Tag Archives: radio anglais

Thursday 8th August 2013 – I HAVEN’T FINISHED …

…my magnum opus for “Radio Anglais” as I had hoped.

I’m not too disappointed though – because I haven’t by any means been idle. The notes that I had prepared from last time ran to something like 15kb.

By the close of play today I’ve more than doubled that to 32kb, which is he equivalent of about 800 lines of text and over 5770 words.

Usually a radio programme’s “technical notes” bit runs to about 3.5kb so I’m looking at an equivalent of 10 programmes and maybe more (because I’ve still plenty of stuff to go at) and that will suit me fine.

Yes, 5 weeks to record just before I go and 5 weeks to record as soon as I come back.

Some more furniture might be going too. Someone has been round to look at the big wardrobe and made an offer.

I was hoping for more but I want to empty the place as quickly as possible so I shall gnash my teeth and let it go. She’s coming back for it on Tuesday – I hope she won’t have changed her mind.

Apart from that we had a pile of visits of people to look at the apartment. Some are clearly timewasters, of course, but one or two look more interested. We shall have to see.

I’m not too discouraged, though. In order to find a prince you need to kiss a lot of frogs.

I had another good dream too. I was at a product fair somewhere in the UK selling stuff related to my business but throughout all of the day I didn’t sell a tap, which was disappointing. A short while later I was wandering around Wistaston Road in Crewe near where the old timber yard was, which by now was all closed up and weed-infested, and I was following a couple of girls who were looking for old cars – Morris Oxford MO-type and pre-Farina Austin A50s and the like. And as I came to the bottom of Delamere Street where it joins Flag Lane round by the Old Vine, a pre-Farina A50 estate turned up into the street in front of me. I remember thinking to myself “how lucky – the only abandoned cars you see around here these days are old Morris Minors”

Yes, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, is it?

-12

Wednesday 7th August 2013 – Yum Yum Yum

home made apple pie brussels belgium august aout 2013Yes indeed – tonight’s tea included a generous slice of home-made apple pie and soya ice cream.

I have to be honest and say that the apple pie is not one of my best – it’s overcooked, unfortunately (not burnt).

I am the first to say that I have a lot to learn when it comes to baking, but I’m never going to learn if I don’t have a go and at least it’s not an absolute disaster like my pear tart on the Ile D’Yeu.

The agent immobilier came round this afternoon with a few clients but no-one interesting.

One of them implied that he would make me an offer, but his sickly, smarmy smile told me everything that I needed to know about the kind of offer that he was likely to make so I told him not to waste my time or his time.

Someone else has made an offer on the place but the agent immobilier told them to save their breath.

The thing about offers of this nature is that the market is rather stagnant and there are people in Brussels with cash, so they wander around and make derisory offers, waving the used oncers under the nose of a suitable victim in the hope that he will crack.

Not that I’m complaining about this – that was exactly how I bought Expo, except that I only pretended to have the cash. If you were a follower of the old Xoom blog you will recall the panic that I had and the efforts that I had to make when my bluff was called.

Apart from that, I was up waayyyyyy before the alarm and I’ve done the additional notes for the next batch of Radio Anglais recordings and I’ve made a start on the main text.

With a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby, that might be finished tomorrow and so I can crack on with other things.

-8

Tuesday 6th August 2013 – I PROMISE YOU …

av jeanne ixelles 1050 brussels belgium bad parking august aout 2013… that this shall be the last time that I’ll mention parking.

So here’s a photo of two different vehicles well-advanced in front of the rear limit for parking, and this time a car parked here in the foreground and overhanging the pedestrian crossing.

What more can I say …“haven’t you said enough?” – ed

Meanwhile in other news, the first of the furniture has gone from the apartment. Nothing large or bulky though, but nevertheless it’s a start. I’m now €20 richer than I was before, so “spend, spend spend!”, hey?

But this blasted agent immobilier is thoroughly getting on my wick. She’s uncovered another problem now – that the monthly service fees are so astronomical that no-one will buy the apartment (and so she will lose her commission of course).

“I know they are” I told her. “Marianne was on a very limited income and so when the boiler was repaired in 2009 and the lift was overhauled in 2011 she didn’t have the money to pay her share”.

“Consequently the gerance of the building arranged two loans for her (and for other people too) for their shares and the monthly repayments are included in the service fees”.

“And if you remember “I continued “I mentioned this to the people who came this weekend and I told them expressly that these loans would be paid off at the sale and so they will have no implication for any new purchaser”.

“Well I spoke to your notaire and they know nothing about it” she wailed, and that angered me, her not believing a single word that I told her and her clients

“That’s hardly surprising” I retorted, “seeing as how my notaire is on holiday. You probably were put through to the teaboy.”
And on and on and on she wailed until I lost patience and told her to f*** off.

5 minutes later I had someone from the notaire on the telephone. “Will you tell that blasted Madame Blum to stop flaming well ringing us up every 5 sodding minutes about your flaming apartment. It’s getting on our blasted nerves”.

Yes, this stupid woman is the cause of more problems here than she solves.

Everything is a crisis for her, every reaction is a panic. She’s frightening away more customers than she’s recruiting, thanks to her attitude, and also with her business practices, about which I shall have much more to say at a later date.

But doing business with her is a nightmare. She is making problems out of nothing at all.

And apart from that, when I had the time (which as you can see, wasn’t as much as I would have liked) I did the two radio programmes for the Radio Anglais rock shows on Radio Tartasse.

I have to do two because I’m away at the end of September (I hope, unless there’s another crisis) so I’m recording two months’ worth at the end of August.

Tomorrow I’ll start to attack the rest of the programmes.

If the blasted agent immobilier lets me. What a shambles.

-8

Saturday 27th July 2013 – THIS YEAR IS …

… turning into something of a disaster, as if it wasn’t enough of one already.

J J Cale has died today, so it has been announced.

Many people might not know who he is, but I bet that most of you will know Eric Clapped-out.

And if you do, you will know the tracks “After Midnight”, “Travellin’ Light” and “Cocaine”. Cale was the guy who wrote those tracks, although they made Crapped-on far more famous than he himself became. You can hear Cale singing them on the album Troubadour.

Yes, he“can go to paradise Maybe once, maybe twice. Travelin’ light is the only way to fly”. He won’t be letting it hang out after midnight any more though.

Ray Manzarek of The Doors has also died this year, as has David Bowie’s longtime bassist Trevor Bolder. Richie Havens, who was the opening act at Woodstock – he’s gone too and so has Alvin Lee of Ten Years After.

My rock music programmes on Radio Anglais are fast turning into a necrology. It’s dreadful. Who is going to be next?

In keeping with the depressing spirit of things we’ve had two monsoons today. One at round about 09:00 and the other one started about 15 minutes ago and is still going on (23:40).

More rain has fallen in these two deluges than I’ve seen for quite a while, and that’s saying something given the weather just recently and the rainfall that I’v seen in my life in the Auvergne.

I did manage to get out and about though – an afternoon at Waterloo – or rather Mont St Jean – and the huge Carrefour and the Media Markt across the road.

I’ve bought a pile of food and on Monday I might even make another one of my famous – if not legendary – potato pies but apart from that, I didn’t spend any money on anything.

Not through lack of willingness or lack of things to buy of course, but I forgot to mention that I have a tax bill here to pay, relating to the final year that I owned “Expo”.

Yes, property taxes chez moi in the Auvergne are about €75. Here in Brussels it was €1200. No wonder I sold up and moved when I lost my job.

I’ve also emptied a pile of stuff from here. A huge (and I DO mean “huge”) mound of papers and four sacks of Marianne’s clothes have found their way into Caliburn and next time I’m out and about I’ll pass by one of the container sites and heave the lot into the appropriate container.

Tomorrow though is Sunday and I’ll be having a day off. Then I must crack on big-time.

Apart from that, I had another dream. I had a wind turbine on a mast on my front lawn and it was going round flat-out with the blade flutter that you get on the plastic blades of the AIR 403 wind turbines. A crowd of people were watching it and there were a couple of TV cameras filming it, and at a certain moment they all climbed over the fence onto my property to have a closer look, to film it and to record the sound. I arrived a little later, just in time to see the invasion, and I had to chase everyone away. Zero, about whom I spoke the other week, also put in an unscheduled appearance somewhere along the line.

-10

Monday 22nd July 2013- I’M OFF

But then again you knew that already.

This morning I was up bright and early (just for a change) and did all of the domestic chores around the place before shooting off to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Tartasse.

As usual we had total and utter chaos – they had a printer and after much searching we found the USB cable, but as for the power lead, no hope for that. I ended up reading the text off the computer (I had taken that along in anticipation – one has to be prepared at Radio Tartasse).

Liz and I went on to record the information programmes, which passed off almost without incident, and then we set off back to Liz’s house for lunch.

I called at the bank to pick up the new bank cards but, as you might indeed expect as it’s Monday, the bank is closed.

At Liz’s we had yesterday’s leftovers for lunch and then went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais”. That passed off without much incident too.

However, in a dramatic change of plan, we went there in Liz’s car. After all, the hottest day of the year and it has air-conditioning. What more can any man desire?

Back here though, not so good.

I melted in Calibuen on the way back and there was no hope of me going on to Brussels. I crashed out for a couple of hours, loaded up Caliburn with the dirty washing and a pile of empty cardboard boxes.

Just after 21:00, with the weather still absolutely roasting, I was on my way.

See you soon.

-8

Sunday 21 July 2013 – AND AM I ALL PACKED?

Am I ‘eck as like.

No surprise there, is there?

I had a lie-in until about 09:20 and by that time it was far too hot to do anything much. Records have tumbled today and I can’t think how often it is that I have had to put cold water into the solar shower to cool it down to an acceptable temperature of about 37°C.

For yes, I did have my first (and probably only) solar shower of the year this evening, and gorgeous it was too – well-worth waiting for.

Mind you I almost didn’t manage to take it – there sunning itself on the concrete pad right almost where I was planning to stand was a whacking great snake – the first real snake that I’ve seen at my house, although I’ve seen plenty elsewhere.

He p155ed off pretty sharp-ish when he saw me and disappeared into the woodpile, right next to where the ladder is. I got to thinking of myself that it was a shame that I didn’t have a couple of friends, some counters and a pair of dice.

And if you want to know what kind of snake he was, at the speed at which he disappeared, he was definitely a calculator. That’s right – a calculator is a very fast adder.

Still, Caliburn is emptied and there’s a pile of stuff in it.

Not all I need to take all of it but there’s a slight change of plan. I’m not leaving right after the radio shows. It’s going to be even hotter tomorrow so it’ll be wicked on the road. I’m coming back here and I’ll leave at about 19:00 when it cools down.

Trying to print off the radio stuff, and nothing worked. It’s not gathering in the paper and so I’ll need to strip it down and find out why. But I never have any luck with printers. There’s dozens round here that don’t function as they are supposed to do.

Luckily Liz came to the rescue with some stuff (and a nice tea and some ginger cake for which I am always grateful) when I was down there rehearsing the radio shows and I’ll have to get Radio Tartasse to do the rest tomorrow.

Now as you know, every now and again I write down my dreams on here.

Many years ago when I was at Uni I helped out as one of a few guinea-pigs for someone who was doing research into dreams. We had to record our dreams and submit them to this guy who was using them as material for his thesis.

Even though the project ended years ago I still keep it up to a certain degree because it was so interesting and now it’s become something of a habit.

I don’t record all of my dreams because without the equipment that we had, it’s difficult to do so, and so I only record the ones that I remember really well. And last night’s was a corker, it really was.

Back in the 1980s when I had my taxi business in Crewe I had a young girl working for me on Saturdays. She stayed for a couple of years and then left to go to college.

She kept in touch with Nerina and me and there was talk at one point that she might come to lodge with us for a while as home conditions were difficult.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … “Hooray” – ed … Nerina and I separated a few years later and I was preparing to emigrate, and I bumped into Nerina. She asked me how I was and we had a little chat about this and that.

One thing that she said quite surprised me. “I’m surprised that you didn’t get …. to move in with you”.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you must have known that she had a big crush on you”.
Rather like Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams in Carry On Loving“Surely you must have felt it?”
“Felt it? I never got anywhere near it”.
I didn’t, as it happened, and it was rather late in the day to tell me, I thought.

A good few years or so years later I did encounter … again – now separated from her husband and with a young baby in tow.

I was just about to go off New York for a holiday and, on a whim, I invited her along.  But it was far too short notice and it didn’t happen, and I always regard her as “the one that got away” – the lucky girl.

Anyway, last night, here she was. We were in Sydney, Australia, together as a couple, talking to someone about their cats, and a taxi driver stuck his head around the door and said that it was time to go. So we went outside to get into his taxi, a big modern silver Opel with a huge scrape all the way down the side and with a floor made of wooden pallets. He took us back to our home and when he dropped us off, I noticed that the letter box outside had been knocked off its pedestal and bent. So there I was fixing it and putting it back into position so I could post this huge pile of brown envelopes, but … told me that the postman had passed while I was fixing the letter box and it was now too late.

I’ve never had a dream as realistic as this – so realistic that in the middle of it and I had to get up to go for a Gypsy’s downstairs in the bathroom, when I returned to bed and went back to sleep, the dream carried on from where it left off.

It was totally astonishing and I would love to know what has been going on in the back of my mind somewhere that has made it come up with all of this. It’s quite unnerving for some reason and has put me right off my stroke. I shan’t be feeling myself for a good week or so …“and quite right too” – ed

Surreal was not the word.

..

-8

Wednesday 17th July 2013 – WELL YOU MISSED …

… all of the excitement last night, that’s for sure.

I didn’t though.

At about 03:30 I was awoken by the most almighty crash. My first thought was that, after singing the praises of my stone wall to Helena last night, that the lean-to that I rebuilt last year had collapsed. It was definitely that kind of noise.

So heaving myself out of my stinking pit I went for a good walk around my property, taking a torch with me. and there’s nothing missing or damaged that I can see. So after that I went to bed, even though it was impossible to sleep.

This morning though, the old abandoned house stuck in the abandoned jungle plot next to the spring doesn’t seem to be there.

I can’t get to it to check, but the last time that I looked, back in January if I remember, it was certainly on its last legs, and so that may as well be that.

The proprietors are Parisians and they’ve been trying to sell it for years. I made the odd enquiry about it, but they want to recoup the money that they paid for it back in the 1960s, even though they haven’t been there to visit it for 30 years.

In that time, house prices here have collapsed, and now it looks as if the house has too.

false wall shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceI was a little optimistic about my plans to finish the shower room today.

I’ve finished the false wall by the shower, along with a slight amendment to detail, and fitted the sheet of plasterboard.

I’ve also fitted the rails around the wall from which the false ceiling (yes, tongue and grooving, in case you were wondering – which I’m sure that you aren’t) will be fitted.

From then on, though, I was busy making the framework for the false wall by the composting toilet.

And I’m not at all sure where the time goes because I haven’t finished cutting the joints, never mind assembling it, and it was 19:40. I dunno where the time goes, though.

I haven’t stopped working today and yet I didn’t seem to accomplish much. It’s a mystery.

Too tired to carry on, I had an early night (last week I would have said that 19:40 was a flaming late night – how times have changed over a week) and came up here.

For the radio programmes I wrote just over 1500 words on collecting mushrooms and almost 2800 on salient points to remember in the different types of relationships in French family life.

That took me from about 09:00 to 12:30 and from 19:45 until 21:00.

Then I finished for tea, and that is that until tomorrow…

.

 

-7

Tuesday 16th July 2013 – EVEN MORE WHACKED!

And that’s hardly surprising either.

Despite yesterday’s Herculean efforts I was wide-awake and up and about long before the alarm went off and after breakfast I finished all of the notes for the rock music programme for the forthcoming month;

In the shower room quite early too, and I discovered to my dismay that I hadn’t fitted the bracing on the wall at the head of the stairs. That needed doing before I could fit the plasterboard.

But that was all done, the cables re-routed and the plasterboard fitted, and all before lunch too – mind you it was 15:00 when I stopped for I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way of doing what I need to do;

Into Pionsat to buy some bread and there in the Intermarche was Rick the Trailer Guy. Seeing as it’s harvest time I greeted him with a “hey, Rick” but, being Dutch, it went clean over his head.

Keen readers of this rubbish will remember back in August last year that Rick’s cello was blown away in a freak gust of wind and badly damaged, but he has it back now, “Playing even better”, so he says and I’m glad about that.

It was a real tragedy.

shower room stud wall plasterboard les guis virlet puy de dome franceJust half an hour for lunch and then I attacked the next stage of the shower room – the false wall.

And in a fit of reckless extravagence that’s installed now. It just needs one more horizontal brace fitting ad then the shower side can be cladded with a sheet of plasterboard.

All that then remains is the false wall for the composting toilet and that, dear reader, will be that.

The plasterboard around the windows is not all that important – it doesn’t need to be fitted in order to be measured up for tiles.

If I can finish the second false wall, then i’ll be two days ahead of my schedule, which is impressive enough.

And so it ought to be too because if you think that 20:35 was late for knocking off last night, this evening we finished work at 20:50, which has to be something of a record, I reckon.

But I’m too tired to cook and I’m too tired to eat. I’m going to bed and I’ll sleep for a week I reckon..

-3

Monday 15th July 2013 – I’M WHACKED!

And it’s hardly surprising.

If you think that 19:40 and 19:45 is late to knock off, how about 20:35? And I was having so much fun that I would have carried on too if I hadn’t been so tired.

This morning first thing I uploaded another pile of Nova Scotia pages and I’ve now arrived at Halifax.

The Halifax pages have been on line for quite a while, and so the next step is to go to Truro and then the Stellarton/Port Glasgow conurbation.

Once those pages were up and running I dashed off a quick 2002 words (in under two hours – I was on form) for the additional notes for the Radio Anglais programmes that we record for Radio Arverne

If that wasn’t enough, I sorted out the music and wrote part of the script for the Radio Tartasse rock programmes that we do. Yes, everyone is having their money’s worth.from me today.

In the shower room, I’m ahead of myself and doesn’t that make a pleasant change for once?

Just the plasterboard on the wall at the head of the stairs and around the window to fix now – all the rest is installed and the wiring is exactly where I want it, which also makes a change.

The gaps between the window and the wall on both the outside and the inside are now sealed too and that Ryobi Plus One mastic gun is an impressive piece of kit, that’s for sure.

I must buy myself one of those without any doubt.

base shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut where I am ahead of myself is that the shower tray is installed and fitted.

With two layers of flooring, I cut out a square in the top layer with the circular saw (and that took ages to get the correct shape – in places I had to use the drill and chisel) and then I had to drill a big hole in the second layer of floor to pass the drain through.

I didn’t have a hole saw big enough for that and so I cut four smaller holes in a cloverleaf pattern and with the jigsaw cut out the bit in the middle.

And then I lined the hole with the plumbers mastic that Terry gave me, dropped the shower tray in, and then sealed it off all round. It really looks impressive – seeing a shower tray in the shower room.

Whatever next?

I had a good chat with Rachel and with Cécile on skype this evening and I won’t be doing much more as I’m whacked.

Tomorrow I’ll be checking on the sealing around the shower base, fitting the missing bits of plasterboard, and then starting to build the false wall around the shower base.

When that’s in, I can measure up for the tiles.

-6

Monday 24th June 2013 – I HAD ANOTHER …

… vivid dream last night, and I remember telling Cécile about it when I woke up. But 5 minutes later it had gone completely out of my head and Cécile hadn’t been paying too much attention to it anyway, so that’s one that got away.

After breakfast I went to Marcillat en Combraille and recorded my Radio Anglais rock music programmes for Radio Tartasse – and have I got a belter of a live concert for the month of August – but more of that in due course.

I was able to harvest a pile of radio programmes to put on the net, and then Liz and I did another series of radio programmes in the “Radio Anglais” series.

However, we have a minor hitch – I forgot all about “On The Beach” and we ended up starting “identity controls”, and so we are now all out of synch. Ahh well …

Back at Liz’s I gave Terry a hand to fit some of the windows into his new extension, and then we attacked the left-over pasta from yesterday.

Down at Gerzat we recorded another 4 programmes for the Radio Arverne version of “Radio Anglais” and then Bernard arranged for all of the outstanding programmes held there to be copied onto my memory stick.

But here’s an issue – his main computer wouldn’t recognise the stick. It seems, after investigation, that it’s formatted in RAW data and not in NTFS (or in FAT 32 either) and so we had to do a few manipulations in order to get the data onto it.

Once I’ve taken the data off, I’ll have to reformat it all into FAT 32 or something.

I gave Terry another hand back at Liz’s and then came back here to help Cécile carry on sanding down her ceiling. One of these days I might even be able to make a start on my house, and won’t that be nice?

And talking of working on my house, Liz gave me a tub of really vicious weedkiller – something like the commercial variety of Agent Orange.

I’ve been trying to avoid using weedkiller at any price on my land but I just can’t cope with the weeds and so on.

There are some parts of my land that will be under black plastic sheeting and gravel or even tiles (looking at that lovely lot of tiles that Terry used on his new patio) and so, regrettable as it might be, I’m afraid that that is exactly what will be happening tomorrow morning, if the bad weather holds off.

-2

Sunday 23rd June 2013 – I WAS IN CHESTER …

… during the night in the street where I first went to live when I moved there in September 1972, only last night it was where I was working. Parking in this street was usually problematic but last night it was snowing lightly and there was hardly a car about. It had me worried – was it a working day or not?
But anyway I went in to my building which was a modern building of brick, concrete, aluminium and glass, well spread-out but not too tall, and with a couple of friends we went to the restaurant. But with having spent so much time talking, we arrived just in time to see the aluminium shutters lowered down, for it was 10:00, the time that the restaurant closed.
Just after this, there was a fierce banging from the other side of the shutters- it seemed that someone had been locked in behind them. I went off to the reception area where there were three women, one of whom by her behaviour clearly had the air of being in charge, and so I told her about this person behind the shutters. “That’s too bad” she replied. “She’ll just have to wait there until 11:00”
“Can’t you unlock a service door?” I asked with surprise. “There must be a way out of there”
“No – I don’t have access so she’ll just have to wait”. Our conversation after this became rather heated, but she still wouldn’t budge.
At this point the front door opened and a group of kids, dressed up as an American marching band, complete with instruments, came marching in, and behind them came three men, clearly officers of some import and wearing képis and cloaks of the style of the Royal Dutch Army. The senior of these was an enormously tall métisse, probably close to 7 feet tall, so I went up to him and told him the story of this woman locked in the restaurant behind the shutters. He went over to the woman at reception and said a few words to her that I did not hear, but she went bright red and took a set of keys out of the drawer in front of her and went down the corridor, opened a door, and let out the woman who was locked in the restaurant.This woman, for reasons that I did not undertand, was wearing an orange rotating light on her head.

That was another one of these dreams that it seems a pity to leave, but leave I did because Cécile bought me a cup of coffee in bed, which was extremely nice.

Yes, it’s Sunday, which means a day off, or, at least, it’s supposed to. But Cécile has so much to do at her house (well, I’m not convinced, but she is) and only a short time in which to do it, so we ended up repairing cupboards and moving shelves around and so on.

Sunday is also pizza day and Cécile cooked a lovely example for lunch (thanks, Rosemary, for fetching the vegan cheese), but as we were about to restart work, one of Cécile’s friends came round for a chat. Consequently we were late for Liz and Terry’s.

Terry is now a very happy bunny, seeing as he has all of the slates (and a darned sight more as well) to do the roof on his new extension, and I am aslo an extremely happy bunny, having been repaid in Liz’s home-made chocolate cake.

And after running through the radio programmes for tomorrow, back here and that was that. Tomorrow is another day;

-5

Friday 7th June 2013 – WELL, I’M OFF.

But then you all knew that already.

The Postie delivered my monster CD order and now I’m free to leave at any time I like for a couple of weeks. Liz found me a cheapo ferry on the site that she uses – it’s at 04:00 so I’ll be leaving in a bit for the UK.

That’s really all that I’ve done today apart from clearing up and dealing with this load of web stuff that I mentioned the other day. The apartment here is still a mess and I’m not really making much progress but I will have a couple of months when I come back to deal with it all and isn’t that famous last words?

I’m not sure when I’ll have internet access again. After the UK I’ll be off to Fromentine and the Ile d’Yeu to do the two weeks’ work that I promised Cécile in exchange for her two weeks here back in April and there won’t be any internet access there, that’s for sure.

after that, it’s back to Pooh Corner, the radio, and two weeks working on the bathroom here as when I return to Brussels at the beginning of July I want to buy all the tiles from that guy who did us so handsomely when we were working on Expo in early 2011.

So, see you soon. Don’t wander away in my absence.

-3

I’m exhausted

I had another difficult night as far as sleep went, and it wasn’t half a struggle to crawl out of bed this morning, but after breakfast and a shower (I have one once a year whether I need it or not) by 10:00 I was at my (or rather, Marianne’s) desk ready to work.

There’s the third part of the radio programmes to do and I was planning on doing something on “who can check your identity”. For once though, the thoughts ran freely (not quite sure why) and by 14:00 I’d done a mere 3000 words on the subject.

That was the cue for shopping. First port of call was at the bank where I handed over Marianne’s death certificate and they promptly closed her account. and it is indeed as I feared – no life assurance policies, no burial policies, not a trace of anything else. Ahhh well – you live and learn. And I thought that I had learned enough by now, but you would never have guessed.

After the food shopping I called again at this electronics shop in the neighbourhood. Here I had another lucky find – two packs of 2×12-volt MR16 LD light bulbs – reduced for quick sale at €10 the pack. I know that I can but them at €3:99 each but the ones I get are rated at 1.2 watts – these are rated at 2.4 watts.

You might be thinking that that’s not very bright, but you wuld be surprised. The “watts” is quite a misleading measurement as it relates to the amount of current consumed. And in a traditional light bulb, much, if not most, of the energy is wasted as heat, as anyone who has touched an incandescent, or a halogen, light bulb will tell you. LEDs are quite cool even when they are lit, indicating that almost nothing is wasted. LEDs generally give out about 5 times the lumens per watt that an incandescent gives out, and while that might sound not an awful lot more (2.4 watts x 5 compared to, say 40 watts) the light from an LED is much more focused.

Anyway, I digress. Back here I carried on with my magnum opus and by the time I’d finished it (23:00 with an hour out for tea) I’d done over 3700 words on indentity checks, followed by over 2700 on “who can enter your house”. I really was having a good day today.

1306001As for tea, it was gorgeous. I might have mentioned that I made a potato pie last night while the pizza was cooking, and there’s half of the aforementioned. Add to that a heap of peas and carrots in butter and mint and it really was the most delightful meal that I’ve had for quite a while (excepting anything that Liz has cooked, of course). I’m going to have to watch myself here – I’m becoming far too civilised. At this rate I shan’t want to go home.

In other news, I’ve been invited by the Scientologists to go to watch a film at their headquarters. All to do with self-assertiveness and taking control. Hardly the sort of thing that Scientologists are famous for, of course. I wonder if there’s anything in this film about the use of pick-axe handles? They are always good for self-assertiveness and taking control.

And finally – “hooray” … ed – they say that retail therapy is always good for the soul when one is suffering from a little depression. For me, music is the key to my state of mind (provided that it isn’t The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra) by Marillion of course) and I have been feeling considerably depressed just recently, as you know. Consequently when Amazon announced a special promotion of 2 CDs for £9:00, over 1000 albums on offer, many of which I owned on plastic and haven’t yet replaced, well, I rather pushed the boat out a little and now I’m … errr …£63:00 (plus postage to Belgium) lighter.

But there’s some cracking stuff in there and I don’t consider it money wasted at all. I need cheering up right now. I’ve had a difficult Spring.

 

 

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We had our first …

… letter today addressed to “les héritiers de Mme Orban Marianne”. It was from her Insurance Company – the “Mutualité Chrètienne”.

“We have heard about the death of Mme Orban and we would like to express our sincere condoleances. Mme Orban reeived payments from us due to her incapacity to work, and was paid for the fortnight 1st May – 14th May before we learnt of her death. We would therefore be obliged if you could refund the overpayment before the 27th June next”

That is the “Mutualité Chrètienne” – the Christian Mutual Insurance Company. It totally beggars belief. I’m convinced that Marianne would have been far better off with the heathens for all the good that the Christians did her. What happened to the “forgiveness of sins” and “turn the other cheek”? Poor Marianne must be turning in her grave.

Apart from that, what else have I done? Yes, I’ve updated  few web pages that I had rather let go for a while. Most of them concerned the administration of the site but one of them had a rather large role to play in my visit to Labrador in 2010 and I had never brought it up to date. It was high time that I did something about that, seeing as how I wrote it a mere 8 years ago.

I also finished the writing for the next rock programme and formatted it. That’s one more thing out of the way. And then I made a start on the next lot of additional notes, but I haven’t gone all too far with that right now.

Apart from going out for my baguette at lunchtime, that’s really about it, so exciting is my life. Tomorrow is shopping day so bring on the excitement!

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Thursday 30 May 2013 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… one of those depressing dismal days where it has rained almost non-stop from start to finish. It started off badly when I had another one of those dramatic awakenings, where I find myself sitting bolt upright and wide awake. I was having some kind of vivid dream (and I’ve been having a few of those just recently), and although I don’t remember anything about it, I had the uneasy feeling that there was a catastrophe occurring somewhere – and it was that thought that caused me to awaken so dramatically.

Anyway, after breakfast I made a start on writing the text for my next rock radio programme for Radio Anglais but by 13:00 I abandoned it to go and pick up Marianne’s death certificates from the funeral director. I stopped off at the fritkot at the Place Flagey for some frites on the way – after all, I’m in Belgium now.

From the funeral director’s, I went to the local nick to enquire after these allegations that have been made against me and, as I had no doubt whatsoever, they have been classées sans suite. I can’t have a copy of the complaint though – I need to ask an avocat to ask the Procureur du Roi for a copy. The coppers don’t think that it’s worth the effort though. According to them, they never took them seriously, even for a moment but had to go through the motions.

From there I walked through the torrential rain across the city to my notaire to let him have one of the copies of the certificate, passing by the grounds of the European Parliament on my way

European Parliament building paul-henri spaak brussels belgiumThere was a meeting taking place and I was tempted to go in and spectate as I have done in the past, but I had other things to do. But I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the sign outside the Paul-Henri Spaak Building.

It’s true that they have extraordinary meetings there – I’ve sat through a few – but if this notice proves anything at all, it is that as long as the UK sits on its haunches and refuses to push for additional staff to deal with the increased pressure of additional translations and leaves it all up to the local Flemish-speaking Belgians whose “English doesn’t need any supervision – it’s totally perfect”, we’ll have a few more extraordinary translations too.

From the notaire’s, it was back to the bank at the Rond-point Schuman to check that nothing unusual was happening to Marianne’s bank account, and then I gave up. My knees were hurting a bit after yesterday’s marathon, I wasn’t comfortable, I was soaking wet and so I took the metro and then the tram back home where I crashed out for a couple of hours. All this walking is certainly doing me good.

Tomorrow I’m having a day off and then I’ll attack the next stage of the clearing up on Monday.

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