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Sunday 2nd July 2017 – I MIGHT HAVE SOLVED …

… one of the issues with this oven.

And it’s so simple that I could kick myself.

You may remember now that for the last two weeks I’ve been cooking other things in the oven – a pie two weeks ago and a rice pudding last week. But the tray at the bottom hasn’t been strong enough to support the casserole dish that I’ve been using and we’ve nearly had a couple of accidents.

So if it’s not there to use as another baking shelf, then what’s it for? If in doubt, take it out!

And so I did – and in 20 minutes (instead of the usual half an hour) my pizza wasn’t just cooked but overcooked.

So you learn something new every day. The trouble that I have though is that each time that I learn something new, it pushes something old out.

So how was my night last night? I’m sure that you want to know because, for the first time that I’ve been here, I have a curtain in the bedroom and it was nice and dark.

I was asleep early enough and with no alarm I was hoping for a decent lie in too. But after a while tossing and turning in the new dark, I hauled myself out of bed to find that it was a mere 06:50. Even earlier than the alarm.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels though. I was out shopping – shopping for shoes as it happens (and this is something that I need to do before I go to Canada) and ended up at a cheap market type of place (not where I’m likely to find what I want). However I did find a pair of shoes that I liked and as I went to pay for them I noticed something else that I liked too (and I can’t remember now what it was) so I picked that up too. On my way to the cash desk I noticed a third thing – and I immediatle recognised this as the power pack for my laptop (which it isn’t, but never mind) and which was just €4:99. So I asked the girl about it to make sure and she confirmed it so I added that to the pile too. She made some kind of remark – something like “you’re certainly finding some good stuff here!” and I thought that I was too, a power pack at just €4:99.

After breakfast and a little repose for half an hour I cracked on with the blog. I’ve had a really good day and reached early June 2012 (I’ve left off May though because this needs a good clear out seeing as it’s the period when I was in Canada.

Just another 202 entrie to do now and it will be up-to-date – a far cry from the well-over 350 that there were when I restarted this. When i’s done I can continue with the updating of the earlier stuff – which is likewise proceeding apace.

I had the baguette for lunch but ate in here because it was grey and miserable outside.

This afternoon I had a … errr … little repose – the strain of being awake so early is telling on me, and then I did the last of the washing. Now it’s all up-to-date for the next fortnight and that’s fine by me. I pushed on with a little more of the blog too.

So with the pizza out of the way, it’s another early night in the dark again tonight. Tomorrow I have a lot to do. Like booking some more stuff for my trip to Canada and deaing with an item of correspondence that has reared its ugly head.

Monday 10th April 2017 – WHAT A SHAME!

I’ve actually seen a place that I liked today. It had everything that I wanted except for the kitchen of course (one of those really cheap units with the two ancient hobs and the fridge underneath so that the hobs take ages to heat up, they are pretty much uncontrollable, and they melt everything in the fridge).

And so why haven’t I signed for it then?

Two reasons really.

It’s not free until the beginning of July
It’s three floors up without a lift

And that’s that.

There was another apartment to let in the same building, on the first floor but without the terrace and the view of the sea. And that smelt as if the people living there had smoked 100 cigarettes a day for 20 years.

In other words, yet another wasted morning.

But on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly wasted because I did learn one or two things about the town.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, poor parking is a regular theme that crops up, and here, I regret to say, is yet another example of the dismal failure of other selfish motorists to respect disabled parking spaces.

This tells me more about the town than any other factor, and in this sense I’m glad that I’m not moving here.

But before I had left my little studio in Granville for my drive out, I had given the studio a quick clean-around and took some stuff down to Caliburn with me, and then we roared off to Barneville-Carteret to look at these apartments.

And then we roared back.

I finished off the tidying up and passed the inspection with the landlord, and then set off to find a place for tonight. And with what is befitting a holiday resort in the school holidays, there’s not a room to let anywhere in town.

After an hour or so of fruitless searching, we all took to the road and 80 kilometres and 80 minutes later we ended up in Cancale on the other side of the bay.

I had the last room here too – the Hotel le Chatellier – and at €60:00 it looks as if I have made a good choice. It’s quite comfortable and the shower is delicious. I spent half an hour in there.

No breakfast though. It doesn’t start until 08:00 and I’ll be long gone and down the road by then.

Cancale is beautiful. It’s nearly 30 years since I came here with Nerina and it’s changed dramatically in that it’s impossible to park by the sea.And it’s a hell of a climb up to the car parks at the top. And of course, all of the places to eat are at the bottom.

Luckily, on the edge of town was not darkness but a pizza van and we sorted something out. He came, would you believe, from Moisie in Quebec, so we had a really good chat.

Back at the hotel, I found a quiet little corner out of the wind and sat outside and ate my pizza. It really was a nice evening.

So now I’m ready for anything. Including two more ruins to visit tomorrow morning, and my train to Leuven at 11:50.

Thursday 6th April 2017 – YES, DEFINITELY THE FRIDGE.

It took ages to go off to sleep again last night with the fridge whining away in the background. And I was awoken once more in the middle of the night by the rattling of the compressor.

But I did manage to go back to sleep and was awoken by the alarm, which is always nice.

I’d been on my travels too – something I’ve not really done for a while. I was taxiing again – this time in the white Volkswagen Passat estate that I own. And the wife of one of the people for whom I drove back in the early 80s put in an appearance too.

And that reminds me – I need to rescue the Passat and the Minerva next time I go back to the Auvergne and put them on the hardstanding. After all, that’s why I had it made.

I had a quiet leisurely morning. I’m not up to doing too much these days. What with chatting to Liz and so on, I was late for going to buy my baguette and ended up at the boulangerie across the road. I had a walk down to Caliburn too, to make sure that he’s okay and to pick up a few things that I need.

At lunch I went for a walk down on the promenade at the back of the Casino over there to sit in the sun and eat my butties. And sit in the sun I did too – for about an hour.

But the wind was rather wicked and despite the sunshine, it was really cold and there was nowhere to shelter. In the end, I decided that the only protection was “flight” and came back home.

Back here I carried out some more research about places to stay and made a few phone calls but no-one called me back. But then I’m not surprised. No-one seems to want to earn any money these days. They just want to sit at home and moan about how cruel the world is.

Tea was the rest of the potatoes, and I made a thing out of a tin of lentils, a tin of veg and a bottle of tomato sauce. It wasn’t too bad after. It was all washed down with some fruit salad and soya dessert which was nice.

So now let’s see what kind of night we have tonight. I managed to avoid crashing out so I should be ready for a good sleep. Watch someone come along and spoil it for me.

Wednesday 1st March 2017 – THE TROUBLE …

… with having had a really decent sleep during the day is that during the night it’s very difficult to drop off again. And so it was last night. Took me absolute ages.

But having said that, once I’d gone I’d gone, and until about 06:00 too. I had a quick look at the time, and turned over back sleep again until the alarm went off.

Breakfast here is at 07:30 but I still managed to haul myself out of bed early (no cacophony to accompany me, for which I am grateful) and stuck myself under the shower to liven myself up.

First down to breakfast (although I was almost immediately joined by others) and fruit salad, bread roll, orange juice and coffee. One thing about the breakfasts here, leaving aside the choice and the amounts on offer, is that everything is so fresh and tastes delicious.

And so it ought to be, given the price that one has to pay to stay in here. Of course, I’m not paying anything like the price indicated on the door, being stuck in my tiny little room in the garrett, but I’m not complaining for a moment.

What I was complaining about though was the internet. Sometime during the night it had crashed and they hadn’t been able to fix it. That left me hanging out on a limb for a while as I have so much to do here.

By 09:00 nothing had happened and so I decided to go for a walk along the promenade. It was grey and miserable, quite windy too, and there weren’t many people about.

We mentioned yesterday the story about the redevelopment of the promenade. Here, we have yet another old building from the Belle Epoch that has bitten the dust. It wasn’t as spectacular as the Villa Maritza, but there you go.

In fact by now, most of my old haunts from my spells in Oostende in the 1970s and early 80s have disappeared. All of the cheap hotels that used to be here have been swept away and replaced by blocks of holiday flats. One cheap hotel that I’d noted when I was here in 2013 had gone by the time that I came back here last November.

Not that it’s particularly relevant to this particular part of the discussion , but here’s a view of the corner of the promenade that I took this morning.

You can see another Belle Epoch villa here today, hemmed in by the more modern blocks of flats, and I wonder how long it will be before it’s gone too.

But there’s an exhibition of photos along the promenade showing us how Oostende looked 70 years ago just after the end of World War II and I noticed this photograph on display. It was taken from almost exactly the same spot as my photograph, and you can see how the corner looked back then, and compare the difference.

You might have noticed in the previous photograph the orange object on the promenade. There are actually about a dozen of them and they clearly have some kind of significance, although whatever it might be has so far escaped me completely.

It’s not exactly what I would call “artistic” but then what do I know? My idea of a sculpture is the column and statues to the right, a war memorial to the natives of the area who lost their lives at sea. It’s a shame that its site has to be cluttered up with these modern … errr … items.

I told you yesterday about the fish market here in Oostende. That’s it there, the white building with the blue wavy roof. I went for a look inside but there were only two stalls open and the choice of fish available wasn’t overwhelming. Not really worth photographing.

I reckon that the dock behind it was the old fish dock, but it’s used these days by the Police and the Customs authorities – people like that. It’s where their boats are anchored, or moored, or tied up.

When I was here in 2014 I stumbled across a ferry that I hadn’t noticed before, in all the years that I’ve been coming to the town. The deep-water port goes deep into the town and there isn’t a pedestrian way across the entrance. It’s a long walk around to the other side.

That’s the reason for the ferry, anyway.It’s only a small ferry, with room for 50 seats on board, and I took a photograph of it from the far side of the port entrance, with the town in the background. And also with the old ramps from the days when there was a ferry service across to the UK.

It’s always a bad idea for me to see a ferry, because I end up in a bad mood. In fact whenever I see a ferry it makes me cross. Especially when it’s a free ferry, and today is no exception. It always brings out the sailor in me.

Of course, that’s the reason why I was able to take a photograph from the other side of the port entrance – I’d piled on aboard the boat. As indeed you might expect.

You’ll notice by the way the booths on top of the quay to the right. It was some kind of market day going on up there.

It’s been months and months since we’ve had a real “Ship of the Day”, but you can’t go sailing across a port (even if it’s nothing like as busy as it was 50 years ago) without encountering a ship or two.

We’re in luck today, because here we have the Simon Stevin, registered in … errr … Luxembourg. Just imagine sailing this ship up the Moselle. She displaces 35,000 tonnes and was built in 2010.

She is actually a pipelaying vessel, and that will explain her presence here. With the expansion of the wind farm out on Thornton Bank, they will be needing extra cables laid to the shore.

The Simon Stevin would be the ideal vessel to be involved in a task like this.

The Simon Stevin isn’t the only big ship in the port either. We also have the Willem de Vlamingh in here too, and she’s likewise registered in Luxembourg.

She is your actual cable-layer and was built in 2011, displacing 6800 tonnes.

So here we are – some of the benefits that the wind farm has brought to the town of Oostende

As if that wasn’t enough, the harbour pilot boat was setting out of the docks and heading out to sea.

The entrance to the port is somewhat complicated and so a harbour pilot is necessary for certain boats that want to enter here. And so it looks as if there’s one of those standing offshore needing help to come in.

I couldn’t see anything hanging around outside, and nothing had come in by the time that I had left. I’ll have to go round later on this afternoon or maybe early tomorrow morning to see if anyone else has come in to join the party.

We saw in an earlier photograph – the one that I had taken of the Promenade in the 1940s – all of the fortifications that covered the shoreline of this part of the world. All of them built by the Germans in World War II

There are still plenty of them left, dotted all over the coast and we have seen plenty of them in the past. The eastern side of the entrance canal to the deepwater port is still littered with them even today and in all of the time that I’d been coming to Oostende I’d never actually been for a wander around them – until today, that it.

The port of Oostende had been a German submarine base in World War I and had been the subject of what was the precursor of the later commando raids of World War II. Not only that, the beaches here would make an ideal landing for the Allied armies coming to liberate Europe in 1944, what with the major port of Antwerp only just down the road.

Hence the German were quite nervous about the coastline around here and had used labour from the prison camps to construct these massive fortifications, as well as many others of all different types which have long-since disappeared.

What many people don’t realise though, because it was another one of these wartime secrets that wasn’t put into the Public Domain until the great release of wartime records in 1994, was that the Allies knew absolutely everything that there was to know about the Atlantic Wall, and they didn’t even need to send someone to look at it.

The company that had contracted to build it was a Belgian company, from the rue des Atrebates in Brussels. But what the Germans didn’t realise what that the company was actually owned by a Russian emigré called Leopold Trepper. And he had a part-time employment as a spy for the Soviet Union, leading a group called the Rote Kapelle or Red Orchestra

It was one of the greatest triumphs of espionage in World War II but because it was a Soviet triumph, it never received the acclaim that it deserved.

But the work was done thoroughly, and the vestiges are very difficult to remove. We’ve seen when we were in France a few years ago that one of the gun emplacements near the Atlantic Wall suffered a direct hit from a blockbuster bomb, and all that it did was to tilt the concrete.

That’s why many of these places are still here. Explosives are really the only way to remove them and it’s far too dangerous to destroy them in a congested area.

The Atlantic Wall isn’t the only set of fortifications here at Oostende. We have another exciting pile of stuff buried in the sand dunes.

Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to go over to it. It was all fenced off and I couldn’t find an obvious point of entry, and so I can’t tell you exactly what it is.

I shall have to make further inquiries.

We saw the new harbour wall when we were here in November. We walked the whole length of the other side of it in order to have a good look at what they had built, and I was tempted to go for a walk down this side of the harbour wall today, but the weather was conspiring against me.

There were some people out there trying to walk down there, but they weren’t having a great deal of success.

And you might be wandering what that bow of a ship is doing set up on a plinth out there

A closer inspection reveals that it certainly is part of the bow of a ship, and the colour gives you a clue – that it might be something to do with the Royal Navy.

It is in fact part of the bow of HMS Vindictive, a cruiser that has a very important claim to fame in the history of Oostende.

The British were concerned about the U-boats operating out of the port after its capture by the Germans during World War I, and so they launched two raids on the harbour, sinking ships in the entrance canal to the docks.

HMS Vindictive was one of those that was sunk here, in the raid on 10 May 1918, and when it was cut up for scrap, the bow section was preserved as a monument.

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and we have thousands of photographs going back to 1970 of ships sailing up and down here.

As ships have grown larger and larger, there are fewer and fewer of them, but the size means that you can see them easier even when they are away on the horizon, especially if you have a 305mm zoom lens.

I’ve no idea what kind of ship that this might be, but it’s certainly a big one and it seems to have an on-deck cargo. There’s plenty of accommodation on there too, so I’ve no idea what it might be. I know that there’s a car transporter that takes passengers with it and sails from Hamburg to South America, but that is probably not it.

No prizes for guessing what this ship might be. The initials of the owner – MSC- painted on the sides gives the clue away, because we have seen dozens of these in the past sailing up the St Lawrence River on the way to Quebec and Montreal.

It’s a container ship of course, and a huge one at that. And it’s empty too. And that’s a symptom of the world’s reliance on China for its manufacturing industry and that the world has nothing to send back in return.

We saw all of this with Japan in the 1970s and how it led to the collapse of manufacturing industry in the UK. Now, the rest of the world is suffering, and this is the Brave New World into which the Brexiters have plunged their country, with no colonies and noallies to back them up.

With the telephoto lens still on the camera, I could take a photograph all the way down the beach in the direction of Zeebrugge. But you can’t see much down there because of the wind whipping up the sand all the way down the beach.

We were brave, those of us out there, but at least I had done what I had intended to do, which was to have a good visit of this part of Oostende. It’s hard to think that I’ve never been out here, in all the years that I have been visiting the town.

Now I can head back to civilisation.

Parked up at a wharf near the ferry is a sailing ship, the Nele.

You might think that she is an ancient ship but she was built as recently as … errr …2005, but to a design of a traditional Oostende masted sailing ship.

It’s possible to go off for a mini-cruise on board and I did admit that I found the idea somewhat tempting. But I imagine without any doubt that I’ll be back here some time or other, and so I can make further enquiries.

I’ve not quite finished yet over here.

We’ve seen the wind farm out there on Thornton Bank. That’s about 30 kms offshore and in order to bring the power onshore they have a huge submarine cable.

Outside their offices they had a couple of metres of cable on display, and so I went over to take a photograph of it. It’s interesting because NALCOR in Labrador have laid a cable under the Strait of Belle Isle and are planning another one under the Gulf of St Lawrence to Cape Breton, so I was curious to see what a submarine cable looks like.

It will be of interest to the Brits too. Having sold their electricity-generating capacity to the French, one of these will be laid across the Channel sooner or later to run British electricity across to France in the same way that the Compagnie Lyonnais des Eaux runs British water from Kent across to Northern France through the pipeline in the Channel Tunnel in times of drought.

Back on the other side of the canal I went to the Delhaize to buy some stuff for lunch. They had grapes on offer too so that was today’s fruit issue resolved, wasn’t it? And back here, I crashed out for an hour as soon as I got in, which meant that I was rather late for my butty.

This afternoon I had a few things to do, and then went out for a walk. And here I encountered yet more of Belgium’s world-famous customer service. I went into a café for a coffee, and sat and waited for a waiter.

And waited.

Eventually, a waiter appeared, and cleared a few empty tables – and then disappeared. Eventually, he came back and I ordered a black coffee.

And waited

And waited.

Eventually I picked up my coat and left, heading for the café next door. I’d beens een by the waiter, placed my order and had it put on the table in front of me long before the other waiter in the other café had brought me the one that I had ordered.

I came back to the hotel for a warm, and then wandered off for tea. I know a nice Italian restaurant here that is cheap but good value, and they served me up a delicious penne all’arrabbiata, nice, hot and spicy.

So I’m going to try for an early night, and see how I am, and how the weather is, tomorrow. I hope that it’s a nice day and that I’m feeling up to some exciting moments.

Thursday 23rd February 2017 – WHAT DO YOU NOTICE …

… that is not quite right about this photo? It’s the kind o thing that can only ever happen in Belgium

Closer inspection of the photograph should tell you what is wrong – there are a set of stairs and an escalator inside this Sports shop in Leuven. And the escalator is going downhill to the lower level, and to climb back up again you need to take the stairs.

That’s not the kind of thing you can make up, is it?

Only in Belgium!

I had a fair-ish night last night. Late dropping off to sleep although I did manage to sleep right trhough – until about 06:30 when someone else’s alarm awoke me. No idea whose, but anyway there I was.

I’d been on my travels too, reliving a “Gunsmoke” episode where some people were leaving the area and there was some dispute as to whether they would be taking their 4-year old girl with them. And I ended up babysitting for my sins. I don’t half have some rough jobs.

Alone again at breakfast and then back up here for a little repose, and I’ve done a little alteration here and there on my internet homepage. I created a web page with all of the links to the sites that I visit regularly, and I use that as my homepage. It’s getting a little out of control so I’ve been amending it to read better – it’s now three columns instead of two.

Later on in the morning, I had a shower and shave, and then went out for a walk.

I ended up not at the church around here, but at St Peter’s Cathedral in the city centre. I wasn’t aiming to go there, but walking past, I noticed that the doors were open, so I nipped inside.

The pulpit is magnificent as you can see in the photo. It’s really quite a work of art, bordering on the grotesque, and wouldn’t be out of place in a grotto somewhere.

The rear of it, which you can’t see, is actually a grotto and it’s a representation of the Calvary, the cross of the crucifixion with, underneath, the cave where Jesus was entombed until the resurrection.

And it did remind me of Cap de la Madeleine, the place in Quebec that we visited in 2011 where they had a competition of artists and sculptors to design an appropriate monument for the Calvary. And an Irish sculptor sent in a drawing of John Wayne on his horse.

From here I went for a wander around the shops (see the photo at the top of the page) and ended up back at Sports Direct. They still had some of those good-quality sports trousers on offer at €23 for two, so I bought another couple, seeing as the ones that I bought the other week are quite good.

That means that I have enough decent trousers for now, and I can relegate some of the other ones down the chain. I’ve decided too that I’ll order some new polo shirts from my supplier in the UK – have a wardrobe upgrade.

After lunch, I cracked on with my medical expenses and I’ve finally finished them. It wasn’t half an effort but once I got into the rhythm it was fairly straightforward. At least it means that I don’t have to pay postage and recorded delivery letter fees, and sending them by the internet is bound to be quicker than the Post anyway.

Later on I had a crash-out, and then went for tea. I’d called at the Delhaize while I was out for some potatoes, and so I had sausage beans and mashed potatoes followed by vegan ice cream sorbet and peach halves.

It’s a day off work tomorrow for me (yippee!) so with an early night, I might even be on form. But I’ll be continuing my process of having a little walk every day. I’ll see if that does me any good.

Thursday 16th February 2017 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

… the photos from my little perambulation this afternoon, I can tell you something about the events of today, because we’ve had another one of these days that has been a quite busy work-in.

I had something of an early night again and this time I wasn’t awake all that long before dropping to sleep. And we had another session of awakening at 06:00 and then again at 06:30 before my alarm went off as usual at 07:00

and once that had sounded, I wandered upstairs for my breakfast.

I was alone for breakfast, and just for a change just recently we had everything supplied for us. But then again, I’m in one of these moods where I’m not eating so much as I did, so it wasn’t necessarily that important as long as I had my orange juice.

And so having dealt with those issues, I came back down here and had to crack on with some work that needed doing – and there was plenty of it to do

First task that needed doing was to pay my web domain fees, otherwise I’d risk being up a creek without a paddle. Luckily, I’d just received my new bank card and so I could crack on with that.

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Having dealt with the issues surrounding my domain, the next step was to make a couple more appointments for people whom I need to see here in Leuven before I head off back into the sunset or whatever.

I have some hospital fees to pay, and I’ll be needing a letter from the hospital in respect of my future treatment and so on, something that I can hand to my medical insurance people.

I’m seeing the insurance folk tomorrow and they’ll tell me precisely what is required, and so I made an appointment for Monday with Kaatje at the Social Services section of the hospital.

She’ll have all of the bills ready for me, and if I tell her what the insurance people want, she can have the letter ready for me when I go back there for my final appointment.

And then the trick cyclist has been on and on about seeing me again as you know. So I contacted her and told her when I plan to leave the hospital, and she’s arranged an appointment with me on that day so that she can tell me what the score is.

All that remained after that was some kind of long-distance business.

You know that my credit card expired a while ago, which was rather inconvenient because I have a standing order from that account to pay for my little storage unit in Montreal where I keep my camping gear. When I was in Montreal back in early September I went round there and paid them off a lump sum to get ahead while I sorted something out.

My lump sum has now expired and so I needed to set up a new payment regime. I was expecting this to be quite complicated, but nothing of the sort, especially as they have set up some kind of on-line accounting service.

I mailed them for a password, they sent it (and I changed it to the standard one that I use), I set up an account, and that was that.

I’ve run out of tomatoes, and seeing as I’m going to be away tomorrow and Saturday, and I’m out on Sunday too, no point in buying foodstuffs that I’ll only need once before Monday.

I had most of a baguette left over from yesterday too, and when I was shopping in the LeClerc in Sedan in November, I’d bought half a dozen packet soups.

This seemed like the right kind of occasion to make myself some packet tomato soup for lunch, and I mopped it up with my baguette. Just the job!

It was a really beautiful afternoon today once more, and as I hadn’t any fruit, I decided to go out to the fruit shop for a pear and apple, and then walk down the Handbooghof along the river Dijle by what remains of the city walls and then back here through the alleys.

My time in Leuven is (hopefully) coming to an end, and I’ve been very lax with my photographs of places where I’ve been. I need to bring the record up-to-date.

If things go according to plan, I’ll only be back here from day to day. I’ll come in on the train, spent the night before and the night after my check-ups in the IBIS Budget by the station, and then go back again.

But of course, as we all know, it won’t work out like this. It never does!

Back here, I made myself a coffee and then I crashed out for half an hour, really tired. The walk had taken quite a bit out of me and I can’t do much about that right now.

But I’m going to have to do much better than this. And quickly too. I have plans for the very near future as you know, and I need to be right on form.

This evening I had a shower, a shave and some clean clothes, including one of my new pairs of trousers. I have to go out tomorrow so I need to be looking my very best.

And while I was under there, I washed the pair of trousers that I had been wearing. I have to keep on top of things like that these days, otherwise I’d run out like I did the other day.

Following all of that, I went for tea. More of the tomato and kidney bean stuff with pasta and, of course, olives. All followed by pineapple slices and the vegan sorbet. And as I have said before, the kidney-bean whatsit tastes even better the longer it all stews.

So now it’s a good early night as I’m on the road all day tomorrow. I need to be at my best.

Wednesday 8th February 2017 – THAT WAS A HORRIBLE …

… afternoon.

I started to doze off almost before I had finished lunch, and that was that until 16:30. A good two hours at least I was out of it all.

But then again, that’s no surprise because I’d had an awful night. Once more, it was very late when I finally dozed off, but then it was at 02:30 when I sat bolt upright awake. I’d had a nightmare again – something that is happening more and more often these days, and I’ll spare you the gory details because you are probably eating your tea just now or something like that.

But eventually, after a good few hours tossing and turning, I went back to sleep again, and stepped right back into my nightmare exactly at the spot where I had left it.

We then had the 06:00 wake-up, and the 06:30 wake-up, and then my 07:00 alarm call.

There were a few of us at breakfast, not as many as yesterday, and then I came back down here.

I’ve been on my travels this morning, but not quite as you think. Regular readers of this rubbish will remember that in 2002 I went to Wyoming in the USA to visit a few of the sites on the “emigrant trail” – the Oregon and California Trail of the 1840s across the continent.

One of the parties, the legendary Donner party that came to grief in the Rockies, were delayed because they took a short-cut which, while in theory might have saved them some time, ended up being marooned in the salt flats of the Utah Desert.

By the time that they had sorted themselves out and rejoined the main trail, they had caught the winter snows as they climbed into the mountains. And there they remained, eating each other, until the following Spring.

Anyway, this short-cut, the “Hastings cut-off” has gone down in legend as a result of the Donner party’s (mis)adventures and someone has recently followed it, putting a whole sheaf of photographs and text on line. And so I spent a good few hours following the journey south-westwards.

Much of the material abandoned in the desert was recovered many years later by a homesteader by Eugene Munsee, and his cabin, dating from the 1880s is still extant. We were even treated to a guided tour of his cabin which was quite interesting.

I nipped into town to the Delhaize for some lunch stuff, and then after lunch we had my siesta.

Tonight, my tea prepared in exactly the same way as last night’s, was even more delicious seeing as it’s had more time for the spices to marinade. Tomorrow’s should be even better I reckon.

And now I’m going to catch up with my beauty sleep. I need it.

Friday 3rd February 2017 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… nice tea tonight.

There were some potato croquettes and a couple of vegan sausages left over from last week, and a tin of baked beans was hanging around from a long time ago. And followed by my last soya dessert, it was all delicious. And it’s shopping day tomorrow so I can recharge the stocks of frozen croquettes.

Yes, I’ll eat that tea again!

And so last night was almost the same as the other recent nights, except that it was one of those nights where I sat bolt upright awake at about 05:30 for no good reason. I couldn’t go back to sleep either and wherever I was on my travels (and I was certainly somewhere) it evaporated immediately.

Nothing happened at all during the day. Going out for my baguette was one thing, and having a long chat with The One That Got Away was another. No free pop at the supermarket (and if you were wanting to know, it tastes … errr … different and not unpleasant. Not my favourite if I had to pay for it but it was free).

And then we had tea, where I took one of my housemates by surprise, and now it’s an early night with the internet radio. And that’s my lot!

But my researches are going apace. I’ve come across another book. It’s called The Voyages of the Northmen to America and it was written by a certain William Hovgaard in 1914. He was a Danish naval technician and he was mentioned in one of the other books that I’ve recently downloaded.

He uses his naval skill to comment on the Norse voyages and makes a few pertinent comments as to where the Norse settlements in North America might have been, based on his experience and studies in Norse navigation. He favours Sandwich Bay as being the site of the Norse settlements and as you know, I’m writing a pile of stuff on Sandwich Bay even as we speak.

Not only that, I’ve identified a beach that corresponds with what I know that resembles the Furdustrandir, the famous beach that the Norse voyagers mention, that is right at the mouth of Sandwich Bay. And of course, while I acknowledge the existence of the Norse remains at L’Anse aux Meadows, I’m far from convinced that it corresponds with what we know about the description of Vinland.

Whatever L’Anse aux Meadows might be, I’m not convinced that it’s Vinland, and Vinland may well be somewhere else.

So that’s your lot for tonight. I’ll see you all tomorrow.

Wednesday 11th January 2017 – WHAT A BAD NIGHT!

Just as I said, I was in bed early last night, and was soon asleep. But then I awoke at about 00:45 when a noise on the radio awoke me, so I switched off the laptop and went back to sleep.

And then it all happened.

All I can say is that I must have had a nightmare, because I had one of those dreams that was extremely disturbing and which made me sit bolt upright. and it wasn’t just the fact of the dream either but the person who was the central character and all of the people who surrounded her. It was such a graphic, disturbing dream that I couldn’t go back to sleep and ended up typing it up on the laptop to make sure that I didn’t forget it.

But I must have gone back to sleep because the alarm awoke me at 07:00, and for some reason we had a most astonishing cacophony from the church bells and I’m not quite sure why. But never mind anyone else in the building, it probably would have awoken the dead too.

At breakfast I was on my own, and then I came back down here to carry on with my research. I started to read the report of that Finnish expedition to Labrador. And it’s come up with a couple of interesting facts.

There’s a lengthy discussion of the Churchill Falls and the Bowdoin Canyon into which the Falls descends. A huge pile of statistics that will be of great interest when I start to write about my trip out in the Wilderness of Labrador to visit the Falls
Even more interestingly, you need to remember that this is the period 1937-1939, long before the discovery of the Norse remains at L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland. And yet there’s a map in the preface of this expedition’s report where they discuss the Norse settlement of Newfoundland, and as far as the small scale of the map can isolate, the expedition places Vinland in round about the same area that Helge Ingstad discovered the Norse remains (although Ingstad hesitates to identify them as “Vinland” and as you already know, I don’t think that it corresponds at all with the description given in the Norse Sagas). It’s a little-known fact that L’Anse aux Meadows was identified in 1914 as the location of “Vinland” by an insurance agent and amateur historian called William A Munn in his book “Wineland voyages;: Location of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland”, but Munn isn’t listed as a source by the Expedition, and so I’m now more intrigued than ever before about the source of this Expedition’s information about the location

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket on the corner for a baguette and came back with a black plastic box as well – another one in the waste bin and I now have a dozen of them ready for packing, whenever that might be.
And I also had a major crash-out this afternoon too, but that’s hardly a surprise.

Tea was delicious – potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy and a vegan Linda McCartney pie. That was the best meal that I’ve had for quite a while. And my djervushka from the Ukraine was there too. I have to make the most of my time with her because she’s leaving on Friday, having found a studio for herself. I wonder if she needs a flatmate?

And there are more new people here too – but I’ve not had the pleasure of their company as yet.

Tonight I’m looking forward to my bed. As well as having a shower and a shave, I have a clean bedroom and fresh bedding. I’m all set up for a good night’s sleep but whether or not I’ll have one is another thing.

Who – or what – is going to interrupt me tonight then?

Tuesday 10th January 2017 – I TIDIED UP …

… this morning. In fact I spent a good 45 minutes making sure that my room was in really good, tidy condition (just for once).

Yesterday afternoon I’d had a knock on the door from the landlord’s sidekick. Would it be okay if they came by at midday and cleaned my room and changed everything around?

Of course it would, and so I spent all of that time making sure that everything was tidy and in its place, and then just before midday I headed into town.

I took my time, bought a pile of stuff in the Delhaize and then slowly wandered back here – to find that they hadn’t been. And here I am at 21:30 and they still haven’t been.

Last night I had my early night and was well-away. But at 01:30 I awoke to a loud noise on the laptop radio. And so I turned it off again and went back to sleep. And that was how I stayed until the alarm went off.

During the night I’d been travelling too – onto a stage where I was playing bass and singing in a rock group. But for some reason I couldn’t co-ordinate the singing with the bass playing and it was all coming out wrong. In fact it was quite a nightmare.

At breakfast I was joined by my Polish housemate (but not, unfortunately my Ukrainian djervushka which was a big disappointment. And immediately after breakfast, the Pole disappeared off with his suitcase. There’s a new arrival in his room but I don’t know who it is.

So apart from shopping and tidying up, I’ve been researching again today. I’ve found some exciting stuff too – the report of a Finnish archaeological expedition to Labrador in 1937 that came to an abrupt halt as the Finns were swept up in the Winter War against the Soviets. What’s exciting about this is that they report a story that they had heard in Newfoundland about a child in Labrador who was killed by a dog-team. This was denied by the inhabitants of the town, so they report, but yet I’ve seen a death certificate of a child in the town where the death has been described as ‘killed by dogs”.

And she’s not the only child so killed either. Look at the entry for 5th July 1941 as an example.

Not only that, there was some talk of the ancient lost (if not mythical) city of Brest being at Brador Bay rather than at Old Fort, following a discovery in 1968 of Basque artefacts there. But I also found the report of an archaeological dig at the site in 2014 where they concluded that it was actually an Inuit site with Basque artefacts having been recovered from elsewhere and reused
by the Inuit.

I was alone for tea, where I finished my kidney bean whatsit (and it was as good as I expected too) and now I’ll try for yet another early night. It’s quiet in here so I may as well take advantage of it. After all, it’s doing me good.

Thursday 5th January 2017 – I HAD A …

… slightly better night last night.

In fact, I tried the usual cure for insomnia – settling down in bed to watch one of the “Bulldog Drummond” films that I had downloaded from www.archive.org and, sure enough, 10 minutes later I was definitely gone with the wind. And apart from just one awakening during the night, I was right out until 06:50. It’s been a while since I’ve beaten the alarm to awakening, isn’t it?

And I was well away during the night too. I was out last night with a boyfriend of Anne-Marie on the way to her apartment. And it had been so long that I couldn’t remember which building it was. Twice now I had seen a building that I was convinced was the one in which she was living but it was not – instead we ended up at an old cottage in a residential area of the city. I vaguely remembered her living in a disreputable, semi-derelict house in just oen room but here were maybe half a dozen or more boys of the age of her boyfriend – they had gutted the derelict parts of the house and were in the process of installing some kind of kitchen there. Where we had parked was in the street right in front of the house, blocking the street to passing traffic and I was concerned that this might cause problems for Anne-Marie with her neighbours, but then I had to try to convince myself that it wasn’t my problem – I hadn’t been driving the vehicle and it was the driver’s problem and Anne-Marie’s problem anyway, nothing to do with me.
A little later I was out with Alison. We’d been into a neighbouring town to look for an electric kettle. We’d identified a place that might sell one and so we set out to pick one up. However our way into town took us in a different direction – and it was quite confusing to arrive in this direction for a start – and so we weren’t close to this shop with the kettle so we had to look again. We ended up in a market hall, a 1920s brick-build white-emulsioned place that was in a semi-derelict condition with planks of wood shoved through the windows and dead pigeons all over the place that had been killed by poisoned corn being used. Alison mentioned a place here that might have one to sell but I wasn’t convinced that this place would have one, and that we would have to find the place that we had already identified, but how we were going to do this we had no idea.

It might sound strange about Anne-Marie making an appearance, but yesterday, someone was searching her name on the internet and they fetched up on my blog, where she’s made a couple of appearances in my past. That particularly stuck in my mind, although it clearly stuck more firmly than I imagined.

I was having breakfast when the alarm went off this morning, and then back down here I had a couple of very long missives to write. That took me right up until lunchtime, when I nipped out to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette.

After lunch, I cracked on with my website. I’ve been reading a couple University theses on life in Labrador (the Metropolitan University of Newfoundland – note the “Newfoundland”, not “Newfoundland and Labrador” – has published many of their theses on line this last couple of years) and what I’ve read has enabled me not only to find tons more stuff on North West River (the farthest northern point of Labrador that it’s possible to reach by road) but to make additions to several other pages that I have written in the past.

The trouble with all of this, as I have said in the past, is that I’m spending more time researching than writing, and what started out as being a quiet little travelog is now becoming an epic of mammoth proportions.

Not only that, I crashed out for an hour too, which is hardly a surprise seeing my early start.

For tea I finished off the other half of the can of beans, some more croquettes and the last vegan curry-burger. I’ll have to think of something else for tea tomorrow.

And now I’ll try for another early night tonight. I have just one housemate and she seems to be quite a quiet personality – she was hunched over a book eating her tea when I went upstairs to make my meal tonight.

Let’s hope that it stays like that.

Thursday 29th December 2016 – TODAY WAS ALMOST …

… a carbon copy of Tuesday, except that I was on my own all day today.

It took me quite a while, and several attempts, to drop off to sleep despite having an early night. But once I’d gone, that was that until about 06:45. I don’t even remember going on any nocturnal ramble either.

Early to breakfast yet again, and then I had a nice hot shower and shave to try to liven me up a little. Of course, that’s quite an impossibility, as I am the first person to admit, but at least it makes me smell nicer – for the first half-hour or so anyway.

Now that I have the new laptop I had a big play around with my 3D program this morning and I was so carried away that it wasn’t until 12:30 that I noticed the time. That meant a quick trip to the supermarket, whee I seemed to be some form of amusement to two 8 year old girls, although I’m not too sure why.

After lunch I had a good go on my website. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve been able to glean from the Dillon Wallace unpublished notes – stuff that seems not to have made it into the recorded history of North West River and the Hamilton Inlet. I shall be adding it to my stuff so as to make sure that its memory is brought forward into the modern world.

Another thing that I did, which seems to be becoming far too much of a habit these days, is to crash out. And I was away for quite a good while – it was 19:18 when I awoke in fact, so that was quite a good one.

Tea tonight was another dollop of my potato and chick pea curry and the longer it stands, the better it tastes. The last helping is for the weekend and the spices should have well-soaked in by then.

I’m not alone here tonight either. There’s a family of middle-aged people and at least one daughter in her late teens – and there’s someone else moving around in the building too. I hope that they are going to be quiet and well-behaved.

Sunday 25th December 2016 – SMAKELIJK!

Having worked to death the Crewe Bus Station toilets “Merry Christmas to all our readers” thing continuously over the past few years, we’ll talk about something else this year.

Like my Christmas dinner for example. Roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, carrots, chicory, leeks, seitan slices, onions, gravy and, of course, brussels sprouts. No Christmas meal is complete without them of course – properly cooked and not at all into a mush like most people cook them.

And it was absolutely delicious too, even if I had forgotten to add the garlic.

There was supposed to be Christmas pudding and soya custard for afters, but Alison had bought me a vegan chocolate Santa, and so that went down instead, washed down by a can of that alcohol-free raspberry beer.

Last night, we had the party at 05:00 but with my headphones on, I managed to avoid the worst of it. And it only lasted about half an hour anyway before boyfriend was escorted to the door.

And I was on my travels too. In some kind of Dragnet circumstance with two people, nominally police officers, but chauffeurs at where I worked. We had to go somewhere and we were told that we were to avoid a certain street which had now been converted into a dead end. So we set off, with me driving in an early 1950s Ford-type of sedan coloured a duck-egg blue and pale yellow. And sure enough, I missed the turning and ended up just where I’d been told where not to go. With two of us at the front and one at the rear, we picked up the car (which was now shaped like a canoe) and man-handled it through a tone-lined pond onto the main road. There, I pulled a bunch of weeds out of a garden there and was immediately confronted by the owner of the property who hadn’t wanted me to do that.

And so while you admire the rest of last night’s photographs, I can tell you that I was alone an breakfast, where there was nothing special arranged for the tenants.

And then down here, I unwrapped my Christmas presents.

Alison’s chocolate Santa I’ve already mentioned. But me, I bought myself a new laptop.

Actually, I bought it last year but what with one thing and another, I hadn’t opened it.

It’s another Acer, but a larger one with a numeric keypad and DVD player, and twice as much RAM as before.

You know that this one is not very good – it’s the slowest machine that I’ve ever used. It’s very lightweight and very economical, but the lack of speed was really getting on my nerves.

Transferring the files over is taking ages though. Not because it’s taking so much time (although it is) but I’m taking the opportunity to tidy up all of the directories while I’m about it.

It might be finished by tomorrow – who knows – and then I’ll have to start to clean up the storage issues that I have. I can save tons of space if I organise myself properly.

While I was making my butties at lunchtime (that’s a nice loaf that I have bought) I made the acquaintance of one of my housemates.

She’s a woman from Montreal, the Henri Bourassa area of the city, and so we had quite a lengthy chat (in French) about this and that. It was nice o remind myself of the city, seeing as how I’n not sure if i’ll ever be making it back there.

This afternoon I carried on with the new laptop and had a nice chat with Liz and her family on the laptop. Strawberry Moose joined in the discussion too, telling Dylan and Robyn how much he was looking forward to meeting up later next year.

And then, I went off to make my delicious tea.

Before I go off to bed for an early night, let me just tell you a little about something that I discovered last night.

Leuven is a really beautiful medieval Flemish city as you have probably seen, but 103 years ago, it was even more beautiful.

All of that changed in August 1914 when the Germans arrived, and in accordance with their policy of “Frightfulness” they set fire to the city centre, even burning the contents of the library that contained many of the oldest books in Europe.

And then in May 1940, they burnt it down again.

Many people, including, unfortunately, some of my acquaintances, criticise the French and the Belgian civilians for what they consider to be a “lack of resolution” in confronting the German Army

Leaving aside the fact that at least they were here, unlike the British Army that ran away across the Channel at Dunkirk, and the lack of resolution shown in the German occupied British territories such as the Channel Islands, where the civilian population sat it out with a German occupying force for 10 months after the War had passed them by, the British civilians never had to confront the issues that the French and Belgian citizens had to confront.

We’ve seen in the past the gravestones of civilians who died during both wars – gravestones marked “shot” or “executed” or “decapitated”. No British or American civilian ever had to confront that kind of treatment.

Here in the Grote Markt in Leuven is this plaque with a list of names carved thereupon. 16 names, all civilians who were deliberately killed by the Germans in August 1914 as they were setting fire to the buildings of the Square.

This is the kind of thing that you find all over Belgium and France. Never mind being casual, haphazard victims of a bombing campaign or artillery duel, these civilians were simply purposefully murdered while going about their normal day-to-day duties and was a risk that every citizen in Occupied Europe had to run.

There was no escape.

Anyway, on that note, I’m off to do my washing up and then I’m off to bed. Will I have a good night tonight?

Saturday 24th December 2016 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

… the city of Leuven and its Christmas illuminations, I’ll tell you about the day that I’ve had today.

Most importantly, I went out for a walk this evening. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been for a stroll out at night – probably since I was in Montreal in October, and seeing as it’s Christmas Eve tonight, it seemed to be a good-enough opportunity.

One thing that I haven’t done since I’ve been in Leuven to show you where I’m staying.

It’s in the Brusselsestraat, which used to be the main way out of the city before the Motorway link road was built, and on the corner of the Kruisstraat. And that’s the building just down there on the left, on the corner after the third street light.

My room is on the first floor, on the left hand corner at the rear, with a window at the rear overlooking the garden.

And so as for last night – a total disaster.

Someone in here was “entertaining” and the beds creak like nobody’s business, as I might have mentioned before. I was all for giving them a round of applause but of course it’s impossible to clap with just one hand as you know.

And then we had the party.

About 02:00 they started, and it wasn’t until about 04:00 that they finished.

I’d been asleep, having had an early night until they started, and I gave up any idea of going back there once they had started. By 02:30 I was working on the laptop. I may as well make the most of all of my discomfort. No point in missing out on the time that I had unexpectedly been given

I went back to sleep shortly afterwards and that was that until the alarm went off. And rather petulantly, I didn’t turn off the alarm for quite a while. And likewise with the reminder. I let it ring for a few minutes

After breakfast I went and had a shower. I didn’t wait until everyone was awake like I usually do – I went straight in regardless of the noise that the shower makes in the bathroom.

I was in something of a bad mood, wasn’t I?

For much of the morning I was researching stuff again for my stuff on Labrador. And I came across some work by a certain Rudy Mauro, someone who had gone out (in a helicopter) to the site of where Leonidas Hubbard, about whom we’ve talked on many occasions, had died during his ridiculous “exploration” of Labrador’s interior where he had starved to death after being “out” for only a few weeks.

He also had amongst his papers some notes by Dillon Wallace, he who accompanied Hubbard and who went back to complete his work, and which were previously unpublished.

Later on I went out to the shops and to the market. I bought everything that I had written down on my list, but something that I had subsequently remembered that I needed, I even more subsequently forgot.

And worse was yet to come, because the vegan shop had sold out of the spray-on vegan cream. It means that I’m going to have to eat my mince pies “dry” and that’s a tragedy. I was rather looking forward to my special little treat.

I carried on working this afternoon, as well as having a little doze too (which I reckoned that I needed), as well as keeping up-to-date with Morton’s game with Queen of the South.

That all took me up to tea time when i finished off the last of my curry. But it was rather difficult making my tea tonight as my current lot of housemates don’t seem to understand the necessity of cleaning up and washing up after them.

The sooner I can find a place of my own the better.

But then I went off for my walk up town in the evening.

What surprised me was that there was no-one about. Well – that’s not necessarily true. What I mean was that in most other cities the centre would be heaving and there woud be all kinds of things going on – and that was what I was hoping – carol singers and all of that.

But as you can see from a photo of the Grote Markt – there are very few people wandering around here and nothing in the way of entertainment. It was all rather disappointing.

And so instead I came back home.

It’s now Christmas Day and I’m celebrating with a can of alcohol-free raspberry beer that I bought from Noz in Montlucon the other week.

And now I’m off to bed, if my housemates will let me, and I’ll show you the rest of my photos tomorrow.

Tuesday 20th December 2016 – I MADE SURE …

… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

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

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

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

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

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

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

High time that I was organised.

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

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

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

EPIC HALL

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