Tag Archives: caliburn

Thursday 10th November2016 – I HAD RATHER A …

… restless night last night. It took me ages to drop off to sleep. And then I was awake long before the alarm went off.

Nevertheless, I hadn’t had to leave my bed during the night and no only that, I’d had a busy night being away on my travels. And, as usual these days, the whole lot disappeared the moment I awoke.

I was on my own at first for breakfast but I was soon joined by some others. I wasn’t that much alone. And back here afterwards, I couldn’t find the motivation to start on my website. Concentration and motivation seem to be lacking right now and I don’t know why after my successes just recently.

By the time 11:00 came round, I went off to Caliburn to sort out some of the stuff that i’ll need here for the next week, and then down to the Carrefour by the football ground to pick up some sandwich stuff.

On the way back here I went via Caliburn to pick up the stuff that I had sorted out, and found later on when I was making my tea that I had forgotten a storage container for the other half of tea for tomorrow.

After lunch I had a good chat with two or three people and I also crashed out for a while. And not only that, I did manage to do some kind of work on my website.I also went down to the bistro to pay for my lodgings but once more, there was no-one there.

For tea I made pasta, kidney beans, veg and tomato sauce thickened with boulghour. And there’s half left for tomorrow which I had to leave in the saucepan as I didn’t have anywhere else to leave it.

I also had a chat with the landlord of this place about my ongoing health problems. He might be able to work out a good deal for me if I stay here. And I might just accept it too because I don’t really know where else to go for the next three or four months that I might have to stay here.

I’ll have to think long and hard about this.

Wednesday 9th November 2016- AT LEAST THE WEATHER …

… didn’t let me down today.

I was expecting the sun to be out and that we would have brilliant weather today seeing as I was leaving Oostende today. But instead, it was pouring down and windy just like the rest of the time that I had spent here.

As soon as the alarm went off I was up and about, even before the reminder. And I’d had a really good night’s sleep too, with nothing to disturb me whatever. A long time since I’d had such a deep and satisfying sleep, even though there was only six and a half hours of it.

after a quick shower and a change of clothes, I was downstairs for breakfast. First yet again although I was soon joined by others. And once I’d finished, I was back upstairs, packed and out of the door by 08:40.

I had plenty of time to wait for my train at the station, although it was cold there in the temporary waiting room. I wasn’t half pleased to be on the train. It was bang on time too and really comfortable, so much so that I cracked on with the work that I’ve been doing on my website.

It was still pouring down when I arrived in Leuven, and after gathering my wits I went off to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I don’t need, and that was a long walk in the rain. And one thing that I did was to find the fleece lining for my rain jacket. I’d been freezing in Oostende.

Bang on time at the hospital, and I was quickly organised. They plugged a catheter in and took a blood sample. And my blood count is stable, as is my protein loss. That’s a surprise. I only wish that the blood was stable at 12.2, not 9.7.

And then – they forgot me yet again. And after reminding them, they finally got back to me at 17:45. It seems, in what can only be really bad news, they need to take two-weekly controls of my urine and kidneys for the next … errr … three months at least. And that’s before we start talking about the blood situation – for which I have an appointment next week.

You’ve no idea just how dismayed I am by all of this.

At least there’s a room free at the hostel and so I’m now back there for a week. And who knows? I might even be able to go home again after my appointment next week if there’s a fortnightly pause. But I want a place of my own. I can’t go on like this living out of a suitcase in a hostel room.

Alison came round later and we went out for a meal and a coffee. And a guided tour of Leuven as a new one-way system that’s been installed led us everywhere except where we wanted to go.

Now I’m off to bed. Thoroughly depressed, thoroughly fed up.

and if my next blog is from Mars or Uranus or somewhere like that, don’t be surprised. What is happening in the western world has filled me full of dismay for the last twenty years and the news this morning has made me want to emigrate to another planet somewhere.

Whatever is the world coming to?

Thursday 3rd November 2016 – GRRRR!

Yes, you’ve guessed it. It’s not good news.

Last night was quite a disturbed night and I even sweated a great deal. Dunno whether it was concern about what today might bring me, but there we are. It was quite a struggle to leave the bed after the alarm went off and head off to breakfast, but there I was all the same. And by 07:30 I was out and on the road to the hospital.

The morning was a misty, foggy cold morning and so I walked briskly up to the hospital. By 07:50 I was at the registration desk and by 08:00 I was in the waiting room.

The wait was longer than it ought to have been but eventually I was seen and the blood pressure and blood samples were taken. and then I had another long wait until about 11:00 until the doctor saw me. He asked me all of the usual questions and I had the usual thorough examination, and then I had to wait again.

Lunch was the usual soup and bread, which didn’t take me too long to wolf down; And then I had to wait again.

The nephrologist saw me at 14:30. She said that the protein loss was slowly increasing, and they needed to make yet further tests. I had to go for another set of x-rays. And then I had to wait again.

By 17:30 I was fed up of waiting and so I asked what was going on. It appears that some nurse had told the nephrologist that I’d gone home. And so nothing had happened. The nephrologist told me eventually that she wanted me to come back in on … errr … Wednesday next week. So not even a week before my next appointment. How I’m fed up with all of this.

And my blood count? It’s down to 9.7. I’m pretty fed up of that as well.

I was fed up of all of the waiting too, but at least I was able to do tons of stuff on the web pages that I’m writing.

But it was far too late to do anything else so I booked a room at the Ibis Budget and went there via Caliburn to pick up some spare clothes. I had a good deal too at the Ibis.

After a shower, a shave and a change of clothes, Alison turned up and we went to the fritkot, for a meal and a good chin-wag.

Now I’m having an early night. For I have a cunning plan in the morning. Whatever it might be, you’ll have to wait and see.

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 – I’M MOVING ON …

… tomorrow, so I must organise myself quite rapidly today.

I had a bit of a bad night again last night and had something of a struggle to make it up to breakfast at 07:15. I was joined by the usual crowd of students who popped in, made some butties and then popped out again, and then I was back down here.

I had an hour or so working on the website again – the missing bit of Highway 138 in Quebec – and then I headed off to Kessel-Lo.

As luck would have it, and in a complete surprise, the Fortis Bank had my bank card ready and once they had reactivated it, it worked fine too. That’s even more of a surprise.

At Bio-Planet I picked up a baguette and then drove back. I prepared an envelope for the insurance claim form, picked some stuff for tea from the collection in the back of Caliburn, and then came back here. And here, I cracked on with the web-site.

after lunch, I phoned up the hospital to find out the time of my appointment. And I know that I had hoped for an early appointment but this is ridiculous. They want me there at 08:10 and it doesn’t come much earlier than this. I’ll have to change all of the alarms.

After lunch I went off to the Post Office and posted the claim form. That’s another job done. Then I came back and crashed out for a while.

I found the time to carry out an amendment to the website – I’m trying to update at least one page per day, although today’s amendment wasn’t anything considerable.

For tea I had a tin of vegetables with chick peas, tomato sauce and rice, to finish off a few bit that were lying around. And when the washing-up was done, I took everything down to Caliburn except for what I can take tomorrow to the hospital. And finally I had a shower.

Now I’m having an early night again, ready for tomorrow. And then we’ll see what happens. There are three choices – they could keep me in hospital. Or if I’m released for at least two weeks, I’ll be off home. But if it’s only for a week or so, I’m off to the seaside.

I can do with a holiday after all of this.

Saturday 29th October 2016 – IT NEVER RAINS …

… but it pours, doesn’t it?

I decided that in order to changer mes idées, as the French so aptly put it, I’d go out of town this lunchtime and do my shopping out at Kessel-LO, to give me a good opportunity to have a wander around.

And the net result of my external perambulations?

The Fortis Bank there has swallowed my bank card.

That’s all that I need, isn’t it? Lurching from one disaster to another while I’m here this last two or three weeks. I’m getting totally fed up of this. It’s about time that something went right with me for a change.

But at least I’d managed to go to Bio-Planet and buy some more vegan cheese and a beautiful baguette, as well as helping myself to the free samples and the complementary coffee. I bought some stuff (but nothing exciting) in Carrefour that I need to tide me over until Thursday when (hopefully) I’ll leave here and I had a good look around in Krefel to see what they had in the way of electrical appliances. But there was nothing that particularly excited me.

Last night, it didn’t take me long to go to sleep. And once I was asleep, I stayed asleep (except for one trip down the corridor). I awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm, and for once, I was washed and breakfasted and back in my room by 07:45.

My voyage last night was something of a strange parallel to real life. I was somewhere in north-west England, Lancaster or the like, and I had a few days spare. I was torn between going back home to Crewe for a short while or finding somewhere to stay up there. The idea of going to Silloth appealed to me, but I had a look at the map, which was in a holder up above my head in Caliburn and found the town of Oxenhope right on the coast not too far from where I was (and Oxenhope is of course miles away from the sea in real life) I could see that it was fairly large with a port and harbour, with a main street running along the front and so I reckoned that I would go there. But I couldn’t get Caliburn to start – and that was painful. We also had two children – rather like two kids that I know in real life – and they appeared on my voyages for some reason or other.

After breakfast, I had a little doze and did a few bits and pieces and round about 11:30 I wandered off down to Caliburn and out to Kessel-Lo.

Back here, it ended up being a late lunch and then I attacked the web site again. I’ve been working on it again and I’ve amended three web pages, this one, this one and this one. Stuff from my 2015 voyage needed to be added into the first two pages, and that led to adjustments on the third page.

I had a good chat with Liz and another one of my friends on the internet too. It’s certainly been a marvellous invention, hasn’t it?

Tonight, I finished off my curry from yesterday and now I’m planning on yet another early night. i’ll hopefully make the most of it because the clocks go back tonight. Back 100 years for those of you who voted for the Brexit.

But for me, it means that I might have an extra hour in bed asleep.

But I’ve heard all of that before.

Friday 28th October 2016 – I’VE HAD A BAD DAY TODAY

In fact, I’ve spent most of it asleep.

It all probably stems from last night. I told you that I was going to have an early night, and indeed I did. And I wasn’t awake long either. Soon away with the fairies.

The trouble was that it didn’t last long. I was awake after about an hour and with people coming and going throughout the house and talking in raised voices, I couldn’t go back to sleep again. I ended up working on two pages of my website, adding some stuff from 2015 – this one and this one.

I was eventually able to go off to sleep and I slept right through until the alarm went off. It was something of a stagger up to breakfast, and then back down here I lay on the bed and dozed.

I missed my little window to go and pay for my room, as I was fast asleep during the bistro’s lunchtime opening hours. But I did manage to make it to the supermarket on the corner to buy some stuff for lunch. So much for the mega-shop that I had planned, and so much for my trip to the footy ground to buy my ticket for tomorrow night (it’s an all-ticket match). I’ve missed the football for this weekend then.

I spoke a little to Liz this afternoon, and worked on another page of my website. This is astonishing, isn’t it? I dunno where this motivation is coming from.

But apart from that, I was back asleep for most of the afternoon. Until I had a rude awakening from the cleaner that is. Now I have clean bedding and a reasonably clean room.

The bistro was closed this evening when I went past – I went to Caliburn to pick up some food. For tea I had a mushroom curry with rice and it was so delicious. And there’s enough for tomorrow too. And tonight I had another doze too.

But now I’m off to bed. There are hordes of new arrivals this weekend so I hope that they all behave themselves.

Thursday 27th October 2016 – THIS WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED

I went to hospital this afternoon for my tests. I had the usual catheter fitted and blood sample taken. And then I had to wait.

My blood pressure is up again and my legs are starting to swell up. That’s a couple of things to worry about, but the lymph nodes that have bedevilled me – the doctor can’t find them. If they really have gone, that will be the best news that I’ve had for ages.

I had an echograph this afternoon and my kidneys appear to be quite normal as far as their make-up goes, but there is still a problem in that according to the urine sample that I gave, the protein loss from my body is accelerating.

But the worst news is about my blood count. That’s now down to 10.0, a loss of 9% over the last two weeks. Considering that while I was away in Canada for – weeks, then over that period of time I lost 10% of my count – that’s about a third of the current rate of loss.

That is causing them a considerable amount of concern and so the upshot is that I have to come back … next Thursday!

Yes, just one week, and that’s not even enough time for me to go home and come back again. How I hate all of this. But at least my little room in the hostel hasn’t been taken so I’ve moved back in and I’ll stay here. But what I’m going to do next if i’m on weekly visits I have no idea.

I had a difficult night last night – it took me hours to drop off. And then I had a very disturbed sleep. I was off on my travels too but as usual I forgot absolutely everything as soon as I awoke.

After breakfast I tidied up my room and then had a good shower and a change of clothes. And once I’d organised myself I went off to fetch Caliburn to load him up with the stuff from here. And I nearly squidged a cyclist who rode straight out of a side street without even a pretence at a glance at oncoming traffic.

I sat in the lounge here until it was appointment time and then walked up to the hospital for my appointment with destiny. 14:15 was the time of my appointment, and I was seen at … errr … 14:10. A far cry from the situation in the UK
“I needed an urgent appointment, and the hospital has made a special effort to fit me in. They are going to see me at 20:20”
“You mean at twenty past eight in the evening?”
“No – I mean in four years time”
Such is life with the British Health Service.

And I made all of 20 yards down the corridor on the way home with my catheter today. I’m improving.

And now I’m having an early night. I’m exhausted.

And fed up too.

Wednesday 26th October 2016 – SO HERE I AM …

… my last night in Leuven.

For a while, I hope. But even if it’s only for two or three weeks, I’m leaving for home anyway as soon as I an discharged from the hospital. I have stuff that I need to do back there and I can’t leave it any longer. And now that I’ve had Caliburn’s wheel bearing fixed, there’s no reason for me to stay.

After last night’s perturbations it took me ages to go off to sleep. And I had to leave the bed twice for a trip down the corridor. Not only that, I’ve no idea if I went off on a ramble. I can’t recall a thing.

It was a struggle to leave the bed, as you might expect. And after breakfast I had one of these eye-closing sessions. I wasn’t away with the fairies, but it was near enough.

Once I’d had another coffee to wake me up, I started work on my website again. And now we have this page and this page on line. And if I don’t fall asleep before bedtime, there might be another page on line before the end of the day today.

I had a good chat on line with a couple of people while I was working, and I also crashed out for half an hour this afternoon. And that was really nice too. The sun is lower in the sky and now shines underneath the top of the window. It was gloriously sunny and warm, and the rays of sunshine were shining right on me. It was beautiful.

I’d had some good luck today when I was out buying my baguette. The supermarket had thrown a couple more plastic food-trays into the skip. I went out later in the evening after tea to have a look at them and apart from being rather dirty, they were in good condition – not damaged at all.

Anyway, they have now been added to the stock and I might even have enough for the little project that I have in mind that includes a visit to IKEA and the purchase of a pile of cardboard boxes.

All of this depends upon what the hospital has to tell me tomorrow. If I’m still on two-weekly visits I’ll be well-and-truly sunk without a doubt. But I’m hoping that it’ll be much better news than this.

And so i’m going to have an early night and see what tomorrow will bring me.

Tuesday 25th October 2016 – I WENT TO RESCUE CALIBURN …

… from the garage today. And I had to lie down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

Mind you, I knew that it would be expensive so in the end I was prepared, I suppose. And it wasn’t just a case of the new bearing either but with it being a front-wheel drive, the disc is cast into the bearing housing so that needed to be replaced too, and that meant new brake pads as well.

Not only that, discs and brake pads are only sold in pairs and so I had to end up having the parts for the other side too, so they will go into store for the next occasion.

Finally, there were some bushes that were worn on the anti-roll bar which I’ve been meaning to do. But seeing as how they had Caliburn up on a hoist, I set them on the task. It may as well be done sooner rather than later and they have all the facilities.

I’d had a late night but a reasonable sleep, but even so I wasn’t all that happy about crawling out of bed. I’d been on my travels too during the night but as seems to be the norm these days, all memory of what I had been doing disappeared immediately.

After breakfast, I legged it out to the railway station with a nice brisk walk and as luck would have it, I walked into the station just as an Inter-City train to Brussels pulled in. And as I alighted at Bruxelles-Nord, a train to Namur, stopping at Bruxelles-Schuman, pulled in. Things like that don’t usually happen to me. Having left here at 08:00, I was sitting in Caliburn at 09:45.

Having fuelled up with diesel, I went off to IKEA to see what they had to offer. I have a cunning plan, as I mentioned yesterday, and IKEA plays a role in this. I’ve made quite a few notes about what I’ll be needing, but I also did a little shopping too. They had some cheap white-china plates and bowls – €0:49 each, a medium-sized saucepan of decent quality – €4:99, and a nice pyrex oven dish – €1:99.

As well as that, I bought a few cardboard boxes because I’ll be needing them in a couple of weeks time when I go back to France.

Best news though was at the restaurant. I had a bowl of chips, a plate of salad and a coffee, all of which would have entitled me to a decent discount had I had an IKEA family card. I have one, but I’d left it in Caliburn I wasn’t all that bothered by it. But when the cashier asked me if I had a card, and I told her my story, she gave me the discount anyway. That was nice of her.

This afternoon in between bouts of somnolence I did some more work on the web pages that I mentioned yesterday. They aren’t ready yet to go on line – there’s plenty more work to do, but progress is progress after all.

I had a beautiful tea tonight. Kidney beans, boulghour and vegetables, tomato sauce and chili powder with pasta. Just for a change, I had the chili powder just about right and it was delicious. And once the argument in the building dies down (another one of the tenants has been too close to the barmaid’s apron) I’ll be having an early night again.

It’s (hopefully) my last full day here tomorrow. Thursday I’m back in the hospital and then we’ll see what happens. I’m heading back to France regardless as soon as I’m released (now that I’ve had Caliburn’s wheel bearing fixed) but for how long, I’ve no idea.

Monday 24th October 2016 – DESPITE WHAT I SAID …

… last night, I didn’t go to bed all that early. In fact, I carried on with what I was doing on my website. And by the time that I had finished – which was at 00:15, I’d transformed the page on which Iw as working into two pages – this one and this one.

In fact, I ought really to have divided it up into three pages given the size of the pages that were produced, but there wasn’t a clear join or convenient break-point anywhere so it will have to do.

I went to sleep after that and without any interruption at all, I was stark out until the alarm went off. I’d been on my travels too, although I don’t remember all that much about it now. All that I do remember was that it featured the girl who on these pages has been known in the past as “The One That Got Away” and her daughter, and we were on a cruise or voyage somewhere with a pile of other people.

When the alarm went off, I was awake instantly. Straight into breakfast where I was joined by a couple of other housemates, and then back here long before 08:00.

I’ve spent most of the day attacking the website with further amendments and by late afternoon two more revised pages were on line – this one and this one.

And as if that isn’t enough, I’ve been working on two completely new ones. I spent two days a-wandering around Godbout just after I arrived there. And each one of my daily rambles will have its own page.

However, that won’t be finished tonight as I’m pretty tired, and it won’t be finished tomorrow either because Caliburn is ready and I can go to pick him up tomorrow morning. Assuming that I don’t have any other contretemps on my way out of the city, I’ll go to pay a visit to IKEA. I have been having a long-term plan that has rapidly passed through the mid-term stage and is now a short-term objective, and IKEA plays a part in that.

Apart from that, what else?

We’ve had the odd crash-out as you might expect, and I had to go to the Fortis bank round the corner to pay my web-hosting fees for 2017. They are due at the end of November. And I finished the rest of the curry that I had made last Thursday.

But web-hosting – that reminds me.

It costs me a lot of money to put my web-pages and this blog on line, and I’m sure that you have all benefited at one time or another from what I’ve been saying.

You can help me by making your next purchase from Amazon via the links on the right-hand side of this blog. You pay no extra by doing this, but I receive a small commission from the company, and this helps me pay the web-hosting.

Please help me keep my postings alive.

Wednesday 19th October 2016 – AND YET MORE B*****DS!

Someone has driven into the back of Caliburn this afternoon, the b*****d.

I was on my way into Brussels at lunchtime and hit a traffic queue in the Avenue Cortenberg, so I stopped. But the car behind me didn’t, and that was that.

But to keep things in the proper order, at least my neighbours were quite quiet last night. I’m not sure if those of last night were still here but I hardly heard a peep from anyone at all.

What wasn’t so good was the couple of interruptions that I had had during the night – interruptions for reasons that any man of my age will thoroughly understand.

But at least I’d managed to go on a few little voyages during the night too.

I was in New York last night. But not the New York that most people know, but the New York that we have visited on several occasions during our little nocturnal rambles. The New York of even more immense skyscrapers than it really has, and high-rise motorways and soaring bridges. And I was trying to explain to someone about what might be found in a 100-kilometre radius of the banks of one of the river. And even though I say it myself, then considering that I was deep in the arms of Morpheus I was doing really well with my explanations, although I suspect that my 100-kilometre radius was being stretched quite considerably.
Having had another interruption, I was then away with some of my family. And I wish that they wouldn’t involve themselves in my little nocturnal rambles. We were travelling somewhere, and somewhere by aeroplane too and so we needed to be at the baggage check-in pretty quickly. But could I heck convince my family of the urgency and the need to get a wiggle on, and they were taking their time and dragging things out. One member of my family went off in an old soft-top 80-inch Land Rover to fetch some more family. But he wouldn’t hurry up at all. Never mind the baggage check-in – he didn’t arrive back with us until take-off time. It was therefore quite evident that we had missed our plane for our holiday.

After breakfast, I carried on with my website, updating it with stuff that had happened while I’d been in Canada, but my heart wasn’t really in it. And so I had an idea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there’s a wheel-bearing on Caliburn that’s not so good and needs attention. As I’m going back to France next weekend (I hope), if I have it done there, I’ll be stranded without transport. And who knows how long it might be. But here though, with public transport, being without a vehicle is no big deal and it means that if I have it fixed here I won’t be inconvenienced and I’ll be much more at my ease for going home, and going a-wandering too.

There’s a little garage in Brussels that used to fix our Fords at work, so I rang them and booked Caliburn in. And then I hit the road. Having been off the road for two months, the wheel-bearing was squeaking even more, so it was just as well that I was going to have it done.

And then we had the issues with this Belgian … errr … driver – using the term quite loosely. And in the pouring rain too. What a performance.

Caliburn is still mobile so I dropped him off at the garage, and then I walked round to the Social Services department of my former employers. I had a few questions to ask them. Most of them I forgot to ask, yet the one that I did ask, I had what could well be described as “a disappointing reply”.

I walked up to the Schuman railway station and caught a train to Bruxelles-Nord. There was a train already there going to Leuven but just as I put my hand on the door, it pulled out. I had to wait 20 minutes for the next. And while I was waiting, I had some more disappointing news about Caliburn’s wheel bearing.

It was now rush hour and the train to Leuven was packed. And then I had a rather wet walk back to here.

But poor Caliburn. What a tragedy. I hope that the accident is nothing serious.

Tuesday 18th October 2016 – THIS IS LOOKING OMINOUS AND I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL

Here in my little room at the head of the stairs, I was just dropping off to sleep round about midnight when a couple of people came in. They said goodnight to each other in a tone of voice that could have been heard all over the city, but just as I was about to go out and tell them to shut up, they went their separate ways.

But that wasn’t all.

About 15 minutes after the girl in 1204 had gone to bed, she was up and in the bathroom. In fact, she was in there twice. And now the whole toilet area in the first-floor bathroom is plastered in vomit and the smell is disgusting. Anyway, I’m not tolerating this for a moment and first thing this morning I was on the telephone to the owner to complain.

It’s not his fault of course and I went to great lengths to explain that to him. he can’t be held responsible for that, but he ought to know about it and to come round and apply his foot to the nether regions of the people responsible.

So much for my early night and my good sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours after that.

However, I must have gone off to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels. I was with a large group of people, refugees, heading somewhere or other. We camped for the night in a park, setting up our camps in little family groups. I of course was on my own but there was a small, young family quite close to me and I had to pass them to go down to the lake for water. There was something going on with three young cats too, but I’m not very sure as to where they all fitted in to this story.

And how nice it is to be back in my little room (disgusting neighbours notwithstanding). The alarm went off at 07:00, followed almost immediately by the morning cacophony from the church across the road. It’s good to be back. And so I managed an early breakfast.

Now, I don’t know if you have been paying much attention to what I’ve been writing here and there about the Muskrat Falls in Labrador – the new hydro-electric plant that they are building that I visited in 2014, and how it has been claimed that a German U-boat has been discovered at the foot of the falls.

It seems that there is some kind of progress being made in this direction, and someone has tentatively identified it as U-851, a U-boat that disappeared off Newfoundland on or after 27th March 1944. She was a long-range cruising U-boat and was on her way to join the Monsoon wolf-pack operating in the Indian Ocean when she vanished.

After breakfast I did some work on my website for a few hours and although I updated some of it, my heart wasn’t in it. I was too tired after last night, I reckon.

And so instead I went out to Caliburn to sort out a big IKEA shopping bag. With that, I went off to the Carrefour near the footy ground to do some shopping. I’d run out of hummus and the salad mix that I like. A nice, steady walk that will do me good.

Back at Caliburn, I picked up a couple of books (I’m running out of reading material here) and a couple of other bits and pieces that I need, and then I walked back here.

Having sorted myself out, next stop was to fill the IKEA bag (you knew that there had to be a reason, didn’t you?) with all of the dirty washing, including some stuff that I didn’t have time to wash in Canada, and nipped off to the launderette and did the lot. Now I have all clean clothes so I can have a good shower and a change of clothes tomorrow. And quite right too.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a minor disaster here. Being stranded from my camera on a few occasions in Canada, I’d taken some photos on my Canadian phone. This afternoon, having rescued he phone from my suitcase in Caliburn earlier, I extracted the memory card from the phone but … the photos aren’t on it. They seem to be on the phone’s internal memory.

And, you might remember from about two months ago, the data cable isn’t working so transferring them over isn’t an option that’s available to me.

I could transfer them onto another phone of course, but it’s my Canadian phone, tied to the Bell telephone network, so there’s no network access over here.

All in all, it’s a bit of a disaster right now. Amber is going to have to wait a good while for her tractor-pulling videos with Perdy in the Pink at Millinocket, Maine the other week..

But I couldn’t keep it up for long this afternoon. All of the difficulties of the night, plus my exertions of Sunday and my walk today have worn me out and I crashed out for three hours while a rainstorm raged outside.

Crashed out properly too, so much so that I was off on my travels. In Canada too, in Strider as it happens. I’d come down a steep bank to a junction with a main road which passed over a bow-girder bridge over a railway line. There were several trains about, so I make a complicated manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … to park up right by the bridge to photograph them. There was something else interesting down there next to the railway line – something like a holiday camp or a park – so I went to look at it. I struggled to find a place to park and ended up parked with the rear end of Strider hanging over the steps down to the place. I walked down with the crowds of people to a gift shop which doubled as the kiosk for entry into the place, but when I saw that the entry fee was $7:50 I changed my mind and walked back.

So now I’m awake and I’ve just had a really good chat with my friend Liz. I’m not in the least bit tired now so I can see me having another bad night’s sleep.

Monday 17th October 2016 – THERE’S ONLY ONE THING WORSE …

… than going upstairs in the dark, and that is going upstairs in the light and being half-way up when the timer on the light-switch switches off the light and I’m left in suspended animation half-way up the stairs.

But returning to our sheep, as the French say, last night’s sleep wasn’t so good. It was another one of those where it took ages for me to drop off to sleep. And I was awake at 03:40 for a short while. When the alarm went off at 07:00 (and again at 07:15) I went back to sleep but I staggered out of bed at 07:40 to go off for breakfast.

Breakfast was a bit of a disappointment. Cereals are running out and there is no juice at all. Stocks have been run down and aren’t being kept up. I hope that they do something about this today otherwise we’ll be on short commons tomorrow (and as I was indeed writing this, someone DID turn up to replenish the supplies.

And I don’t seem to have mentioned my travels last night because despite how bad the night might have been, I’d managed to go off on my travels. Not that I remember too much about it but it concerned Canada once more – Ontario and Quebec (but in the opposite positions) and how I (and a small family that I had picked up on the way) were going to emigrate there and live permanently.

After breakfast, I started work on my magnum opus – editing the photos and writing an account of my travels of yesterday. It took all morning, seeing as there were almost 2,000 words. Quite a lot but a far cry from the world-record 2600-odd that I wrote out the other day.

I had to move house too at some point during the morning. I was in a three-bed room but my previous room, a small one-bedded room, was now vacant. And this is where I’ll be spending the rest of my stay.

By 13:00 I had finished my magnum opus and so I went to the big supermarket on the corner for a baguette. They were selling electric rice cookers, which I thought was a waste of time because they didn’t have any electric rice. What’s the point of these then?

My exertions of yesterday must have tired me out because this afternoon, I crashed out on my comfy bed. i didn’t do too much at all.

But this evening, I made a lovely tea – kidney beans, tinned veg, bulghour, garlic fried in butter, tomato sauce and pasta. With enough left over for tomorrow. And really nice it was too. Soya dessert for pudding finished it off nicely.

And going back upstairs to wash the saucepan was when I was caught in the lighting trap.

So now, it’s the first night back in my comfortable bed. It really is comfortable too so I’m going to have an early night. Tomorrow I need the shops, and also some more stuff from Caliburn because I need to do some washing. I’m running out of clothes.

And so a nice early night for me.

Friday 14th October 2016 – IT’S NICE …

… to be back!

I was in bed by about 21:30 last night, totally exhausted, and that was that. But not for long, unfortunately because the room where I am is right on the front of the house and there must have been a party somewhere in the vicinity because at about 01:15 a steady stream of noisy people went past here. That kept up until about 02:30 and so much so that I ended up doing some work on the laptop.

Once it quietened down I was soon back to sleep and that was that until the alarm went off at 07:00. I had been on my travels too during the night, doing something with a group of young people that involved being on a tower or a lighthouse and having to take a pile of plates and dishes -off-white with a pink border – down to be washed. While I was on the edge of a pond of muddy water I was stung on the wrist by a wasp and my instinctive response caused me to send a plate flying through the air into the mud where it broke. In fact, of the three plates that I was carrying, two of them were broken. And then, having done he rest of the washing-up I had to invent a system to hoist up the plates and dishes to the top of the tower.

Breakfast was the usual toast, muesli, orange juice and coffee (in fact, two mugs of coffee) and then back down to my little room. I pushed on with a pile of outstanding work and had quite a good day for a change. But at midday I had things to do.

First stop was to go down the road and pay the bill for staying here. I’m rather disappointed that he didn’t give me such a good deal as I had last time that I stayed here, but it’s still one of the best value-for-money places around so I oughtn’t complain too much.

Next stop was down to Caliburn, and then we went off to the Carrefour to do some shopping. Having done that, we all came back here and I unloaded some stuff. Clean clothes, the dirty stuff to go to the launderette and the food supplies. I took Caliburn back to his little hidey-hole and then came back here to make my butty for lunch.

This afternoon I carried on with what I was doing, although I did have a couple of distractions along the way. And as I was getting ready for my tea, Liz came on-line and we started to chat and have a photo-exchange session. By the time we had finished it was 20:45 and I didn’t feel much like cooking at that time of night. Instead, I had some biscuits and went to bed.

Thursday 13th October 2016 – WELL, YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED.

Blood count is down. And protein loss is up. The result of all of that is that I have to go back in just two weeks.

This is a bitter blow to me of course. I need to move on and do things, and I was hoping for six months – or even three months would have done me. But not two weeks.

But I’m not surprised, because I had a horrible night.

I wasn’t in bed all that early, and even so I just couldn’t drop off at all. I gave up trying to sleep at 05:45 and started to read a book – and that had the desired effect, albeit 6 hours too late. It really was a struggle to crawl out of bed at 07:15.

And despite the small amount of sleep, I’m managed to go a-wandering. I was in a car driving down a lane and ended up crossing two railway lines, about 40 yards apart. I’d always believed that they were simply each track of a double-track line built by someone with a sense of humour, but the book that I bought on Sunday in Montreal convinced me that these were just another set of “parallel lines” laid by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway during the Canadian Great Railway Wars.

It’s funny how, even when I was asleep, I was able to think along logical lines like this, because it’s perfectly true. If you think that the Railway Wars between companies in the UK was savage, vicious and extremely wasteful, you haven’t seen anything until you read about what took place between the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Nothern and the Grand Trunk Railroad. The useless infighting and unnecessary duplication of routes cost Canada millions of dollars and bankrupted a couple of the companies for no good purpose.

And so at 07:15 I crawled out of bed, at 07:30 I crawled out of the shower (so much for thinking that it would do me some good) and by 07:45 I was crammed like a sardine along with about 500 other people into an articulated bus, having grabbed a coffee on the way. I was decanted out at St Rafael so that I could go down to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I had bought yesterday.

Having left all of my vegan cheese behind (that’s bad planning if they had decided to keep me in) I then boarded the wrong bus that led off in a completely different direction. I ended up having rather a long walk.

At the hospital, I had my blood test and a chat with the doctor. 2 hours later, the doctor came to see me. “It’s about yuor blood test …” she began. That sounded ominous, and no mistake. But she carried on to say that the blood testing machine had broken down and I would have to hang around for the results. Clogged up with root beer and maple syrup, I reckon.

Kaatje the Social Services girl came for a chat and I had to fill in a form. And having spent most of the morning reading Lord of the Rings I promptly wrote out “13th Orcober”. Yes, it’s getting to me, isn’t it, all of this?

Anyway, I managed just about to keep awake during the afternoon and about 16:30 they came back with the bad news.

With that ringing around in my ears, I went downstairs for a coffee and to make a phone call. And so here I am – back in the hostel where I stayed during the summer. There was a room available – not at the same good price that I was offered last time unfortunately – and so I took it. It’s cheaper that going back home and coming straight back and far less stressful. Stress – or the elimination of it – is quite important.

I set off for the hostel but within 20 minutes I was back in the Day Centre. Bane of Britain has, once again, gone off with his catheter still plugged in. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

And it’s good to be back on familiar territory with no pain at all. And I can have my old room back on Monday too. In the meantime, this one will do. I settled down for a while and then a bit later nipped down the road for a falafel butty for tea. I’ll rescue all of my supplies from Caliburn tomorrow.

Having organised that, I’m off to bed. Nice and early. Remember that I had a bad night last night.