Tag Archives: fortis bank

Friday 8th June 2018 – I FINALLY MADE IT …

train world railway museum schaerbeek schaarbeek belgium june juin 2018… to the railway museum at Schaerbeek today, after several years of trying.

I’ve usually never had the time, had too many other things to do or (on at least one occasion) been too tired to carry on to the station, even though it’s been three years since it opened and I lived about 20 miles away on a direct railway line for a year of that time.

Mind you, I was almost too tired to make it there today.

I don’t recall too much about last night except that it was another disturbed night. I’d fallen asleep listening to a couple of radio programmes and after I’d awoken to switch off the laptop I couldn’t go back to sleep again for ages.

And then it was another “mobile” night, with me sitting bolt upright at 06:00 as something made a noise in the room.

Nevertheless, I’d been on my travels, even though I don’t remember too much about them. It involved a swimming pool somewhere and the changing rooms, instead of being individual cubicles, were cubicles for a dozen or so people. And in our cubicle was a little girl of about 3 or 4 who took great delight in telling us – and showing us too – how she folded up her cozzy when she was ready to leave. From there I went outside to do back home and was looking for the road signs. Sure enough, there was not one, but two road signs pointing in different directions to – was is Cemaes or Caersws? Can’t remember now. That had completely confused but on waking up I could still see them. One was black-on-white and the other was white-on-green so it was obvious that one was via the motorway and the other was via the normal roads. But why I couldn’t work that out in a nocturnal ramble was a mystery to me.

We had the usual morning performance and once I’d settled down, I set off for the station and bought a day return ticket to Brussels.

am 86 sprinter gare de leuven railway station belgium june juin 2018And one thing that I didn’t know until this morning was that there’s a direct train from Leuven to Waterloo that goes through Bruxelles Schuman instead of one of the main stations. And seeing as I wanted to go to Schuman that would save an awful lot of messing around.

I arrived at the station at 09:50 and the train was due to depart at 09:52 which was perfect timing, even if it wasn’t planned. And I don’t recall ever having travelled on one of this type of train before.

It’s an AM (for automotrice, or railcar) 86, one of 50-odd introduced between 1986 and 1991 and the class has been progressively modernised since 2012. Very comfortable and a smooth ride, apart from the tight curve at Haren.

It didn’t take long to arrive at the Bank, and I shall remember this train for the future. It will come in handy.

Once I was there I picked up my bank card, only to find that they hadn’t sent me the code to operate it. So we aren’t all that further forward. I also managed to complete the change of address, seeing as the guy who manages the counters was engaged elsewhere. But cancelling the standing order for Caliburn’s parking wasn’t so easy. I need to do that next month.

Negotiating the new redesigned Schuman station isn’t all that easy so I was lucky that the 10:55 train was late. But it had a good toilet which was just as well, even if I did have to queue for a while to use it.

Siemens Desiro AM 08 bruxelles gare du nord belgium june juin 2018With it being late I missed my connection at Bruxelles Nord for Schaerbeek station, but with it being on the main line out to the east of the city there was another train due in 10 minutes – the service S6 from Denderleeuw.

And much to my surprise, that one, a Siemens Desiro AM 08 pulled in 4 minutes early. You can see that we are nowhere near the UK, can’t you?

This one terminated at Schaerbeek and there were only a handful of people travelling on it so I had a carriage pretty much to myself.

gare de schaerbeek schaarbeek railway station belgium june juin 2018Schaerbeek Station is really beautiful, a credit to the architect and the builders, just like many of the public buildings in Schaerbeek which reflect just how wealthy the commune was 150 years ago.

Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous reincarnations from many years ago will recall the tour that we had of the magnificent Schaerbeek Town Hall.

But times have changed over the last 75 years and it’s now along with Molenbeek and St-Josse one of the poorest communes in the city.

train world railway museum schaerbeek schaarbeek belgium june juin 2018The railway museum was comparatively expensive to visit. I remarked to the cashier that I only wanted to visit the museum, not to buy a train. And there wasn’t all that much stuff that interests me.

Mind you, any railway museum would be considered a total disappointment by anyone who had visited the Canadian railway museum near Montreal. And despite my comments I managed to stay here for a good three hours and when I’ve sorted out the photographs I’ll give you the conducted tour.

Siemens Desiro AM 08 gare de schaerbeek schaarbeek railway station belgium june juin 2018Back on the station, my train to Leuven was due to depart imminently from platform 12 so I dashed all the way down there, only to be met by a swarm of people flooding back the other way.

Had I missed it? Not at all. It was a change of platform so I had to dash all the way back again.

And you can see what I mean about the railway station here at Schaerbeek. Probably 18 platforms, of which only 4 seem to be in use and even those are overgrown with weeds and fenced off where they are crumbling. Its former glory has long-gone.

In Leuven I bought a baguette and some tomatoes and a baguette and made myself a very late lunch. Following which I crashed out for a good hour and a half.

I’d been on my last legs going around that museum. I’d even crashed out for a couple of minutes in the gentlemen’s rest room and been caught unawares, not by an automatic flush toilet but by an automatic timer that cuts out the lights.

Later I had a shower and then went to meet Alison.

street musicians leuven belgium june juin 2018We had a really good chat and a good meal at our favourite Mexican restaurant where we were serenaded by a group of street musicians.

Not exactly the Ritz and the Palm Court Orchestra, but at least it’s entertainment.

We followed our meal by a walk out to St Pieters hospital that we had visited yesterday. Alison was interested to see the plans for the forthcoming redevelopment of the site. She told me that the site had been intended for the French community but the construction of the building was followed almost immediately by the language schism. The French decamped to Louvain-la-Neuve and never took up their option on the building.

And then back up to town for a coffee.

Now I really am going to crash out. I have a long day to travel back home tomorrow.

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Friday 13th April 2018 – MY LANDLORD …

… back at the place d’Armes is going to die of shock when he sees how much the kitchen that I want is going to cost him.

Yes, I went to IKEA this morning to have a good nosey around. And it’s only the second-ever occasion – I think – that I’ve been to an IKEA and come away empty-handed. But that was more down to the logistics question of carrying away the stuff than a lack of willingness or of money.

On my travels last night I was dealing with giant worm, or snakes or something. Or, rather, I wasn’t – someone else was. it was all happening at a small rural railway station and this snake in the grass was upsetting people so my reckoning was that the easiest way to tackle it was to send in Terry on The Beast of Beaugut, his ride-on lawnmower, to mow the grass and if possible shred the snake. But it proved much more difficult in practice because for one reason or another the snake was refusing to co-operate.

Having had breakfast and the usual morning rituals I walked up to the bus station and leapt aboard the 358 that took me all the way to IKEA. and eventually managing to buttonhole a salesman. We sat down, had a discussion, drew up a few plans and costed it all out, and it came to … errr … a couple of coppers short of €2,000.

But that’s including a fridge, an oven and one of these two-burner ceramic hobs.

It’s not the cheapest range that they had (you really don’t want to buy that) but it’s next to it. The only concession to what I might call luxury is that there’s a brown oak-coloured work surface rather than the horrible cheap and nasty white one.

But whether he will pay for that is another story, isn’t it?

There was a massive crowd at the restaurant for lunch and it took me hours to be served. And then I wandered off for the bus, horribly late (both me, and the bus).

With not knowing the route of the bus into Brussels I ended up going round the houses and had to take a metro to the Bank.

But here we came up once more against the staggering incompetence of the bankers that I have. And it’s not like the BNP Paribas to behave like a load of bankers but even they seem to be managing it now.

They hadn’t ordered the replacement card for me like they promised (twice now) and having had the issues with various forms of proofs of address, they didn’t like the electricity bill either. They reckon that there’s some complication from their point of view about me living in France with a British passport, but I’ve been doing it now for 11 years so it totally bewilders me.

I was so taken aback by all of this that I forgot to mention the two other things that I wanted to do.

Afterwards, I went for a good wander around the city centre. I had planned to finally make it to the railway museum at Schaerbeek but once more with having had all of this messing about I ran out of time.

There was a football match this evening in Tubize – a bottom-of-the-table relegation dogfight between AFC Tubize and Union St Gilles. And for once, the trains were running kindly for me.

At Tubize, having grabbed some cash, I grabbed a bag of fritjes from the fritkot opposite the station and wandered down to the ground where I picked up a ticket.

And here we had a complication that I had not foreseen – they wouldn’t let me in with my backpack. But after a good deal of negotiation and discussion a friendly, helpful (in Belgium???) security guard offered to guard it for me at the gate and with no other option available, I accepted and in I went.

For once, at Tubize, there was adecent crowd. None of this “crowd-changes to the teams” stuff as is usual. And most of the supporters seemed to be from Union St Gilles too, for if they win they are saved from relegation and Tubize go down.

The match itself was dreadful. We had the first foul right at the kick-off and the first yellow card after just 29 seconds. The final score was 12 (I think – I lost count) yellow cards and one red and I do have to say that I didn’t disagree with any of them.

But the game was woeful. Tubize were inept and despite having many good chances they couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument. Only one player, Jae-Gun Lee about whom I have commented before, looked to be of some good use, so of course they withdrew him after about 70 minutes.

And Union St Gilles were even worse. They had a couple of players whom I wouldn’t like to meet down a dark alley late at night, one of whom was the centre-forward – a big bustling, burly type. He looked quite useful as a battering ram but his team never had possession up front long enough to give him the ball. They managed just one shot on target all night – and scored!

Right at the death, Tubize won a penalty – and as is their usual form at moments like this, the St Gilles keeper saved it. Last kick of the game of course, and the jubilation from the players, officials and supporters as the ref blew for time told its own story.

It was a slow stopping train back to Leuven, packed as far as Brussels with St Gilles fans. But I eventually made it back here by about 00:45 and that’s my lot for now.

See you in the morning.

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Friday 16th February 2018 – MY NEIGHBOURS …

… are getting on my wick.

I dunno what they are doing in their room but involves noise – noise that goes on until 04:00 in the morning.

It’s not as if it’s a very loud noise but the walls are paper-thin here and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m a very light sleeper.

And so with my noisy neighbours next door, I had no qualms whatever about my very noisy alarm going off at 06:20 this morning. Or the noisy repeat at 06:30.

But despite everything I was off on my travels during the night.In a shed where a group of young kids had barricaded themselves in to protect themselves against some kind of monster. But they had left their pony outside in its stable in the field and someone was wondering if they should protect that too. But another kid piped up that if you spread out your forces too thinly to try to protect everything you end up protecting nothing. So they didn’t. And the monster’s attack on this shed was very half-hearted and the pony was unscathed.
A little later, these kids were looking for their black kitten that had escaped. The search involved wading up to their knees in some very muddy water much to the amusement of some nearby workmen, and this became even more amusing when one of the kids had made it into the water and the kitten was spotted running across the top of a brick wall nearby.

After breakfast and the usual pause to let the medication do its stuff (yes, I obtained another prescription when I was at the hospital) I went off to the railway station.

intercity train railway station leuven belgium february février 2018There was an Intercity to Brussels that was running late, and it pulled into the station just as I arrived so I leapt on board and settled down in a comfortable corner with my book.

And as a result of the late arrival of the train, I for one arrived in Brussels at the Gare Central before time, which is always very nice.

The metro was quite painless too – took me all the way to Merode in minutes.

Consequently I was early at my health insurance people, even though we had another distraction.

bad parking avenue tervuren brussels belgium february février 2018Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a thing about “parking”, and there are no finer examples of bad parking to be had than in Brussels.

Here we have a delivery van stopped to unload a couple of parcels and so he’s blocking the street as he double-parks.

But hed he not been so lazy, he could have advanced not even 10 metres and parked his van for two minutes in front of the dark blue Peugeot.

But obviously walking that extra 10 metres is far too difficult for the poor dear.

So back to the plot.

I presented myself at the reception.
“You’ll have to wait – it’s not 09:30 yet”
“But …”
“You’ll have to wait”.
And so I waited
At 09:29 “it’ll be open in a minute. Can you show me your badge?”
“I don’t have a badge – I’m a foreign visitor”
“Then you’ll need to go to reception to fill in a form”.
“I know. That’s what I was trying to do when you stopped me”

Eventually I was allowed in and, to be frank, I needn’t have bothered. When I’ve been there before, they’ve been most kind and considerate in that office.

But not today. I dunno what’s the matter with them but they just seemed to be more keen to see the back of me. I didn’t accomplish half of the things that I intended to do.

parc de la cinquantenaire brussels belgium february février 2018But instead, I went for awalk across the park and down to the Rond-Point Schuman. It was a beautiful morning.

The park is the Parc de la Cinquantenaire – the 50th Anniversary Park, and was established by King Leopold II in 1880 (although the huge arch wasn’t built until 1905) on the site of a military parade ground for the nearby barracks, to host an exhibition to celebrate 50 years of Belgian independence.

Several subsequent exhibitions were held here until the new site out by the Atomium was developed.

parrots parc de la cinquantenaire brussels belgium february février 2018Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have mentioned parrots in Belgium before.

There was an aviary in the city that was bombed during the war and all of the exotic birds escaped. Surprisingly, many of them survived the cold winters and went on to establish breeding colonies in the wild.

There are considerable flocks of these exotic birds all over the city these days, and here are two of the aforementioned sitting in a tree in the park. It’s hard to believe that this is a city in north-west Europe with a continental climate.

At the bank I picked up two of my cards (for some reason the third hadn’t been prepared and I’ll have to go back) and even more surprisingly, they work. That’s all of my financial issues resolved right now – for the time being. I can actually access my money now.

Back down on the metro to the Gare Centrale and Malou turned up on time.She’d been out on the Belgian coast for a holiday and was returning to Luxembourg. We’d agreed to meet up for coffee seeing as it’s been years since we last met.

We put the world to rights for a couple of hours and then we both went our separate ways. She on to Luxembourg and me back to Leuven.

There were still a few things that I had wanted to do here in Brussels like visit the railway museum, and this was what I had planned for this afternoon. But having had a bad night, I came home instead.

Via the Vegan shop in Leuven where I picked up some more vegan cheese. I came back here, made myself a cheese and tomato butty or two, and then … errr … relaxed for a while. I’d had a bad night.

18:00 saw me head off to the railway station for my train at 18:36. And because it was departing before 19:00 I had to pay full price and not a weekend saver ticket.

And the train was 20 minutes late coming in and – would you believe – 23 minutes later still in leaving (just missing the 45 minutes-late threshold for compensation) Which meant that I could have bought a weekend saver anyway.

We arrived in Lier 45 minutes late which meant that I had to scramble over the road for my big bag of chips for tea, and then scramble off in a hurry down the road to Het Lisp.

het lisp stadion lier belgium february février 2018No prizes for guessing why I had come to Lier, of course.

There’s one game in the Belgian Second Division on a Friday night every week, and this week it’s the turn of Lierse SK against KSV Roeselare.

Lier is easily accessible from Leuven even late at night (or early in the morning) so it’s always a good choice of ground to visit.

cheerleaders het lisp stadion lier belgium february février 2018With KSV Roeselare being the visitors, I was hoping that we might have the Battle of the Cheerleaders.

Both teams have cheerleaders, which is always very good for the morale, but I do have to say that the young ones of Roeselare can knock spots off the home team. Much better organised and much better choreographed.

But no such luck. It was just the Lierse SK cheerleaders here tonight. It’s better than nothing of course.

het lisp stadion lier belgium february février 2018Cheerleaders we might have, but fans we didn’t seem to.

I’ve been to Lier and the Het Lisp Stadion on several occasions to see the football, but I don’t think that I’ve seen the ground as empty as this.

It’s not quite the “announcing the fan changes to the teams” that you have at Tubize, but it was disappointing all the same. And there wasn’t much in the way of atmosphere to compensate. It was all very subdued.

het lisp stadion lier belgium february février 2018The supporters weren’t the only thing that was subdued either. The Lierse SK team played like they were half asleep. They had little enthusiasm, little attacking spirit and, so it seemed, little interest.

Strangely enough, Roeselare didn’t seem to be in all that much of an attackign mood either, content to move the ball around ahead of the defence.

It wasn’t until about the 25th minute when they first tried the ball over the top. And a player running in shot, the keeper could only parry it, and a Roeselare attacker followed up.

Roeselare still kept on pouring forward, and much to everyone’s surprise Lierse SK scored against the run of play.

Well into the second hald, the first time they tried one over the top and won a corner. From the corner we had a carbon copy of Roeselare’s goal.

The match still went on at a pedestrian pace from Lierse SK’s point of view and with about 10 minutes to go, Roeselare were awarded a penatly – which was saved.

This had the effect of switching on the current to the Lierse SK side and they started to attack. The final 10 or so minutes of the game were quite exciting.

In stoppage time, Lierse won a series of corners and had two (dubious) appeals for a penalty turned down. And so as you might expect, Roeselare roared upfield and scored the winner with almost the final kick of the game.

I was back on the station just in time to catch the earlier direct train to Leuven, which cheered me up no end. So I was back here before midnight.

But my neighbours are partying again. I think that it’s going to be another long night.

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Monday 5th February 2018 – MY HUMBLE AND SINCERE APOLOGIES …

… to the Crédit Agricole for having described them … "on numerous occasions" – ed … as being the worst bank in the world.

As part of my mega-letter-writing activities the other day I sent a letter to the Royal Bank of Scotland telling them of my new address. I received a reply today –
“We’ve changed your address. Thanks for your request to update your address; we’ve now changed this for your personal account. …. then there’s nothing for you to do”.

And they sent it to my old address!

I don’t know why it is but I seem to be surrounded by a staggering level of incompetence – much of which is not, surprise surprise, of my making. I’ll be the first to admit that my financial affairs are not straightforward, but this is astonishing. In the days before blogs were invented, I had endless troubles with the Generale de Banque in Belgium, but I sorted them out “good and proper” and since they’ve been taken over by Fortis Bank, they have been good to me. But I can’t be doing with the rest of the motley crew. What on earth is going on?

And I was asking myself this this morning when the alarm awoke me. I’d been driving a komatik – complete with huskies – around the frozen wastes of Northern Labrador during the night and ended with me being shacked up – or, more probably, iglooed up – with a girl called Sylvia whom I know from another parallel existence. Not my ideal choice of companion to share my sleeping bag for the 6 months of night in a dark and crowded igloo but then again in the frozen wastes of Northern Labrador you have to make the best of whatever entertainment is available, as many a Métis‘s father will tell you.

After the usual start to the day I had a task to perform. In my mission to inform the Rest of the World about the Welsh Premier League I challenge every news source that I see that concentrates on Welsh rugby at the expense of football.

I had a good attack on a news source on Friday and they challenged me to send in my own information about the Welsh Premier League. And so this morning I sat down and wrote off a report covering all six of the weekend’s matches.

It goes without saying that they haven’t published it. I didn’t expect that they would, but one has to go through the motions.

After that, I once more attacked the database, determined not to let my frustrations overwhelm me. And it was a hard task too, I’ll tell you. Eventually I ran aground in Verdun when I was taken ill, and with reams of photos and no notes, and the blog wasn’t written up for that period, I’m stuck up a gum tree. I can’t even find the map that I had with the notes on it.

As for the hi-fi, I’ve found another unexpected hitch. For some reason it doesn’t like tracks longer than 24:59. And so all of my hour-long live concerts are being cut off in less than midstream – after all of the effort that I went to in order to prepare them. One unhappy bunny here.

Lunch was onion soup with pasta and bulghour and for some reason it tasted awful and I’ve no idea why. I’ve noticed that my taste buds seem to have changed since my illness and some foods – and even coffee – doesn’t taste like it did.

This afternoon I took everyone, including you lot and including myself, completely by surprise. Having cleaned and tidied the bathroom the other day, you may remember that I resolved that, when I had no plans to go off anywhere special, I would do a little bit of cleaning. And so today, I attacked the kitchen.

It’s been cleaned from top to bottom, a home found for almost everything that was loitering about, and it’s been vacuumed and the floor washed.

And it does look different.

Having talked to Steven and Rosemary for a while on the computer I went out for my afternoon walk. And for once, it wasn’t raining. But it’s cold out there. Down to 0.5°C last night – a far cry from the -16°C and -19°C of the Auvergne but still the coldest night yet. And it even snowed chez Liz and Terry. And more low temperatures are on the cards for tonight.

Tea was another splendid tortilla and spicy rice with an excellent filling. I’m getting good at these. And then my evening walk.

Bed-time in a minute, presumably to go back into my igloo. With a different companion tonight, I hope. Where is TOTGA when you need her?

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Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

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Wednesday 13th December 2017 – “SMILE”, THEY SAID …

… “things could be worse”

And so i smiled. And sure enough, things WERE worse. In fact, they are just about as bad as they can be right now. It’s Friday 13th, for heaven’s sake, when things usually go wrong. But not for me. I’m a Wednesday’s child, and Wednesday’s child is full of woe. And there is no-one more woeful than me just at the moment.

At least I was out of bed early. That’s the good news. But from there, it went steadily downhill. The torrential downpour outside with me having to walk all the way to the station dragging my suitcase behind me really put the dampers on everything.

But I had a good breakfast, tidied the apartment a little, emptied the rubbish, and set off through the rain.

Up to now, this was a reasonable day. And the train journey to Paris was quite uneventful. We actually pulled into Montparnasse, right by the entry down into the Metro. Saved me a pile of time, that did.

Down in the bowels, I bought two Metro tickets. I’m usually pushed for time on the way back, so I buy my ticket in advance. And then down into a crowded metro and into an even more crowded train.

Alighting from the train and going up to the barrier, that was when disaster struck me. On Saturday it was my telephone that had disappeared. Today, it’s my wallet. With all of my money, my bank cards, my driving licence and everything else.

Somewhere in the Metro that had gone for a burton.

And so there I was, stranded in Paris with no money, no bank cards, no means of support – you don’t go far on €0:46. There’s a secret pile of cash at home – the ‘fighting fund’ for emergencies – but it’s no good there.

I filled out a report for the police and they gave me the Credit Agricole’s cardstop number. So I was able to do that.

And lucky I, having kicked my phone network provider around the head and having made the internet on it work, I was able to track down the Cardstop numbers for the Fortis Bank and the RBS and stop those too. Luckily I was quicker on the phone than the new possessor of my wallet is, because no payments had been made.

All of this made me late and I had to dash for the train, and luckily I just about made it.

On the TGV there’s internet so I tried to contact Alison. But my laptop chose that moment to do an upgrade (and while it was at it, it upgraded my web browser so I’ve now lost the =.ftp extension there too).

But having persevered last night with the mobile phone I had eventually made my Social network register itself (and it took hours too) so with the slowest connection I have ever seen (it’s quite an old ‘phone) I could finally contact the outside world.

But Alison had by now gone back to work and had switched off her phone.

So there I was with no cards and no money and no way of getting from Brussels to Leuven.

But I’m nothing if not resourceful. The train docks at 15:47 and there’s a branch of my bank down the road 5 minutes away that’s open until 16:00.

And so I was first off the train and down the ramp.

And I’d actually gone halfway out of the station before I realised that I hadleft my jacket on the train – with my camera and a few other things in the pocket.

And so I raced back, and just about caught the train before it pulled out to Amsterdam. And in a frightful panic, retrieved my raincoat.

The Bank closes at 16:00, and I had my foot in the door at 15:59. It’s a good job that I had made a declaration to the police because, armed with that and a passport, I could be issued with a temporary Bank card.

It’s only valid for a short while and there are limits with what you can do with it, but anything is better than nothing right now.

Back through the driving rain to the station, and armed with a ticket I could board the train. And then from the station at Leuven a walk through the driving rain to my flat-hotel at the back of the nick. Luckily I’d paid that in advance.

Later on in the evening I went out to do a little shopping. And the rain, if anything, was even worse. I might have felt better had I not had to buy my toiletries, seeing as how I seem to have forgotten to bring them.

But at least I can eat – and the microwaved potatoes with spicy beans were delicious.

But to add insult to injury, the battery on the camera is flat and I’ve forgotten the charger.

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s just not your day?

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Thursday 2nd November 2017 – A RIGHT LOAD OF BANKERS.

I seem to attract the worst sort of bankers, don’t I?

On my way to the LIDL this morning, I stopped off at the Credit Agricole to check the automatic payments on my account. And the monthly payments to my bank in Belgium and my bank in Canada STILL haven’t been paid.

In the bank I got to see an assistant, and he confirmed that although all of ly accounts are now held at the bank here in Granville, the monthly payments referred to above have never been made.

Consequently I insisted on seeing the manager. And when he was finally free and I saw him, I told him precisely what I thought of his bank. And I was impressed with how much polite but offensive French I could conjure up on the spur of the moment.

What made it worse was what happened once he telephoned his International Department and they said that International Dorect Debits can’t be transferred between branches, but need to be cancelled and restarted. And when I asked him why his assistant hadn’t told me that when I went in in May to transfer my account, he didn’t have a reply.

With the heat from my comments on his remarks, they’ll be having the painters in to redecorate his office. I was one very unhappy bunny, as you can imagine. I’ve just been for two months in Canada and the USA spending money that I ought to have had but didn’t – and if you recall, I didn’t stint on my expenditure out there.

I made an appointment for after lunch to continue our discussion, and I went off to LIDL where I bought the bread for freezing, some ice cube sacks, and the wrong size of plastic bag in which to store my frozen stuff.

During my lunch break I gathered up some papers to take back to the bank, and it’s just as well because they had absolutely nothing on their files and, for some reason, they were extremely reluctant to telephone the bank in Pionsat to obtain the information.

The information for the Belgian bank was easy, but for Canada, not so. On the transit form that I took down, the reference number was 16 digits and there was only space on their computerised form for 9.

Having run round in circles for half an hour, I insisted that they telephone the bank in Canada and obtain the information first-hand. Eventually, they agreed and here we encountered the unfortunate fact that Canada’s clocks haven’t gone back yet, so they weren’t open.

I had to loiter in the bank for 45 minutes before the call went through, and after being thoroughly interrogated as to my movements in Canada, they gave me the account details. A 9-digit number indeed, “but you’ll need the 7-digit branch code”.

“I wondered what that box of 7 digits was for on the form just before the space for the account number” said the bank clerk. I despaired.

So now I’ll have to wait until the beginning of December to see if the payments have gone through. But I’m way beyond being annoyed about all of this, as you can imagine.

As I left the bank, I bumped into Brigitte who was loitering around outside. Three times this week, that is. We went for a coffee and a walk around the docks. I came back here and crashed out for half an hour – after all, I’ve walked over 118% of my daily activity today.

I’d had a rough night last night. Tossing and turning for much of it. And I’d been on my travels too – driving a coach on a holiday feeder service. I’d returned home to find that someone else was trying to go out on a feeder but there was no oil in his coach and he was annoyed to say the least. I said that he could go in mine, which somehow I had managed to park in my room in this hostel where I was staying.

What was ironic about this was that I was idly surfing the internet looking for photos of Ford coaches and there in glorious technicolour was a photo of a coach that I used to drive when I worked for Salopia Saloon Coaches in 1979. It’s a small world.

Having done well over 100% of my daily routine, I’ve exempted myself from going for a walk. I’m going for an early night to recover from today’s exertions.

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Friday 17th February 2017 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

brussels gare du nord train namur belgium february fevrier 2017… and about today, but eve though I ended up taking four different trains, what with one thing or another I was only able to take one photograph of them. This is the train that took me from Brussels Gare du Nord to Brussels Schuman

If you notice the sign to the right of the train, you’ll see that it’s running 7 minutes late. That’s certainly a rare event here in Belgium, and it was my good luck because had it been on time I would have missed it and been obliged to wait for another half-hour

I had a reasonable night’s sleep just for a change, and at breakfast I was joined by my neightbour. He’s a Russian from Yekaterinburg in Siberia and he wanted a good chat. I’m never at my best first thing in the morning and having a chat at that time in the morning is the last thing on mine.

european commission berlaymont schuman brussels belgium february fevrier 2017I alighted at Brussels Schuman, underneath the Berlaymont Building over there, and went off to chat to the people in the Public Transport Office.

All of the tickets and the methods of payment for the public transport in the city and as I shall be using the public transport quite a lot in the near future, I need to be up-to-date with what is happening.

The routes have changed too, and yet Bane of Britain here forgot to ask for an up-to-date public transport map, didn’t he?

european commission berlaymont schuman brussels belgium february fevrier 2017Once I’d organised myself at the Public Transport Office, I went off to my bank (this isn’t it, by the way). I told you the other day about my bank card issues – they couldn’t sort it out and the bank round the corner from my hostel so I had to come here to do it.

However, they couldn’t do anything about it either, so I’ve had to order some new cards – because my credit card from here is overdue here too.

european commission berlaymont schuman brussels belgium february fevrier 2017They are going to hang on to them for a while until I’m settled in my new abode, wherever ( and whenever – that might be. No point in posting them to Virlet right now.

We also had a go at trying to set me up for phone banking. But that was a hopeless task. We were there for over half an hour while they tried to download the Application to my mobile phone, but without any luck.

I shall have to try it some other time, and hope that it’s all self-explanatory.

council of ministers european union justus lipsius building rond point schuman brussels belgium february fevrier 2017That’s the Justus Lipsius Building, the home of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, and that’s where I spend nine and a half of the happiest years of my life

This was the reason why I had come here. My time at the hospital is coming to an end and I need to have my paperwork up to date and make plans for my future.

My former employers have a good social welfare department and seeing as I’m in the vicinity I ought to be taking full advantage of it.

We had another exciting incident at the security check. They discovered my knife – the one that I keep in my backpack for making my butties when I’m on my travels. They kept it back and told me that I could reclaim it on my departure.

It’s not the same as all those years ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, when I passed through the security barrier at an EU meeting in Luxembourg. They gave me a basket in which to put all of my metal while I passed through the security screen, and so I put my butty knife in there, went through the screen, and they then handed back to me all of my metal objects to take into the meeting, including my butty knife.

So much for security.

The meeting was quite productive in certain respects, but not too much in other respects. Nevertheless, I ended up with some good advice, a few tips and hints, and an enormous packet of papers to add to the pile that I already have.

Even more good news is that the Medical Service now has a public office where I can go for advice, to have an on-line accounting service set up for me and all of that, but as regular readers of this rubbish will be well aware, it’s closed after lunch on Fridays and I wouldn’t have time to get there now before it closes

residence palace rue de la loi 155 brussels belgium february fevrier 2017Back outside, I went for a little walk around the Rue de la Loi. That’s a street that I know backwards, having worked in it for so long, but it hasn’t half changed and I no longer recognise it.

The Residence Palace, the beautiful Art-Deco building next door to Justus Lipsius and which was allegedly the headquarters of the German Army in Belgium in World War II has been demolished and this hideous monstrosity has been erected in its place.

It’s absolutely ghastly

brussels belgium february fevrier 2017I headed back to the station, calling back at the Berlaymont Building again to take a photograph of the sign on the wall. I don’t actually have a photograph of this and it’s high time that I added one into my collection.

And it was here that I had another good idea and went for a little walk in the rain. There are things that will be happening here in a couple of weeks time and the presence of the European Institutions is a vital part of any young person’s education. People should take full advantage of it

My perambulations took me past the European Parliament building. This is a really difficult building to photograph as it’s hemmed in by other large buildings and there isn’t a clear shot of it.

berlin wall brussels belgium february fevrier 2017But outside is a fragment of the Berlin Wall that was brought here after the opening up of the city.

There’s a plaque on it that says
“in honour of the victims of dictatorial regimes and as a symbol of the European people’s commitment to peace, freedom and democracy”
and it’s something that a few countries busily building walls around themselves, whether virtual walls or physical walls, will do well to remember.

And if the European Union had any pride, honour and dignity, it would be repeating these words as often as possible in its encounters with this new wave of fascist dictators before it is too late.

The Gare Luxembourg is next to the European Parliament and there I caught a train back to the Gare du Midi

express bus to casablanca brussels belgium february fevrier 2017I went for a prowl around outside to look for a fritkot as I was starving, and this caught my eye. It’s the express bus to Casablanca in Morocco and it’s one of those trips that I have always promised myself that i would do one day, although I might have missed my window of opportunity.

What’s particularly exciting about it though is the trailer that the bus will be pulling. There’s a gas oven there about to be loaded together with a pile of other stuff, bags, packages, all sorts.

It’s not quite goats and sheep of course but nevertheless it shows that the recycling economy and the recup, the system of recovering unwanted household assets, is still working fine.

After lunch I walked back to the Gare du Midi and stepped onto the platform and right onto a Leuven train which was waiting at the platform. It departed almost immediately and we were back at Leuven by 16:00.

For some unknown reason I fancied an ice cream, but all of my favourite ice cream places were closed. I eventually found one but the selection of vegan sorbets wasn’t all that exciting.

workmen in tree leuven belgium february fevrier 2017Walking back here, I came across something exciting. We had a couple of workmen on one of those lifting platforms doing something to a tree.

I’m not sure what it is that they are doing, but it’s somethign to do with a chain of decorative lights that is strung up there.

Talking it down, or putting it up? I have no idea. But it gave me something to think about.

Back here, I crashed out as you might expect. I’d been out and walked miles too.

But I was awake for tea time anyway, and the final portion of my kidney bean whatsit was excellent, especially washed down with pineapple rings and vegan sorbet.

So now it’s another early night. Part II of my mega-adventurous weekend is tomorrow and I need to be on form.

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Friday 16th December 2016 – TODAY WAS A LITTLE …

… more exciting than yesterday.

What probably made a difference was that I was on my travels during the night. And not just upstairs to the bathroom either (I knew that I would have to do that, didn’t I?).

I was driving down the M1 to London in an E-type Jaguar and the range wasn’t enough to reach there so I had to pull off somewhere round by Luton or Dunstable to fuel up. I knew just the place but when I arrived, it was abandoned and all of the pumps were broken. I enquired of a yokel where there might be a fuel station, and he pointed me in the direction of the Motorway service station. But later on I had to go for food and this involved walking down a long corridor past various hatches to receive various items of the menu. Part of the route took us downstairs to a hatch and there I noticed that some people also had mugs of pea soup. I fancied a mug of that and so I made enquiries – to be told that the pea soup was at a hatch a few positions further back so if I wanted pea soup I would have to retrace my steps.

It was difficult to crawl out of bed this morning, but even so, I was all done and dusted and back down here before 08:00.

police barrage alcotest kruisstraat leuven belgium december decembre 2016We had yet more excitement in the Kruisstraat this morning after the police trap the other day.

It’s a police barrage, this time with the aim of issuing alcotests to the drivers. They can do random breath tests here in Belgium. And they caught a couple too.

They also caught a couple of motorists trying to drive the wrong way up the one-way street too

mini tractor moving pallets breeze blocks brusselsestraat leuven belgium october octobre 2016A little later I went outside. They are doing some work in the building opposite and this really caught my eye.

It’s a little mini-tractor like my Kubota B1220 and you can see how they are moving the breeze blocks – on a pallet being used as a skid hoisted up at one end on the tri-point lift. I’ll have to try this one day.

I went down the the bank around the corner and drew out the next month’s supply of money, and then down to Caliburn where I brought another pile of stuff back up here. Food mostly, but some clothes too.

Fetching the baguette was next, and then a coffee. I deserved it.

I was disturbed later by someone who wanted to check the plumbing again. But at least the shower room is now finished and we can use that again. Saves me staggering up the stairs at silly hours in the morning.

This afternoon I spent some time on the website again – and I’m still stuck in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I hope that I can move on some day soon.

Tea tonight finished off the last of the kidney bean stuff that I made the other day, and now I’m going to try yet again for another early night. I had a little crash-out this afternoon but I’mstill quite tired.

Tomorrow it’s market day so I may well go for a little stroll up town.

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Friday 2nd December 2016 – I ACTUALLY MADE IT …

… out this morning.

Last night was yet another late night – 02:00 this time – and I had to leave my bed during the night too which is disappointing. The first time for ages too.

I’d been on my travels during the night too – back to Labrador and exploring a few isolated settlements with a few other people too but I can’t remember who it was now.

When the alarms went off, I ad little trouble leaving my bed. Breakfast was another problem though as there was no orange juice available. I’m not a big fan of apple juice but that’s all there was.

After breakfast I came down here and cracked on with a few other things that I needed to do. And I didn’t forget the Bank either for that was where I went when I went out this morning. At 11.20 I was in the Fortis Bank around the corner and paid the rent for my three-month stay.

On the way back I went via the supermarket for the bread and a bottle of drink – I get through pints of liquid these days with this problem that I have.

after lunch I cracked on with my website until tea time, on-and-offish, and finished off the kidney bean whatsit for tea.

That’s the highlight of my day anyway. At least I didn’t crash out at all.

Tomorrow I’m off gallivanting and then Sunday I’m hitting the road.

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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.

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Monday 31st October 2016 – “SURELY NOTHING ELSE …

… can go wrong” I hear you say.

And I say they can. And it doesn’t just relate to Terry not having a socket to fit the wheel nuts on the trailer either. Ohhh no!

Instead, I drove all the way out to Kessel-Lo this morning to the Fortis Bank retrieve my bank card, only to be told that they don’t open the safe until Wednesday morning. So that was a total waste of time, wasn’t it? But at least the baguettes and free coffee in the Bio-Planet are worth having.

And getting back into my parking place here wasn’t easy either. They are doing building work in there and one of the builders had parked his vehicle across my parking space. I had to wait a while until he moved it.

Other bad news was that I had to pay for my week’s stay here. That’s left a hole in my pocket and no mistake. But at least they have a photocopier there, so I could photocopy my accident report form. I’ll send that off tomorrow.

And so what else (as if that isn’t enough)?

The good news, I suppose is that having gone to bed comparatively early last night, I actually managed to sleep right the way through until about 10 minutes before the alarm went off. It’s been quite a while since I had a decent sleep anything like that.

I’d been on my travels toolast night and they were rather vivid too. I’d been given several tasks to do and one of those was to go off any pay a bill to the Tax Office. When I finally arrived there it was someone whom I knew at the cash desk. I’d paid over the cheque, and so she asked me about the £2:2:0 administration fee for the cheque. I explained that the Government certainly insisted on its pound of flesh, didn’t it? She told me not to worry – seeing that she knew me she would pay it in on my behalf. And as well as that, she gave me some notes that had been rejected by the Tax Office – some Lei notes. Lei is of course the currency of Romania but during the night it was Czech money and these notes were of different size (which I knew to be a possibility) but they had been endorsed “wrong size” which I knew was quite probably wrong.
My next port of call was tomorrow at 15:00. I’d been asked by some friends whom I had known when I lived in Chester in the early-70s to appear in court on behalf of someone detained overnight who owed a sum of money and my task was to pay it so that he could be released. But I had suddenly acquired an urgent appointment of my own for that time which meant that I couldn’t go on behalf of this other person. I reckoned that I could go off to the court and pay the money in advance but that was across the town (I was in Macclesfield, but not a Macclesfield that I would ever know) so I walked down through the main street which had been pedestrianised and where there were some important buildings being built – but then I remembered that I had an appointment of my own at 15:00 this afternoon and if I attended it, I would be too late to go to the Court and pay this money. But if I went to the court and paid in the money I would be hours late for my appointment. And so with all of this confusion, what would I do?

But waking up solved that problem for me. I went off for an early breakfast instead.

Around everything else that I’ve been doing today, I’ve been working on my website. And by the time that I knocked off for tea tonight I’d organised all of the photos and text in Upper Quebec and Labrador that relate to the trans-Labrador Highway. They are all in the correct place now. And that wasn’t easy either because I must have had a bad day or two out there last year because I forgot in many instances to record the mileages of the photos that I’d taken. Not only that, where I had recorded the mileages, I had to convert the trip readings on two vehicles – the Dodge from 2014 and Strider the Ranger from 2015 to correspond with the mileages on the road.

later on though, I managed to put two revised pages on line – this one and this one. I ought to me making more of an effort to bring some of my earlier entries up-to-date with things that I have subsequently learnt.

And I managed not to crash out this afternoon either. That’s a rare occurrence these days, isn’t it?

Tea tonight was a chick pea curry with vegetables, rice and boulghour. The crowning ingredient of the curry was the stock cube of course. That makes a world of difference.

Nad now I’m planning on another early night once I’ve washed the dishes. I’ll see where I end up tonight.

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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.

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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.

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Friday 10th June 2016 – I’M ANNOYED!

In fact, I’m furious!

Yes, that nice place that I went to see, the landlord has now decided that he didn’t want to rent it to me after all.

So let me tell you the full story. He advertised several rooms, the one of which I wanted was available from 15/06 until 15/09. But when I arrived, it had gone. He did have another, from 01/07 until 15/09, and I said that in principle I would take that if I could find somewhere for the period from 13/07 until the end of the month. So he sent me an e-mail with all of the details of a place that he knew, and that was what I booked. And so I told him that all was arranged and could we go ahead. This was when he sent me a mail to say that he didn’t want me as a tenant.

I don’t have a big issue with that, but what I do have an issue with is why he wasted my time getting me to go to this other place and booking there for two weeks. I could easily have found another place for the whole three months on this web-site that I’ve been using. Why send me a mail with this information? Why not just tell me in the first place that he had changed his mind?

Mind you, I suppose that I do have another two weeks to look around, and it does give me more leeway to find out what they will tell me on Sunday.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, for I was out gallivanting just now. Alison and her cousin Jennifer came to visit me and to inspect my country estate, and we ended up going back into Leuven together for a fritkot and a coffee. That made a very nice change indeed – it’s very pleasant to spend an evening in the company of interesting and stimulating people and I was sorry when it was time to go home. I don’t meet enough interesting people these days.

So what else have I done today?

Ahh, yes. I went to the big Carrefour at Korbeek-Lo for shopping. I spent quite a sum in there but then I needed to because this new place where I’m going is far from the big shops and I’ll have no transport while I’m there (there’s no parking in the vicinity so Caliburn will be staying at the hospital) and so I needed to stock up with tins and the like to drop off there when I go by and leave my stuff on Sunday evening. Whatever else I need to buy, I can do that bit-by-bit as I’m out on my travels.

But I did make one small boy’s day today. At the Carrefour they give away football stickers and models depending upon how much you spend, and I was given quite a few. Not that they are of much interest to me but there was a boy of about 6 in the queue behind me, all dressed in Belgium football gear, so I gave the lot to him. He’ll have more fun with it all than ever I will.

The bank was next on the list too. I had a couple of hospital appointments to pay for, and I wanted to do that as quickly as possible. Put everything like that out of the way so that I’m up-to-date. When I’m in the hospital, I’ll check to see if there is anything else to pay.

Now that I’m back home, I’ll have an early night ready for tomorrow. But I’m still fuming about this flaming landlord and his blasted room.

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