakening at about 06:10, I don’t really remember anything until 07:00 when the alarm went off, and although I remember switching it off again, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 07:15 for the second call. That’s not happened for months, if not years, that’s for sure. I didn’t even have to leave my bed during the night, never mind going on a nocturnal ramble.

I was alone at breakfast and once I came down here, I crashed out until 09:30. And then I wasn’t up to much for quite a while. And aching too! Yes, I knew that I had had a tough day yesterday.

Once I’d gathered my wits, which doesn’t take long these days, I rewrote yesterday’s entry – all 2004 words of it – and included the photographs that I had taken. That took me most of the day, as it happened. It’s not very often that I din’t feel up to that kind of thing.

For lunch I had my butties, using the loaf that I had bought yesterday morning. And I was joined by the boy-friend who was making a coffee. It’s the djervushka‘s last day today and she said goodbye to me. But I’m not alone. There’s an Asian woman here as well as some others on the ground floor whom I have yet to meet. I’m not even sure if there really is anyone there, but there is certainly some kind of noise from down below.

My pizza and garlic bread tonight was excellent. I think that I’ve finally sussed out the little table-top oven because everything came out superbly. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Talking of enjoying it, I forgot to mention these yesterday.

While we were in Aachen yesterday we walked into a shopping arcade where there was an absolutely overwhelming smell of licorice. Further enquiries revealed a stall selling home-made sweets, some of which were fennel-flavoured.

Having checked that they were vegan, I treated myself to a packet. And they are delicious.

Not only that, in an ordinary run-of-the-mill supermarket, they were selling vegan chocolate. And one lot was made with coconut milk and contained coconut gratings. And this is the nicest chocolate that I have have ever tasted.

I’m well-impressed with this and it makes me feel much better.

So now, it’s early-night time yet again. And I’ll probably have a bad night tonight seeing as how I’ve done nothing at all. I seem to sleep so much better when I move about during the evening.

EPIC HALL

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