Tag Archives: leuven

Saturday 17th February 2018 – I’M A MISERABLE PLEADER.

Yes, I’m definitely losing my touch.

Maybe it’s trying to do it in Flemish that’s the problem, but on the other hand being a miserable ignorant foreigner who has travelled for for no avail usually works wonders.

But retournons to our moutons as they say back home.

Yet another miserable night as my neighbours awoke me when they returned home at 02:00 and carried on their party until 04:00 or whatever. And as I have said before, it’s not really their noise that’s the issue – it’s more the fact that i’m a light sleeper and the walls are very thin.

I compensated by setting the alarms for 07:30 and 07:40 instead of the usual time one hour earlier. After the medication and breakfast, I had a shower and change of clothes and then attacked a few things that needed my attention.

Alison came through at 10:30. She was just about to leave home so that gave me 15 minutes to gather up my wits (it doesn’t usually take me that long these days as you know) and go to loiter on the corner at the end of the street.

She arrived on time and we hit the road for our day out. She had made several suggestions as to where to go (I always have this problem of people telling me where to go) but the one that stood out above all of the others was Aachen of course – in Germany.

The thing that I like about living in Belgium is that you have a choice of four countries – France, Luxembourg, Germany and the Netherlands – on your doorstep. Luxembourg at 100 minutes is the farthest away and the rest are a lot closer than that.

The weather wasn’t what I expected though. Considering that it was Germany in February I was hoping for sub-zero temperatures and several feet of snow. Instead, we had a glorious Spring day with a beautiful blue sky.

I felt rather disappointed.

Alison is off skiing in a few days so she wanted to look at some of the clothing in the big Sports shop on the edge of the city centre. So that was to be our first port of call

But we were distracted by a café that we hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t the vegan options on offer but the fact that sitting in the window were four rather large cats.

This place is called the “Katzencafé” and the idea is that you can go in there for a coffee and cuddle a kitten. And on chatting to a few friends later I was told that there are these cat cafés springing up all over the place these days. I’m all in favour of that idea of course except that these cats were rather aloof.

Still never mind. The coffee was good and we enjoyed the company.

There was nothing that took Alison’s fancy in the Sports shop (at least, not at a reasonable price, that is) and so we went up the road to the Muller supermarket where I bought some more of that white vegan chocolate that I like

We found a square that we hadn’t noticed before where there was a good view of the rear of the town hall and the rear of the cathedral.

I’d not seen the town hall from this angle before, and I do have to say that it was quite impressive.

As an aside … "you’ll get used to this" – ed … the German for "Town Hall" is Rathaus, which is rather appropriate, as I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Our new little route took us on an exploration of the city in places that we hadn’t visited and past sites that I hadn’t previously seen. And that’s always good news.

And to my delight, I discovered a Bio shop that sold the very brand of vegan cheese that I like. They only had two packs of it though, and now they don’t have any at all.

I also discovered a huge model railway shop and we passed a good half-hour in there. I would love to have a little N-gauge layout back at home, but not at the prices they are asking. There was an HO/OOgauge Big Boyof the type that we all know and love and which was on sale at an astonishing €2599.

Passing via several other shops we made it to the Source where I had another drink of the hot sulphuric water. It tastes disgusting of course, but there’s no point in going to the Waters if you have no intention of taking them, even if you have been misinformed.

Unfortunately there wasn’t all that much of a photo opportunity seeing that the building was cluttered with pedestrians and street furniture and the like. I shall have to come along here at 05:00, and bring a Stihl Saw with me too.

The market stall that was selling those delicious fennel-flavoured sweets last time – that wasn’t here today which was bad news. And although our walk was quite interesting there wasn’t really all that much to see that was exciting.

And so, feeling the cold and the exhaustion and the hunger, we detained to the little restaurant that we know – the one by the Roman remains. Alison had a spicy chicken meal and I had the quinoa salad.

Being duly fed and watered, we set off for a slow wander back to the car. But Alison drew my attention to the rays of the early evening sun that were just catching the clock tower right by the town hall.

Alison reckoned that it was worth a photograph, and who was I to argue with that?

Back in the car we headed for Leuven in the early evening sunset – our journey being interrupted by the scenic tour of the roadworks halfway along the highway. And when I arrived back I had a coffee and a little … errr … relax.

Round about 19:30 I set off for the football ground. OH Leuven were playing KFCO Beerschot-Wilrijk, a team that I have yet to see, so I was quite looking forward to the match.

But hereby hangs a tale.

With there having been “certain incidents” in the past, the whole ground and surrounding streets were surrounded by police and admission was by prebooked ticket only. And no amount of pleading on my part would convince anyone at all – Police, admission booth, security staff, stadium management (yes, I got to see them all) would change their minds.

Of course, arguing with Belgian administration – particularly from a position of weakness – is a pointless argument as anyone who has ever tried it will tell you. But you have to go through the motions anyway – I don’t give up without a fight.

However in this case, I was singularly unsuccessful and repaired to a bar across the street where several other people, including someone who had come from Italy, in the same position as me were gathered to watch the match on television.

I’ve never understood the fascination for watching football on TV. Yes, fair enough if it’s the only way of seeing a game, but it’s nothing like watching the match in the flesh – nothing at all. There’s no atmosphere for a start, and the focus of the camera cuts out all of the interesting stuff going on in the background.

So at the final whistle, I headed back home again in the cold – to total silence next door. Perhaps they are out partying and they’ll be back at something silly like 03:00. So I’m going to bed quick and grab a couple of hours sleep.

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.

There 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.

Regular 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.

But 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.

Regular 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.

No 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.

With 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.

Cheerleaders 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.

The 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.

Thursday 15th February 2018 – THAT’S NOT SUCH GOOD NEWS

My blood count is now down to the critical level – almost.

It should be between 13.0 and 15.0 as you know, but recently it’s been hovering round about the 9.2 mark.

8.0 is the critical amount when the emergency services swing into action, and today it’s down to 8.2.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following my adventures over the last few weeks. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I was quite ill over Christmas and New Year and I’m still not back up yet.

So that plan now is that I’m going to have to undergo a series of blood transfusions – one per month in fact, for the next 6 months “and then we’ll see”.

That’s going to disrupt all of my plans.

Last night the old plan worked a charm. I took the laptop with me to bed to watch a Bulldog Drummond film in bed. And I managed about 10 minutes of it before I was away with the fairies.

And off on my travels too. Quite literally. I’d moved house and was living in a completely different town. And a letter came from one of the other inhabitants of my old place telling me how she knew about my relationship with the postwoman. I took hours to craft a very non-committal reply and was on the point of sending it when I thought to myself that it was easily open to misinterpretation nevertheless, and the easiest way to deal with the matter, seeing as whatever had happened in the past was to totally ignore the letter. And so I did. And instead I went for a walk and much to my surprise at the end of the High Street, which I hadn’t explored before, the road took a steep drop down to a nice bay where there were crowds of people having fun in the water. I went off for a look around and ended up on a grassy bank. Somehow I wasn’t able to reach the water at all.

Just for a change I was up quite early, and with no medication (because I had forgotten it as you know) I had an early breakfast and then a shower. And while I was under there I washed my clothes too.

After doing a few things I hit the streets and the shops. But I found another part of the old city walls that I hadn’t discovered previously, and so I followed them around for a while.

First stop was Kruidvat for some gelatine-free sweets, and then to the cheap shops like Zeeman and Wibra for a new jumper, but there was nothing doing.

At Sports Direct though, there were some more of the trousers that I like, but also some good-quality jumpers at a reduced price of €14:00 each, or 2 for €24:00. So they disappeared into my backpack along with a couple of pairs of trousers.

On the way up to the hospital I stopped at the bar to see if the guy who runs it whom I know was there, but he wasn’t. So I went on my way up the hill – very slowly.

You know what happened at the hospital because I told you just now, and then a very depressed and fed-up me headed into town. Alison wasn’t ready so I went for a coffee until she appeared.

We went to la Cucaracha and had another Mexican like last time, which was just as delicious, and then round for a coffee.

Afterwards she drove me back here which was very kind of her, and that’s my day finished.

It’s all so disappointing, but so what? I just have to get on with it. No point in brooding on it. Just like the defendant who found out that the judge of his case was only four feet tall – “these little things are sent to try us”.

Wednesday 14th February 2018 – I MADE IT …

… to Leuven without any disaster or without losing anything. So that has to be something to celebrate.

But it seems that I’ve forgotten to bring my medication, I forgot to turn off the water heater, and I seem to have omitted to bring with me the letter telling me the time of my appointment.

So we’re still going true to form, aren’t we?

never mind 06:00 – I was awake at 03:30. But of course there was no danger of my ever leaving my bed at that time. I must have gone back to sleep though because the alarm awoke me at 06:00 and I was out of bed before the second one went off.

Just for a change I didn’t take my medication – I need to be on the move quite smartly – so I had an early breakfast, tidied up somewhat and then took the rubbish to the bin outside.

Everything in the apartment was cleaned and bleached where appropriate, and I did some last minute packing before I hit the streets.

Just for a change it wasn’t raining and it only took me 25 minutes to make the station. So I had plenty of time to loiter around, and with the new touchpad on the coffee machine I could even have a coffee.

Now here’s a thing. On the train I had a bad attack of nausea and I’ve no idea why. But it soon cleared up and strangely enough I felt so much better as we sped through the snow to Paris.

Paris was surprisingly quiet and I was at the Gare du Nord in a new record of 40 minutes, and that included stopping to buy the tickets for the metro. I bought two – one for the return because I’m stuck for time on the return as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

At the Gare du Nord I could eat my butties, and it’s bad news that the baguette that I bought yesterday didn’t last as well as the usual one that I buy and which was sold out.

Surprise, surprise! The TGV was half an hour late leaving Paris and we didn’t make up the time on the journey either. But it didn’t matter because at Brussels-Midi I only had enough time to buy a rail ticket to Leuven before an Inter-City express pulled in.

It’s freezing here – absolutely taters. And the heater in my little flat-hotel (which, for a change, has the bed upstairs) could be better.

But I had a coffee and then hit the shops. The Delhaize about 15 minutes walk away came up with stuff that I need while I’m staying here. And tea was baked potatoes with a tin of curried vegetables. Once I’d sorted out the electricity issues, I could make the microwave work.

Delicious it was too.

So now I’m off for an early night. I’ve done 124% of my daily exercise routine so I’m quite happy with that.

Tomorrow, we shall see what we shall see.

Friday 9th February 2018 – HAVING REGAINED MY COMPOSURE …

… after the mail that I received from the Bank yesterday, I sent them a reply this afternoon. Carefully thought out, I’ve asked for a reply to five points that, for me, are quite important in my dealings with them.

And I received an answer from them as well- which basically didn’t answer any questions at all.

But I did learn one thing – and that is that the person with whom I have been dealing recently “is no longer with the Bank”. So that’s two employees of the Credit Agricole in Granville that I’ve seen off. Who’s next? The woman who is dealing with my affairs now is a Madame Rottier. And I bet that that’s a spelling mistake too.

And for another change I had the Sleep of the Dead yet again last night. And quite rightly so. It’s about time. And I was up and about when the second alarm went off, which is even better.

We had the usual arrangements this morning of course, and once the medication worked I went out and about to do my shopping. The idea was to do it this morning before they started to close off all of the roads for the Carnaval. The downside of this is that everyone else decided to do the same thing too, and so everywhere was crowded.

First port of call though was the Tax Office. I’ve had the bill for my stay in hospital over New Year so that needs to be paid. With me going to Leuven next week, I’m staying for a couple of days extra and I’ve arranged to go into Brussels on Friday where I can call in at my Health Insurance people and hand in all of the receipts.

But the queue there was quite something. I don’t know how long it takes to pay a bill – for me it’s about 30 seconds – but the woman on the cash desk was really making a performance of it all and everyone was quite frustrated by her “work to rule”.

LIDL came up with nothing at all spectacular, but all of the excitement was outside in the car park.

Liz told me the other day that they had had a heavy snowfall where she lives – just 15 miles or so from here – and that was hard to believe considering the weather that we have had.

But here in the car park at LIDL was a car with snow embedded under the wheel arches and with a large lump that had just fallen off.

After LIDL I went to a new shop. Liz had told me about a frozen food place called Picard that she had found and there is one in Granville. So I popped in for a look around. There’s tons more stuff than there is anywhere else, but at a price. Nevertheless, it’s handy to know if I need anything that isn’t mainstream.

Bureau Vallée was next, and they had restocked their 2GB memory sticks. So another two have now disappeared into my apartment.

After lunch and my little correspondence session, I braved the howling gale (it really was wicked) and went for a walk.

My route took me around the headland and it was well-worth the struggle against the wind because I was treated to a most spectacular sight of the waves being hurled over the sea wall into the tidal basin.

This is one of the reasons why I’ve come to live by the seaside. The power of the waves and the storms is quite impressive. You need to remember that I’m living right where the highest ever wind speed to hit the French coast was recorded – 220kph in 1987

Back here with a coffee and a … errr … relax, and then a session on the database followed by the usual half-hour on the guiter. And I suddenly found myself playing the bass line to Budgie’s “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman”. That brings back memories from when I met Ray Phillips, the former Budgie drummer who had played on that album and was looking for a bassist for a gig he was playing with an ad-hoc band at a pub in Nantwich one night in 1977.

After tea (the rest of the oven chips, beans and falafel) I went into town to see what was happening with the carnaval.

The funfair was all closed up and in darkness, but there were quite a few people around in the streets. So much so that a fast-food outlet had opened its doors to serve them.

I can’t say that I was tempted very much – the smell of roasted flesh is disgusting if you ask me.

Everyone was heading into the square so I followed them to see what was going on.

Almost everyone was in fancy-dress, and that’s because there was a carnaval-eve ball taking place, with a rock band and everything. But far too “young” for me. Never mind the Phyllosan to fortify the over-40s – what do they have to sixtify the over-60s?

But it did remind me of the noise that I once heard from the village hall in Byley a good few years ago.
“What’s all that noise going on in there?”
“They are holding a Young Farmer’s Ball”
“And what’s the matter? Can’t he get them to let go?”

Not feeling in the least bit tired (but rather fatigued nevertheless) I went for a walk to the Place Maréchal Foch and the Casino.

I’d not really been for a good wander around there in the dark before, so now seemed to be as good a time as any.

There were cars parked all over the place, as you might expect with it being carnaval and half of the streets closed off, and it rather spoilt the view unfortunately.

We’ve seen plenty of photographs of the casino in the past but we have never seen it quite like this.

There’s definitely something about the effects of artificial lighting at night-time to bring out the best of a building, and that’s exactly what we have here. It really does look good.

In the corner to the left of the casino we have the little theatre. I’ve not yet been there – but that’s basically because there’s nothing that ever goes on there that is of interest to me.

Instead, I continued with my walk around the Place Marechal Foch, and passed by the Hotel des Bains.

This has been described as “delightfully chic” in some travel guides, which means that it isn’t the kind of place that you are ever likely to find Yours Truly spending a night these days.

But nevertheless, the building is quite impressive. It’s fairly modern but it’s been built with some kind of tasteful eye on the history of the town which is always nice to see. It’s a shame that more people can’t make an effort.

With still 12%of my daily activity to do, I carried on with my walk. and I’m glad I did because I spotted this way in the distance.

And when was the last time that you saw a Bedford CF on the road anywhere? I haven’t seen one for years. The last British “Vauxhall” vehicle, they wer emade from 1969 to compete with the Ford Transit but came on the scene far too late.

The Transit was already well-established by then, with the previous CA Bedford putting up no resistance, and the CF didn’t last long. It disappeared with hardly a whimper in 1987 when the “Cevel” vans of Peugeot and Citroen flooded into the UK.

And I for one never expected to see one again.

No shopping tomorrow, but there’s a carnaval procession. I mustn’t miss that, so I’ll have to be in the Town Centre at 13:30.

No peace for the wicked.

Wednesday 7th February 2018 – I MISSED …

… the first alarm this morning.

Well, I actually didn’t. I vaguely remember it going off, and I vaguely remember reaching out and turning it off. And then that was that until the second alarm went off. Dead to the world. And it was a struggle to haul myself out of bed – I’ll tell you that.

A,d I’d been on my travels again during the night. I Was with some girl or woman – and I can’t remember who now – watching some old cat try to come to terms with three kittens who were doing their usual kitten antics like falling into the bowl of milk. Watching the bewilderment on the face of this old cat made us both remark at the same moment that it was like he had completely forgotten that a few years ago he was a kitten too.

After the usual performance this morning, I cracked on with this huge pile of photos that I’ve discovered. And anther enormous pile has headed the way of being stored on the External Hard Drive in the Sky. Duplicates, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, we’ve got the lot.

On my laptop I’ve a duplicate file finder program and I set it to work in one of the directories, but it took one look at what I was expecting it to do and promptly crashed. And I can’t say that I blamed it.

But I was so engrossed in what I was doing that it was gone 13:30 when I stopped for lunch. And another packet of that “5 assorted vegetables passed through a sieve” soup, with small pasta and bulghour. Add some bread and fruit as well, and there you are.

This afternoon, with not having gone out, I attacked another corner of the living room – the part between the sofa and the window. That’s all vacuumed, cleaned and tidied and things put away.

The good news is that when I moved the sofa back to vacuum underneath where it had been I found the miniature 64GB memory stick. I’d totally forgotten about that. But that prompted me to do a back-up of the laptop. You never know.

And I’ve started to pack for Leuven next week. It’s never too early for that of course.

We had the usual walk around the headland, in the bitter biting wind, followed by a coffee, a … errr … relax, and then an attack on the database, as well as a play on the bass guitar.

For tea we had oven chips, beans and some falafel that I had bought at the weekend. And it’s nothing like as good as you might find in a Leuven fritkot.

Out into the wind for the evening walk, and then back here. And that’s that for today. I’ve done quite enough. Shopping tomorrow of course, and I need to stock up a little because the town will be in chaos this weekend with the carnaval.

So I’d better have an early night, hadn’t I?

Friday 2nd February 2018 – IN NEWS WHICH WILL SURPRISE …

… everyone who reads the rubbish that I write, I have spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning the bathroom from top to bottom.

And I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t a case of the bathroom not needing it either. I seem to have been somewhat remiss of late.

It now makes the rest of the apartment look rather dubious and so I have resolved that when I don’t have any other fish to fry, like going to the shops or to football matches, I shall attack the apartment corner by corner.

As Nietzsche once famously said, “out of chaos comes order” – but Nietzsche had never ever visited anywhere where I might have been living.

Sleep was better last night and I almost (but not quite) beat the second alarm. I was poised on the point of putting my foot to the ground when it went off.

And after the usual daily start and a little relax, I attacked the European Photo Mountain – and freed up another 10GB of space on the external hard drive, with plenty more to go. But it’s going to take for ever to do, I reckon.

While I was ferreting around in the freezer I came across another part-loaf of bread from the days when I was feeling well. So I liberated it and treated myself to cheese on toast for lunch. It’s difficult to eat because of my mouth problems, but I managed it, taking my time. And nice it was too. I’ll have to pick up some more cheese from Leuven when I go back there.

But that set me on to tidying up the freezer a little and finding a pack of frozen mixed vegetables about which I had completely forgotten. Next time that I make a curry, instead of using tins I’ll add this stuff in and use it up. Then I’ll have room for more oven chips. Not had them for a while.

And I had a quick go around the fridge too. More stuff that I had bought when I was well that had now time-expired. And all of that went into the bin too.

After lunch I arranged the bathroom as I said, and while the floor was drying I went for my afternoon walk.

It was quite windy but very bright out there this afternoon.

And the tide was right out too. And so we had some unusual activity on the beach, with this person out here going for a walk and, I thought, maybe a paddle too.

Not exactly the weather for it if you ask me, but then some people do have some weird ideas about what constitutes amusement and entertainment.

But then I changed my mind about that person, because as I walked farther around the headland, I discovered that they were not alone.

There were at least three other people here on the beach, and they were carrying some kind of tools. So perhaps it’s mussels season or something like that and they were searching in the tidal pools.

But then, what do I know about shellfish?

Back here, I made myself a coffee, sat down quietly – and went to sleep. You’d be surprised about how much a little thing like tidying the bathroom takes it out of me. I know that I’m not well and unfortunately I’m not going to get any better.

Tea tonight was a frozen curry that I had liberated from the freezer. and delicious it was too with rice, fresh carrots and frozen peas. I can’t wait to install a proper kitchen here – my meals will be even better when I have the correct facilities. As it is, I seem to be managing fine enough as I am.

And so back out for a walk this evening. And it’s probably the first evening for quite some considerable time when it hasn’t rained.

My route took me round the walls again and the Place Maurice Marland where we were the other day. It looks quite beautiful now that it’s all finished and the temporary fencing has been taken down.

The photo of the floodlit trees has come out really well and I’m quite pleased with that.

It’s the shops of course tomorrow; and I’ll have to find some football for tomorrow night too. The season should restart, if there are any pitches that aren’t waterlogged.

But not much hope of that.

Saturday 16th December 2017 – AND AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said – “there’s one thing that I want to tell you, man, and that it’s goof to be back home”.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t make it, because I didn’t have a very good day.

Sherlock Holmes – or rather Arthur Wontner – did the trick last night. I managed about 2 minutes of the film before I was away with the fairies. All of my walking – 155% of my daily exercise – had seen to that.

Mind you – if I do lay my hands on the person who decided that it would be fun to slam all of the doors in the building at 04:18 this morning he would be someone else who will be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

None of that prevented me from going off on my travels though. I was in some kind of warehouse plece with a few other people chasing after a long-haired cat – a black mangy type of animal – with the intention of stroking it. But it disappeared from my view and I couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to be chasing and found myself chasing after a large wasp. Just imagine trying to give that a stroke!

This morning I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a bad attack of nausea that made me quite unsteady on my feet. But I managed to calm myself down intime to go searching for a bakkerei. I trawled the streets for 15 minutes before I found a supermarket, and only realised on the way back that had I turned right out of the alley instead of left, the first door in that direction would have sold me a baguette.

I made my butties for the journey but had run out of time so no shower – I can wait until I return home for that.

The train to Brussels was pretty uneventful but the bad news there was that to catch the earlier train would have cost me an extra €46:00. That’s not part of the plan at all so I sat down quietly in a very cold, draughty waiting area and read my book for a while.

The Thalys was one of the older generation of trains with everything manual and I couldn’t make the wi-fi work. But that’s not the end of the world at all really. I have plenty of other things to do.

Apart from visiting the bathroom I slept almost all of the way to Paris, and then I managed to cross Paris on the metro without any incident – and isn’t that a change for just recently?

The walk down the platform to Vaugirard was pretty uneventful, except that some woman was urging her mother on, in the most ungracious terms, to hurry for the train. Mummy was about 80 and so this situation brought back some memories from a previous existence.

They missed their train but there was another one in half an hour so they had to run all the way back to the ticket office to swap tickets and then run all the way back.

The look of despair on this old woman’s face was something that I shan’t ever forget.

But Vaugirard was packed out completely. I’ve never seen it so busy. Apparently it’s school holidays starting today. I grabbed a seat in the waiting room next to a nice girl who was going to Granville from Martinique for Christmas – the last seat available. We had quite a chat and I had to fight people out of her seat when she nipped to the bathroom.

The train was packed to the gunwhales with people and once again, I slept most of the way back. But on the station I bumped into my girl from the waiting room and I wished her a Merry .

Then began the long trudge back here.

It was cold in here, which is no surprise, but I had the heating on full blast while I watched Bangor City beat Cefn Druids on the laptop. The little laptop because the big one decided that it would do an upgrade as soon as I switched it on, and that took hours.

Tea was once more out of a tin, and then I went for a walk – for no good reason other than the fact that I was at 89% of my daily activity. I might as well wind it up to 100% – as it has been for every day this week.

Now it’s an early night. i’ll watch a film too. That seems to be working well right now.

Friday 15th December 2017 – WHAT AN EXCITING …

… football match that was!

OH Leuven were playing SK Lierse, the team at the top of the table. It was a freezing night but everyone who entered the ground was given a Santa hat and a free glass of glühwein (I declined mine) so we were all in the festive spirit.

OHL played the best that I had seen them play for quite some considerable time and were a deserved 2-0 up at half-time. Their left-winger, this guy Storm who they signed from KV Oostende, was tearing them to shreds down the left flank. He didn’t know what to do with the ball when he got to the bye-line but at least he was keeping the SK Lierse defence busy.

But the result was inevitable. He received one kick too many and after 75 minutes he hobbled from the field. A few minutes later OH Leuven were effectively down to 10 men. Casagolda, the centre-forward, had also been the vistil of a few heavy challenges and he received one too many. With no more substitutes, he had to hobble on but was clearly out of the game.

This took the presssure off the Lierse defence and they could push much further forward. They inevitably scored a goal late in the game but Leuven hung on to win.

Last night, I settled down to watch a Boris karloff “Mr Wong” film – and that had the desired effect. Out in 30 seconds. And off to Gresty Road outside the Alexandra Social Club where I was with a couple of people watching this young boy and young girl looking for a place where they could get up to no good. “It’s a shame about there being no tress to hide behind here in the Arctic” said one of the people – and only anyone who has ever stood on the windswept car park between the Social Club and Jail House on the corner will ever understand the connection.

After breakfast I headed up to the bus station for the bus to Everberg and the English shop. I wanted my mince pies and Christmas pudding.

The bus ws jam-packed with kids – I’ve no idea where they were going. Nor had I any real idea where I was going but once I saw somewhere tha I realised, I alighted and walked the rest of the way, only to find that there was a bus stop right outside.

I found what i wanted (no Dandelion and Burdock though – I’ll have to make do with fiery Ginger – but the woman in front of me spent over €170 on things like sliced bread, jams and so on-everything typically British. It rather defeats the point of living abroad if you do that.

On the way back I picked up some bread and tomatoes and made myself a butty with the cheese from yesterday, and that was followed by a little doze.

Later, I headed into town to look at the Christmas lights at this end of town and to visit the Christmas market now that I worked out where it was.

And also down to Hema. I want a very small saucepan for doing sauces and the like and they had one to match another saucepan that i bought from there. €11:00 reduced to €8:80 so I’m very happy with that.

Later on I was off to the football, and found another fritkot across the road from the nick. Their fritjes were excellent and I’ll go there again.

But forst i’m going to bed. I’ve had a very hectic day.

Thursday 14th December 2017 – SO FAR TODAY …

… I’ve managed to go a whole 24 hours without a single disaster. That makes a nice change for recent times doesn’t it?

And I’ve also done 198% of my daily activity too, and that has to be a good thing.

We started off last night as we mean to go on, and that meant an early night. And to guarantee a decent sleep I switched on a “Bulldog Drummond” film. Always does the trick, that does.

A bad attack of cramp at 01:3à wasn’t quite so good, but that’s the kind of thing that happens. Soon back to sleep and right through to the alarm as well.

The morning was quite leisurely and included a shower, and then at 10:30 it was out to the shops.

I’d previously forgotten the Kruidvat – but not this time. They have pick-and-mix sweets and they are all labelled as to their allergy rating. I treated myself to a couple of hundred grams of gelatine-free gooey sweets. And they were delicious.

At Zeeman I bought a black jumper for €7:99. I don’t have enough jumpers back at Granville and another cheap one will do me just fine.

But of all of the shops that I went into (and there were dozens) I couldn’t find a cake tin. I don’t know what’s happening to the world.

Alison turned up and we went for a coffee and a wander around the shops looking for Christmas presents for her entourage. And we called into the Loving Hut for another pile of Vegan cheese and some spray-on vegan cream.

I then took my leave and headed off to the hospital.

A new place to visit. No longer do I go to the Day Centre but to the Haematology unit. And there, the girl fitted the vampire bat to my catheter port and extracted the blood in a matter of seconds.

But the thing there is amazing. They don’t call out your name – your photo appears on the TV screen thing next to the room which you have to visit. That’s new technology!

The good news is that – rather surprisingly – the blood count is UP – from 9.2 to 9.5. And also that the protein loss is DOWN – and that’s even more surprising. Professor Janssens is pleased with me – so back in another 2 months.

Back into town again in the rain where I again met Alison. And we went to la Cucaracha – the Cockroach – the new Mexican restaurant. My taco or tortilla or whatever it was stufffed with spicy mushrooms in tomato sauce with rice was absolutely delicious and I’ll make this at home sometime.

We put the world to rights until her bus came, and then I walked back here, stopping to photograph all of the lights. But the camera on this phone is unfortunately pretty useless.

I’m now going to try for yet another early night. It’s quite cold out and my room isn’t as hot as I would like it.

Curling up under the covers is what’s called for in a situation like this.

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?

Saturday 9th December 2017 – YOU MISSED …

… even more excitement this evening.

Walking past the roundabout at the top of the hill this evening and I heard a crash. A scooter went one way, its rider went another and his artificial leg (for he was a unijambiste) did a Tony B Liar and went a third way.

It seemed that some woman had failed to stop at the entry to the roundabout and consequently despatched the aforementioned into the bushes.

I helped him to his feet, someone else screwed his leg back on and we all got him and his bike to the side of the road. He was more shaken than stirred but once I was assured that he was OK, I left him to get on with things and I went on for the football.

I’d had a reasonable night’s sleep for a change ad I’d been on my travels too.

We started off in some kind of theatre where there was some entertainment going on, provided by a group of kids. However the star of the show, a little blonde-haired girl, was missing and this started a frantic hunt. This led us into a kind of pre-school nursery school, the type that was intended for the sons of noblemen rather than the likes of us, and if ever I commercialise the little game that the kids were playing that helped them learn the names of the Greek philosophers, I shall clean up.

After breakfast I had to wait for my medication to work and it took so long this morning that I forewent my shower. I’d miss the bread in LIDL if I hang around too long.

And this would have been the cheapest shop yet had it not been for one or two special purchases. I’m going away on Wednesday morning as you know so I don’t need much. Just a couple of things in LIDL and a couple more in LeClerc.

NOZ had a couple of little bits and pieces but nowhere had a container to keep my Christmas cake. Not a large cake tin, and not a large plastic container either. I forget how many shops I went into (and some of them twice too) without success. In the end, I bought a plastic storage bin and sealed the cake in with clingfilm. I’m hoping that Leuven might come up with something suitable next week.

But I did find a new suitcase. You may recall that in Oostende a while ago my small wheeled suitcase gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a temporary one. That was a cheap and nasty thing, and not suitable for long-term use, so I’ve bought a small solid wheeled one for my trips to Leuven.

I’d planned to stop off on the way back to phptograph the storm breaking on the sea wall at high tide in the daylight, and so as you might expect, the wind has dropped today and everything has calmed down.

After lunch I crashed out for an hour or so, and then walked off up town to the football, stopping for the scooter incident on the way.

US Granville were playing St Pryve St Hilaire FC this evening, in front of a small crowd of just 515 people.

Although Granville were a little more focused this week, they still didn’t look all that impressive. They had more of the play but St Pryve St Hilaire FC looked more dangerous on the break. In fact, the Granville centre-forward ploughed a very lonely furrow up front without very much help from his colleagues.

St Pryve St Hilaire FC scored from a breakaway, shrugging off a couple of lightweight, ineffective challenges, and the equaliser from Granville was a ball over the top of the defence with a midfielder running on.

Mind you, we could have had several more goals but both goalkeepers were in inspired form this evening making several excellent saves, including the Grancille keeper making a marvellous double-save at point-blank range.

As the rain started to fall, in the last 15 minutes; Granville came to life again just like last match, but couldn’t find the killer thrust to win the game.

On the way back, I called in at the railway station to pick up my tickets for Wednesday, and then went for a wander to take the photos of the Christmas lights in the town. And I would have been out much longer had the weather been kinder.

Tea was potatoes, beans and vegan sausages done in the microwave, Delcious it was too. Now I’m going to have an early night and a nice lie-in tomorrow.

Friday 13th October 2017 – IF EVER I GET …

… my hands on the person who decided that it would be amusing to play his music at full volume at 04:40 this morning, he’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

Having a little party in one’s room at 01:30 was rather disturbing, but this was something else completely.

Mind you, it’s taught me a lesson, which is to make sure that all of the windows in my room are closed in future. The noise wasn’t half as bad once I had done that.

And this was all a shame because my room was quite pleasant and I was very comfortable in my bed. I shall look further into this hotel once I return home.

So wide awake, I attacked some stuff on the internet that needed doing. And found some more stuff about my grandmother Ivy Cooper performing in Winnipeg in January 1923. Hard to believe that just 33 months later, she was back in the UK, remarried and giving birth to my mother.

With not having paid for breakfast, I had bought some raisin buns and orange juice from the supermarket while I was out last night, and they made a very agreeable breakfast.

And so all of that was followed by a nice shower and shave (and it really was a nice shower too) and change of clothes, and then I packed everything up to go.

The owner was on duty at the Hotel Midi-Zuid. He apologised for yesterday too and let me put my suitcase in the cupboard as my room wasn’t ready (so what REALLY happened yesterday?)

I wandered off down to the Gare du Midi to buy my ticket to Leuven. And here I made something of a mistake. It was well before 10:00 when I bought them so I had to pay full price.

But it was a nice day anyway so I went early (falling asleep on the train) and sat on the Square outside the railway station, soaking in the sun and also supping a well-earned coffee.

Later on, despite still aching just about everywhere, I decided to walk right across the city to the hospital. It was market day down the main street so I fought my way through the crowds, stopping to admire the fruit and veg stall with its lovely collection of grapes, which were so irresistible.

The Loving Hut wasn’t open yet but nevertheless I blagged my way in to buy some more vegan cheese, seeing as I had forgotten to bring over any from Canada. And the manager gave me a couple of names of mail-order vegan suppliers who might help me out.

And here’s a thing. it’s been a while since we’ve featured an old car in these pages.

I didn’t really have the time or the inclination to do much around the USA. I need to catch up, and here by the merest chance happens to be an old Mini Traveller.

rare enough in the UK these days so I never expected to see one here in Leuven.

But then again, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a mini van here in Brussels a couple of years ago.

Calling at St Pieter’s Hospital for the usual morning reasons, I continued on my way only to bump into one of my former co_kottiers from the Hostel. He’s now managing the little bistro place that’s attached to the other hostel and he invited me in for a coffee and a chat.

Unfortunately I was obliged to decline, seeing asI had a prior appointment, but I made a note. And then pressed on to the hospital.

We had a new student nurse today, so it was a good job that I knew the routine. And when she told me to “move over to the far side of the bed”, I couldn’t help but reply “that’s the most exciting thing that I’ve had said to me for quite some considerable time”.

The news though isn’t so good. While the protein might be “stable”, whatever he means by that, the blood count not so. That’s dropped from 9.6 last time to 9.2 just now. And he reckons that there’s also a leaky valve in my heart.

None of this is anything that I particularly wanted to hear. Things aren’t sounding quite so good just now, so i’m glad that I took the opportunity to carry out all of the tasks on my “to-do” list when I was able to.

It took the doctor until 17:20 to come to tell me that I could go, and to give me my prescriptions. I have to come back on Thursday 14th December, but to go to a different department, and I don’t like the sound of that.

But now I’m horribly late. I was hoping to be gone from here hours ago. I have to run to the pharmacy to collect the prescriptions and, as usual, they are short of product.

And then run for the bus, which is in no hurry. No chance of going for that coffee now.

Luckily the trains to Brussels are quite regular and I don’t have to wait long. Mevertheless it’s 18:33 when we arrive. I have to run down to the hotel, register (why he wouldn’t let me do that this morning I really don’t know), leave my backpack, and run back to the station. And i’m on the platform southbound with just three minutes to spare.

Since I’vs topped going to see OH Leuven, they have been on an impressive run of form and are up there in 2nd place in the league. On the other hand, AFC Tubize are on a woeful run of form and are well adrift at the foot of the table.

There’s a football match played in each division on a Friday night, and by pure coincidence, tonight is AFC Tubize v OH Leuven. it’s just a handful of stops down the line from here, and I’m at a loose end.

Obviously a home banker then.

But we have a tragedy – i’ll tell you that. They’ve reorganised the times of the trains and the last one back is at 22:12. The 23:12 has been taken off. What that means in real money is that if I don’t want to walk back to Brussels, I’ll miss the last 20 minutes of the game.

But never mind. Grabbing a bag of chips from the fritkot across the road from the station, I set off to the ground.

It’s a modern stadium, but they ran out of money after doing just two sides.

And that’s hardly surprising because it’s another one of those places where they announce the crowd changes to the team.

I have a coffee, chat to a couple of people, and take my seat in the stand.

AFC Tubize aren’t all that bad. In fact they can match OH Leuven in most departments but you can immediately see the problem that they are having. Their centre-forward is ploughing a very lonely furrow up front, with no service and no support.

OH Leuven are on the attack from the kick-off and only a brilliant save from their keeper stops them going 1-0 down in the first 5 minutes.

But they are in front after half an hour with a brilliant glancing header from Casagolda from a free kick.

Tubize equalize in the second half and I start to have this rather uncomfortable feeling. But it can’t be helped – I need to be on my way.

Back at the hotel I find my room, and its quite comfortable too. One of the bigger ones. I learn that OH Leuven went on to win the match but it’s bed-time for me. It’s been a long day and it’s going to be another long one tomorrow.

Monday 14th August 2017 – AT THE HOSPITAL …

… the news is not so good.

While the blood count is up slightly at 9.6 from 9.5, something else in the body (and I’ve forgotten what it was) has plummeted by over 25% – from 39 parts to 29 parts.

This has caused a few raised eyebrows and they wanted me to come in again to see if it might be just an errant result.

But no chance of that! My flight to Montreal is at 15:20 and I intend to be on it – and I won’t be back until 12th October. So my appointment is on 13th whether they like it or not.

And here’s a thing – I asked the hotel manager whether it’s cheaper to book a room over the counter or over the internet by a booking agency. To my astonishment he replied “over the internet”.

That was the last thing that I was expecting because I know how much commission these booking agencies charge. But if that’s what he wants me to do, then that’s what I will do.

Despite being awake at about 06:00 or something, there was no chance of me moving. It took the alarm at 07:00 to shift me from my stinking pit. And after breakfast I came back here and attacked yesterday’s magnum opus.

That took me up to shower time, and then a slow meander down the road to the railway station.

And my luck was in too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the trains to Leuven run at peculiar times – there are three all at once and then nothing for 40 minutes.

And so no-one was more delighted than me when an Inter-City pulled in just as I arrived at the station.

It was a double-decker too. Very nice, comfortable and modern, so I went off to sit upstairs.

Of course, Brain of Britain had forgotten his book and so he had to sit there and admire the scenery for the whole route.

Not of course that he was complaining about that too much.

At Leuven we had a nightmare of queueing for a new travel ticket – mine is on the verge of running out. But once it was organised it was off on the bus to the hospital and my appointment with Destiny.

I walked back through the town, picking up some stuff for lunch tomorrow as well as a nice sorbet as a treat. I reckoned that I had earned it.

You know about the irregular running of the trains between Leuven and Brussels. But here again I was in luck.

The train to Knokke was running late so just as I arrived on the platform, so did the train. otherwise I would have had an uncomfortable wait for the train from Welkenraedt.

These trains are old, dirty and rattly but they are here and that’s the important bit. I was soon back here.

We had another disaster for tea tonight. I’d been saving my plate of lentils for tonight but after they had taken my order and having waited for 20 minutes, they told me that “lentils were finished” even though I’d seen a plate in the cooler.

I ended up with a bag of chips instead.

It seems that I’m fated to have bad luck with my meals this time round. And so I’m glad that I’ve bought some emergency supplies for the plane tomorrow, to go with the crisps that Alison gave me on Sunday and which I forgot to mention.

Saturday 15th July 2017 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And I’m not talking about cutting my finger open with the sharp vegetable knife when I picked up the cutlery out of the drainer either. It was much more painful than that!

So last night was another restless night. Especially so seeing as how I was off on my travels again.

There was a war on, and of course the UK was very susceptible to a blockade. However there was no rationing and people were going about as it it all was of no consequence, something that struck me as being a great matter of concern.
And then I was with my mother (but whoever it was wasn’t my mother, thank heavens) and it involved something to do with Mark III Cortinas. She drove away and I was left holding a bonnet from the aforementioned – a light blue one. I was trying the blots with my fingers to make sure that they were loose enough without disturbing the settings. A couple of women in a cafe made some ribald remark about me being with a “much older” woman so I went over to say “hello”. Their tune soon changed when they saw me come over because they recognised me, and they realised that the “much older” woman had been my mother.
While I was in the queue here a whole group of people came to the counter and it was all people whom I recognised from from a difficult period of my life. They were all pleased and enthusiastic to see me but I wasn’t at all pleased to see them. They crowded around me and asked me how I was and I was really uncomfortable in all of this. We discussed work and they found out that I had given over a good job to go driving taxis – but at leat “it was my own taxi, and not someone else’s”.

I’ve no idea where all of these people have come from – people whom I met in the early 80s in a couple of unpleasant encounters and whom I wish never to see again. I can’t think whatever it might have been to trigger all of that off.

After breakfast and a shower, shave and clean clothes, Caliburn got his motor running and headed off down the highway in the general direction of the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special and neither did NOZ, the rubbish shop. But at least they had a few more of these hexagonal herb and spice jars. I get through tons of turmeric here so I stocked up with two containers of that together with a couple more of different types.

At Centrakor I went a little berserk. They were selling cigarette lighter socket twin-USB adaptors for just €1:99. I need one of those for Strider over in Canada so I picked one up.

But they also had some of those portable battery packs for powering your mobile phone or other hand-held appliance – a 2600 mAh set-up and just €3.99. That’s half what I have seen them elsewhere at their cheapest, and that’s without postage and packing too of course!

LeClerc was just the usual banal stuff, but I REALLY went mad in Intersport.

The trainers that I bought at Sports Direct in Leuven last October have fallen apart. So I only paid €20 for them, I know, but they’ve been letting in water for quite a while and now the soles are falling off.

Intersport was having a sale so went to have a look around, and came away with a pair of Salomon Goretex trainer-style hiking boots. They should have been … gulp … €119 but they were reduced by 30% in the sale and they were so comfortable.

I hope that they last a darn sight longer than these ones that I’ve just chucked in the bin.

And that’s not all either.

My rain jacket is falling to pieces. It has a couple of holes in it (never good for a rainjacket – holes in it) and it’s looking well the worse for wear. I have another one but that is one of those bright yellow rubberised ones that is uncomfortable, bulky and sweaty.

Today though, reduced to just €24:95 was a proper McKinley breathable Aquamax. And in my size too, which was unusual.

And last, but by no means least – I’ve been talking for a while about buying a Fitbit – one of these that tells you your heartbeat, how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burnt and all of that stuff. But when I’ve seen the price, it’s put me off.

But a new model has been launched and Intersport was clearing out the remains of the previous one. Nothing wrong with them at all – there’s just a new design – and they were reduced to just €50:00.

Yes, I’m making ready for my holidays, aren’t I?

All I need now is a new suitcase and a new camera.

But this Fitbit – “always ready when you are” it proudly announces on the packet. So I went to wear it … and the battery was flat! What kind of misleading publicity is that?

Back home, the whole town was heaving with grockles as predicted. Even coming home the back way I was stuck for ages. And it’s a good job that we have our own private parking here because the public car park was jam-packed, with grockles dragging off suitcases all over the old town.

Early for my baguette tomorrow, I reckon.

Fighting off the waves of sommeil this afternoon, I was on the blog again. Not reducing the “unclassifieds” but untangling a few bits and pieces from when I returned from the Ile d’Yeu until going back to Brussels.

I’ve put that bit off for a while, but a close look at it revealed that it was fairly straighforward to untangle so here I am. Well on my way to finalising that little lot.

Tea tonight was more mashed potato, frozen veg and burger. And I fried a little onion and garlic with my burger too and it was delicious.

I really do appreciate living here in my little apartment.

EPIC HALL

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