Tag Archives: caliburn

Sunday 15th May 2016 – A GOOD, SOLID, UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP

That was what i was hoping for yesterday. And did I get it?

I was in bed by 22:00 and fell asleep listening to some of the radio programmes that I recorded years ago from www.archive.org. Something awoke me rather dramatically an hour or so later and although I don’t know what it was, I did notice that Liz had been trying to speak to me on the internet. I replied to her but ended up going right back to sleep in the middle of the discussion. I really can’t last the pace these days, can I?

There was the usual trip down the corridor at some time during the night, and I was awake again at 06:30. But badger that for a game of soldiers, I turned over and went back to sleep. Next thing that I remember was at 07:30 and then I really couldn’t go back to sleep. By 07:45 I was up and about, preparing breakfast and looking for my medication which I seem to have left behind me in Pellenberg. Ahhh well!

At least it was a nice, sunny start to the day. The sun has followed me down here, so it seems, and just after breakfast it was streaming down the back of my neck for a while. And that was extremely pleasant.

As for today, I’ve been torn between three stools.

  1. I’ve done two machine-loads of washing. All of the stuff that I had in Belgium with me plus all of the washing that was hanging around back at my house. There’s still plenty left over to do, but I’ll do another load just before I leave, and then everything will be up to date for when I return, whenever that might be.
  2. I’ve been cracking on with the blog, bringing it up to to date. I’ve finished all of February 2011 and now I’m well stuck into March. If I’m not careful, I’ll be catching myself up
  3. I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep too. I’m nothing like as young as I used to be and my health is still quite fragile as you know. It’s hardly surprising that I haven’t caught up with myself yet but I hope that I have done by this evening as I have a lot to do starting tomorrow

Liz had left me a ginger cake that she had made, and a slice of that went down a treat with my afternoon coffee. But there was no garlic – I ended up having to make garlic bread with a shallot and that’s not the same thing. I must buy some garlic if I want to do some cooking here.

So now, I’m going off for yet another early night and I’ll see how I get on. Tomorrow, I have to go back to chez moi and start my plans.

Tidying up Caliburn is the first item on the agenda.

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Saturday 14th May – NOW …

… that was much more like it. That was the most comfortable sleep that I have had for weeks. It was a shame though that my room was on the ground floor on the outside of the building at the foot of the stairs because I was kept awake for ages by some family group chatting at the foot of the stairs before they went their separate ways, and badger me if it wasn’t them again in the morning waking me up again.

But when I was gone, I was really gone.

I was away with the fairies during the night too. The first part concerned one of these reality TV shows and in this case it was a group of people who were setting up a garage – how they had to clear out some derelict and abandoned place, sort out the stuff inside, secure some stock-in-trade and set themselves up to do some work. They had three or four front-ends of minis, complete with subframes and engines, up on a ramp leading to the upper floor. All of this seemed to be so familiar and I wondered if I’ve been here before on another one of my nocturnal rambles just recently.
A little later, I was interviewing some woman. She was a single mother who worked as a school bus driver out in the Macclesfield area and had been transferred to a different route which went higher up on the moors on the Derbyshire border and in the snow. I was interested to see how she was doing with the difference in driving conditions, but she said that she hadn’t noticed the difference.

Breakfast cost me €5:00 and I had my money’s worth too. And then afterwards, I had an hour on the blog doing some more updating – I need to keep on at it.

The journey down to here was uneventful, apart from the weather. Yesterday I was having 28.6°C in Leuven and its surroundings. This morning it was a mere 12.6°C at Melun and the weather gradually deteriorated. We had fog, hanging clouds, rain, all kinds of stuff and the temperature dropped as low as 9°C. Definitely not the summer weather we should be having.

I called in at the Carrefour at Moulins to do a pile of shopping – some tins to take back to Belgium next weekend and also some food to eat while I’m down here. I can’t nibble away at Liz and Terry’s supplies.

My house is totally overgrown with weeds and the like and it was a struggle to get in there. I really must do something about that sometime (although I’m not sure when). I had a scrounge around and rescued all of the washing which I’ll do tomorrow and give it time to dry out before I go back. I’m going back to chez moi a couple of times during the week to tidy out Caliburn and get him organised for the next round of visits.

While I was there, I sorted out the post. No bank card yet, but there was a nasty bill that my insurance should have paid but it seems that they haven’t. On Monday, I’ll have to get on the case.

In St Gervais d’Auvergne I bought the last loaf of bread in France and then came back here narrowly avoiding squashing a team of motorcycle scramblers out for a run around, and then crashed out for a couple of hours (no surprise here).

For tea, I’ve had baked potatoes, baked beans and veggie-burgers and it was gorgeous. Now I’m going to crash out again and I hope that I’ll stay in bed until Monday. I need a good, solid uninterrupted sleep.

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Tuesday 10th May 2016 – SO, WHAT ARE THE NEW DIGS LIKE, THEN?

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumFirst of all, it made a pleasant change to wake up and hear the birds singing. For the last few weeks I’ve been waking up to hear the birds coughing.

My room looks out towards the west, away from the campus, and I have the sun streaming in here towards the end of the afternoon and all of that is quite nice.

And that, I’m afraid, is about that.

Firstly, there’s no private toilet. I have to wander off down the corridor which, three or four times during the night, is going to be rather inconvenient to say the least.

Having had a bad night’s sleep yet again (I just can’t get comfy these days) and totally forgetting a dream that I was having, I staggered off in search of breakfast only to be told that … errr … there isn’t any. It’s not supplied.

Neither is coffee. And there’s nothing to cook on, no water fountain, no laundry room, no absolutely nothing.

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumThe building itself is fairly modern – 1960s or 1970s I reckon, and has the air of being some kind of isolation hospital. And in the 50 or whatever years since it’s been built, I reckon that it hasn’t seen a lick of paint or an ounce of modernisation in the areas that I saw.

However, you can’t argue with the setting and if it’s peace and quiet that you want, then you can’t go far wrong here because there isn’t going to be anything to disturb you.

universitair ziekenhuis pellenberg leuven belgiumIt’s set in huge grounds that have the appearance of having once been landscaped, and on peering through the trees there’s a really impressive chateau down there surrounded by a lake – or moat even.

I was tempted to go for a good browse around and to see what gives at the chateau but it was raining quite heavily on and off and so I’ve taken a rain-check on that and I’ll be looking into this at a later date.

So the first thing to do was to sort out some food for breakfast.

Alison had given me some dry-toasted biscuits and I had some strawberry jam. There was some grapefruit juice that I had bought last night and I had fetched some coffee from home. So that was breakfast all properly organised.

As for lunch; I nipped out in Caliburn to look for a baguette and ended up having to drive about a hundred blasted miles to Lubbeek before I found anywhere. And there wasn’t a single fritkot or cheapo fast food place anywhere on the way.

So what did I do for tea then?

Well, there’s a camping stove, some water, a saucepan, some pasta, some tins of mushrooms, some tins of mixed veg and a few jars of tomato sauce and so I cooked in the back of Caliburn like I did in France two years ago when I was in those digs in Rennes-les-Bains where there was no restaurant open. Some slices of that spicy cake with soya cream and I had a meal for for a King.

The secret of all of these matters is “preparation”. If you prepare for the problems, they don’t become problems, do they?

And how have I occupied my time?

Apart from tiptoeing through the tulip … errr … raindrops, I’ve been working on the blog again bringing it further up-to-date. I’ve probably done another 10 days today so I’m making a fair bit of progress.

And I’ve been on the phone to the bank (which took me about an hour and I shudder to thing how much that will cost me) for I’ve mislaid my bank card. I can’t find it anywhere at the moment and I need to order it because if I do go back home for a week, it needs to be there when I’m there so that I can bring it back with me.

My plans of finding a little studio or flat have come to nothing too. It seems that no-one will consider a lease for less than a year, so a four-month lease is out of the question for me. Good job that I have a Plan C, as well a plan B.

So now, I’m going to have an early night and see if I can remember what happens while I’m on my travels. I’m rather letting the side down right at the moment.

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Monday 9th May 2016 – WA-HEYYYYYYY!

Yes, folks, I’m free!

I’ve been expelled from the hospital this evening, and I definitely heard at least one nurse say “if he comes back, I’m leaving!”.

Apparently everything is as it should be (but I forgot to ask about the blood count)and there’s no reason now for me to stay. I promptly gathered up my things and cleared off. You’ve no idea just how pleased Caliburn and Strawberry Moose were to see me, and we all quickly headed off into the sunset (well, it wasn’t THAT late, but it’s a nice piece of prose).

Earlier on in the day when I’d gone down to make my cheese butty, I went to the reception desk. Seeing that I was trailing a perfusion drip machine behind me, these seemed like a good time to go and negotiate the car-park situation – no-one could doubt my bona fides with all of that – and sure enough, I was given a free pass.

But when our Three Mustgetbeers went to use it at the exit barrier we succeeded in jamming up the machine completely. And by the time that someone came to unjam it (I had beaten a hasty retreat by this time) there was a queue a mile long at the barrier. Ahh well!

I nipped to Sint Pieters for the stuff that I had left behind and ended up having something of a “discussion” with the woman in reception. I’d parked Caliburn on the ramp outside the door of the hospital and my intention was to mention it to the receptionist in case she was wondering whose it was, and to say that I would be back in two minutes.

As simple as that, hey? But as you know, in anything in which I am involved, the facts are quite often different and the explanations that I was forced to give (all in Flemish too) took a darn sight longer than two minutes. It would have been quicker to have said nothing at all.

And it was all a waste of time too because they had cleared out my part of the fridge and everything had long-since been binned, including about €20-worth of sliced vegan cheese! I’m furious about all of this!

I did however stop at a huge supermarket on the edge of Leuven for a pile of shopping, including at long last, a decent pair of headphones instead of these rubbishy in-ear ones that are falling to pieces already, and then I made my way out (and I do mean “out”) of town into the countryside to the campus at Pellenberg where I’m staying until Friday.

But let’s return to the events since the last time I spoke to you all. I’ll tell you all about Pellenberg tomorrow after I’ve had a good prowl around.

When I went back into my romm last night it was absolutely stifling in there. So much so that I came back out here and watched a film on the laptop until about 22:30. And by then, it was much better back in the bedroom.
Memo to self – close sunblind first thing in the morning to keep out the heat

I slept a little better too, although the night was full of awakenings. Nothing like the previous one though, thank heavens, and I don’t recall the night-nurse (except for one occasion but I was awake anyway so that doesn’t really count).

I’d had some mega-rambles too and some of these (the bits that I remember anyway) are quite impressive.
Further memo to self – remember to charge up the dictaphone

I started off with a Sherlock Holmes adventure and it really was an adventure too. Nothing at all like Conan Doyle’s books but a huge Gothic horror ramble too that took us through the by-wys and alleyways of London, haunted houses in the countryside, graveyards and the like. Something very much akin to”Sherlock Holmes meets the Son of Dracula”. It was loosely based on a Sherlock Holmes story something like “The Engineer’s Thumb” but I don’t now recall exactly which one it was.
From here, we went on to have another cameo appearance from my Greek friend Maria. I was in Northampton, in a fourth-floor apartment looking out over a T-junction and one of the roads, the road to the right, was labelled something like “take this road to a better future”. This inspired me somewhat so off I set. But when I arrived down at the junction, the traffic lights changed to red. “This is an auspicious start” I thought to myself. But eventually I could continue along my way and I did notice that the road looked no different than any other street heading out of town. We did however come to a kind of sales room where there was an auction taking place. I arrived just as the last lot was being sold off – a 1940s-type of motorcycle and there were only two bidders. The price wasn’t all that high either but as usual, I had come totally unprepared, with no money or anything and so I had to pass up the opportunity. I did make a mental note, though, that I’d be back with plenty of cash if this is the kind of thing that goes on around here. And it was here that Maria put in an appearance too. It’s been … ohhh … 14 years since I’ve seen her in real life (but only about 2 weeks on here, I reckon) so we had plenty to discuss and tons of news to exchange.
But by now I was back home (wherever that might have been) in a rural environment with Nerina. We had an appointment in half an hour and I’d been working so I was dirty, and this is when I discovered that the hot water had been turned off, so no bath. I had to light the boiler and hope that 15 minutes would be enough to at least heat it up so that I could have a quick plunge. But that didn’t work out as it should so we cancelled that, and I missed the appointment in the end. But then I started to tidy up outside the house – trimming the edges of the driveway and in the end the place looked beautiful out there (I wish that I could do this at my house) so I carried on inside. There were all kinds of weeds and the like growing on the floor of the bedroom so I attacked those too and by the time that I had finished, the bedroom floor was so clean and shiny with nice brown parquet floor. It looked so beautiful. Even Nerina and a third person (I can’t remember who he was now) who was with us passed a comment and I felt so proud.

That took me up until 06:00, and by 06:45 I’d polished off the orange left over from yesterday, drunk some water and performed my toilet. And at 07:00 I was in the comfy chair in the day room, beating the sun by a good 10 minutes. Now that I’ve worked out how to make the comfy chairs recline, it was my intention to stay there until either the laptop battery or the coffee machine ran dry, whichever was the first, but I had failed to take into account the persistence of the nurses who did everything in their power to disturb me, such as giving me medication, changing my perfusion, taking my temperature and blood pressure, taking my weight (I’ve gained 1kg, by the way).

That’s not all either.

The doctor and the professor came in for a lengthy chat with me and this was followed by the girl from the Social Services department to discuss accommodation for me. It seems that a place has been found for me at Pellenberg until Friday morning for when I leave here, which (as you have seen already, I did today).

Later on, I was told that I had to go for an ear examination. The appointment had been arranged at 13:30 but was at Sint Rafaël across town so I needed to go there. This meant being picked up by the shuttle at 12:30. So at 13:00 I boarded the shuttle, having been pushed in a wheelchair about 20 miles around the campus here, had my appointment at 14:00 (and I have a hearing loss in the treble ranges of my left ear and telling jokes to foreigners, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once said, is indeed “a total waste of time” because the doctor sat there pasty-faced when I explained that that was probably why I play bass guitar) and then had to wait for the shuttle at … errr … 15:00.

All in all, it was 15:45 by the time that I arrived and had they been more organised, told me earlier that I could leave, and disconnected me from the pipes and tubes, I could have waked there and back in half the time.

But the examination itself was horrible. I had all kinds of stuff including, at one stage, a camera, stuffed up my nose and in my ear and I felt dreadful.

And upon my return, I found that I had a new room-mate too. So it’s a good job that I was leaving, wasn’t it?

It was on this note, starving to death and totally fed up, that I went off to make myself a cheese butty. And you know the rest of the story.

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Saturday 7th May 2016 – I DIDN’T FORGET …

… my spicy loaf thing after all that. It was actually in my rucksack where I hadn’t thought to look. It was about midnight when I suddenly remembered where it was, so I ended up with a midnight snack, and didn’t it go down well!

But a midnight snack will tell you something about yet another night here. Here I am all on my own in my room and once more I’m wide awake at silly o’clock not being able to go to sleep. We even had – and who in their right mind would ever engage – a night-nurse with a deep booming voice? He can’t whisper to the patients – you can hear him all down the corridor. I ended up closing my bedroom door, which is something that I hate to do here.

It seems to be that it’s the noise of the air-conditioning that’s making the racket that keeps me awake, so I made a few investigations this morning and I think I know how I can switch it off. I’ll try that tonight, which will mean that it will then be too hot to sleep.

Just wait and see.

But I did drop off to sleep at some point because although I do remember 01:00, the next thing that I remember was 06:30 and it seemed to be continuous too as far as I know, with not even a trip down the corridor this time. That’s progress, I reckon.

And while I was out, I was off back to Nantwich and my old school, and to something of a sex scandal, where someone was accused of sending indecent messages to a young girl pupil there. All of this was splashed over the BBC and questions were being asked everywhere. However, I happened to be watching a Polish sports programme on TV and they had a news broadcast at half-time, and this featured this particular story. It went into much more detail, saying that the girl was Polish and the messages consisted of words such as “Katya (or whatever her name was), go 20 paces forward” and “Katya (or whatever …) go ten paces left”, all like the instructions in The Musgrave Ritual and nothing like the innuendo that the BBC was implying at all. All it showed was how short of news the BBC was that it was blowing up out of all proportions a harmless media nothingness.

In fact, this bears a startling parallel to something that had actually occurred to me 30 years or so ago. In those days, the BBC finished broadcasting its radio programmes at 02:00, ending with a news broadcast, and when I was driving taxis through the night, I always listened to it. But a quick turn of the dial at 02:00 brought into reception Radio Free Bulgaria , the Communist-supported English-language radio broadcasts,and they always started at 02:00 with a news broadcast. It would have the same broadcasts using the same vocabulary, but by changing the stresses of the words and by changing the punctuation, it could make it sound totally different and, in many cases, mean exactly the opposite.

That was my first encounter with “propaganda” because even back in those days I was never so naïve as to believe that whatever the BBC was telling us was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and hearing the same news being told from a completely opposite viewpoint made that news sound just as credible as the BBC reports. So who was right?

Like I said, I was never so naïve enough to entirely believe the BBC and my cynicism has just gone worse over the intervening years.

So today we have made outstanding progress.

I was up and about and in my window for 08:00, basking in the sun for a couple of hours, and I scavenged a pile of fruit, a few bottles of lemonade, the rest of the biscuits and some spicy loaf too throughout the day. That kept me out of mischief.

But the highlight was definitely my permission. Being given leave to wander around the hospital for an hour, I went for a slow walk this afternoon. I ended up with a big hunk of bread and some of my cheese slices from Caliburn ending up with a huge cheese butty in the sunshine. It was the most delicious thing that I have eaten for ages.

A long chat on the internet with Liz followed and we discussed a cunning plan, more of which anon.

So now I’m winding down for the evening and I’ll have an early night hoping to catch up with my sleep. If it’s true that I’m being ejected on Monday, then there are just two more nights to go so I want to make the most of whatever time I have left here to catch up on my sleep.

But Alison is coming to see me tomorrow, so that will be nice. Especially as she will be bringing some vegan ice cream with her. I do hope that she remembers to bring a spoon with her.

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Friday 6th May 2016 – NOW, I WONDER …

… about the allergy tests that I did at Montlucon just before I came away.

They gave me the tests, apparently, to see whether I was allergic to a new medication that they were proposing for me, but the tests came up with reactions so they didn’t proceed. After chemotherapy they started me off on a course of antibiotics – 2 huge pills that look like torpedoes – and that more-or-less coincided with my violent attacks of nausea and … err … other stuff. However they took the decision yesterday to suspend the antibiotics and strangely enough, I haven’t been to the bathroom once after an early-morning session.

Furthermore, during the course of the day, I managed to nibble down about 10 dry biscuits, one apple and two bottles of lemonade and, to date, they have not yet upped sticks and left. I would have had a couple of slices of spicy cake stuff too but for some unaccountable reason I seem to have left that behind in Caliburn.

Of course there’s a long way to go but it’s a rather optimistic sign, and I’m wondering if I had maybe an allergy to this antibiotic treatment that has caused all of this. It could also be that, given the shape of the things, I’ve been taking them the wrong way, of course.

And that does remind me of the story about the doctor visiting his patient and asked him “did those suppositories I gave you ease your piles any?”
To which the patient replied “to be honest, doctor, for all the good that they did me, I may as well have shoved them up my a**e”.
Mind you, with my face of course, it’s a mistake easily made.

I was really looking forward to last night having a room to myself but as you might have been expecting, it didn’t work out quite like that at all for I was still unable to go to sleep. And when I did, it was full of fits and starts and tossing and turning.

But it did mean that I was up early. And when I went for a little walk I noticed the sun streaming in through the window of the common room so I grabbed the laptop and settled down in the window to enjoy it. It didn’t last long though but nevertheless, with the heat pouring in down the back of my neck it left me feeling a new man, which is just as well because I’m fed up of this one.

The doctor came to see me and we had a very lengthy chat. And she’s clearly concerned because she went off and came back with the Professor. They were honest and admitted that they had never seen a chemotherapy reaction quite like mine but they seemed honestly to believe that I would triumph over it in the long term. They’ve prescribed a course of steroids for me to help me control my body mass, with my weight drifting away even as I speak.

They said that they are intending to keep me in until Monday at least which I suppose isn’t such bad news, for it means that I can go straight from here back to Sint Pieters which is more convenient for me and in any case it all saves me €20 per night while I’m here. We must focus on the positives.

Another thing that was mentioned was the subject of my dreams. Being curious about things of this nature, I asked whether or not there was any combination of medicines that would provoke such wild wanderings. She confirmed that it is not unknown, but no-one has ever done a study into it. So maybe there’s an opening for me here – I’m certainly being a pace setter, if not a trend-setter … "or an Irish Setter" – ed .

It came to prominence where apart from appearing personally in two episodes of the Clitheroe Kid, I went off on two of the most astonishing and vivid voyages that I have ever had. And true to form, when I awoke – bolt-upright – at 07:00, every last vestige of them vanished for ever. You’ve no idea just how disappointed I was about that.

So now, I’ll settle down for the night and hope that my little improvement will finally give me a really good night. I deserve one, and need one too, especially as I’m once more on my own tonight.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and see what happens, hey?

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Saturday 23rd April 2016 – I MANAGED …

… about 10 minutes of film-watching last night in bed and that was my lot. Out like a light.

I vaguely remember going to the bathroom some time during the night but the next thing that I remembered was waking up at about 07:30. If I’d been somewhere on my travels during the night, I remember nothing whatever about it.

The shower room was free when I came back from breakfast so I grabbed my stuff and gave myself a really good going-over. I need to make myself look pretty and smell nice as I was having company later. Alison came round and brought with her my 20 tins of baked beans and a bottle of malt vinegar from the UK. Now I’m all set up for a real and proper tea one night a week while I’m here.

After running the stuff up to Caliburn we went for a walk around the Botanical Gardens here (which really are beautiful) and then went for a coffee and a really good chat. On our way back, we stumbled across a rommelmarkt and you all know how fond I am of a good rummage around in other people’s rubbish. But the only thing that caught my mind was an old Vespa scooter which, unfortunately, wasn’t for sale. It was the stall holder’s personal transport. But it did plant another idea in my mind.

With being out and about with Alison this morning, I had a rather late lunch and then a nice relaxing afternoon making the most of the free time that I have at the moment.

Now, I can’t remember whether I mentioned the Indian takeaway.

When I was out and about on my travels the other day I came across an Indian takeaway, and with Saturday usually being curry night when I’m back home, I decided to treat myself at the takeaway. I had a vegetarian biryani and garlic naam bread and it was delicious. The biryani was hot and spicy, not at all like a mainland-European meal at all, and the naam was delicious even though it was a little disappointing in size. Still, you can’t have everything.

Sunday is a day of rest and so I’ve not set the alarm. And with having a bit of a late night tonight (it’s already 23:00) I’m hoping that I can have a really good sleep tonight and only wake up when I’m good and ready.

That means of course that I’ll be in and out of the bathroom all night, and someone will be shouting up and down the corridor at about 06:00. That’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

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Tuesday 19th April 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… as predicted, I settled down to watch one of my Inspector Hornleigh films. And, as anyone who has been a regular reader of this rubbish for any length of time would have predicted, I fell asleep before the end. The film was still running and it was a scream from one of the performers that awoke me, right near the end. I was in half a mind to go back to where I fell asleep and watch the film from that point but instead, I turned off the laptop and went back to sleep. That seemed to be a much better idea.

It seems that last night’s subject was cats – or, at least, it was during the early part of the night. I was back at Vine Tree Avenue again and everyone had come round to see me – all kinds of the usual suspects whom you have seen making appearances in these nocturnal rambles – and everyone brought a cat with them. All of the cats were put in the hall while we had a little “do” and then when the evening was over, I opened the door between the kitchen and the hall and all of the cats came in. All kinds of cats there were, all different colours, and to my surprise we hadn’t had a single moment of squabbling like you get when you usually put a bunch of cats (or children) together.
Talking of children, I was in Neston a little later with the daughter of a friend, and we were looking for my cats (whatever they might be doing in Neston I really have no idea). We managed to find three of them but Tuppence was being stubborn (like she sometimes was) and this young girl made some kind of comment about her.
I don’t know what it was that woke me so dramatically at 04:30 but I was soon back to sleep, and I’d moved back to Crewe by now. Up near the Liberal Club in fact. And I was parading with the Home Guard, Captain Mainwaring’s platoon in fact, and the issue of the gun cropped up. For those of you who don’t know the film, there’s a scene in there where an elderly man turns up on parade with a shotgun, the only weapon the troop has, and Mainwaring insists that he should have it. I’ve always thought that that was rather a silly decision, not the least reason being that because he would have been the only person with a gun, he would have been the only person firing at the Germans, so they would naturally fire back at him and that would remove the head of command from the Home Guard troops (with Mainwaring, that wouldn’t have been much of a loss, but there you go). Anyway, last night, there I was, and there the subject cropped up again. I suggested making the owner of the gun a Lance-Corporal, giving him two privates to assist him (all of which would have enhanced his ego and brought him on board) and thus forming a ready-made light artillery section whenever more substantial weapons appeared on the scene. I’d seen some builders and they had a stack of about two dozen trenching shovels – very thin-bladed shovels on long pole handles – and I’d fancied liberating one of those for use on the farm. But here I was on parade with a three-metre pole with a spoon on the end (with no idea what I would do with this). I was sent off to patrol around the corner of Richard Moon Street (which bore no resemblance whatever to the real Richard Moon Street) and down there was an ancient garage that I had never seen before. It had a bodyshell of an old Lotus Elan and the bodyshell of an old 105E Ford Anglia, both white, both covered with dust and green mould from standing for so long and both on sale at £100. Behind them was what remained of an old Mark II Ford Zodiac, yellow, and which was also for sale. But this place was a treasure trove. There were the remains of a 1920s hand-cranked petrol pump and all kinds of things like that, all overgrown and abandoned and I would have loved to have spent a day or two going through everything that was here.

But then the shower down the corridor woke me up again. 06:35 this time, so it looks as if these early-risers are in for the duration. So much so that when I went down the corridor for breakfast, there were just two of us there. Judging by the amount of bread left in the bread container, everyone else had been and gone already.

Back in my room, I had a nice relaxing morning not doing all that much but as the time drew on, I went and had a good shower and changed my clothes. I need to look my best (and smell my best too) for the Social Services department.

I went off on foot to the fritkot as I fancied chips for lunch. When I arrived, they were just closing even though it was still 5 minutes to 2. But I persuaded them to make me a portion, which they did, and then, seeing as it was a nice day, I took my courage in both hands and set off to walk to the hospital.

And I made it too, despite it being uphill all the way, and I was early too. That gave me enough time to have a drink, which I reckoned that I deserved too.

But the Social Services weren’t really all that helpful, in the sense that they haven’t really come up with something definite as yet. They’ll be “in touch” but they could be in touch anyway without me having to go all that way there. There is however some talk about a place in a … would you believe … monastery, just as I predicted. I hope that they have a good laundry where I can get rid of some of my dirty habits, but they need to improve the monotonous food. Regular readers of this rubbish know that there are only two brothers who work in the kitchen of a monastery – the chip monk and the fish friar.

Once I’d organised that, I went off to the Day Hospital to find out when my next appointment is – and it’s on Thursday – this Thursday – at 10:30. It’s a good job that I went to enquire.

Caliburn was next, and I moved him around the car park and rescued the shampoo and the toothpaste. I’ll have more stuff here than I will at home at this rate. And then, seeing as the afternoon was even nicer, I walked back here, all the way. And I know that I have done it too, but then this time last week I had difficulty walking to the bathroom so it’s a major step forward and I can be quite pleased with myself. It’s not quite a 10-mile hike around Montreal but I’m getting there.

Tonight for tea, I had a vegetable stir-fry with rice. A huge helping for just €5:00. And now I’m ready for bed.

But I did watch an interesting film that I found on the laptop. It’s a story about logging in Russia and they had all of the lorries doing things like driving along rivers with huge bow waves swamping the bonnets, and with the cabs almost totally under water. It’s frightening stuff and puts into perspective how easy the road is around Labrador, especially now that they are improving it.

So I have a day off tomorrow. I’ll be taking it easy I reckon because that walk is making me ache all over. Still, I’m proud of what I managed to do today.

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Thursday 14th April 2016 – TODAY’S THE DAY …

… when I find out if the first lot of chemotherapy worked or not. I hope that it did, because I don’t want to go through too much more of it. Horrible, nasty stuff!

And so I celebrated by finding the toaster (in the cupboard under the sink), and had toast for breakfast. and a second mug of coffee too, seeing as how it was so nice. I dunno who makes the coffee at this place but they can come and make it for me any time they like.

I needed it too because I’d been well away on my travels during the night. It was something of a disturbed night, tossing and turning and waking up, and so much of what happened and where I went to has long since disappeared into the mists, but what I remember of it was all pretty exciting enough.

I started out with Nerina yet again and we were on our travels in Europe. There was a magnificent site that, to me, could only be an Iron-Age hill-fort but no-one else seemed to agree with me, and some of it had been demolished. I took Nerina to see it and gave her something of a lecture about it, explaining that it was maybe dating from the Visigoth or more likely, perhaps the Merovingian era (although neither lived in hill-forts, but we mustn’t go letting facts get in the way of a good nocturnal ramble now, must we), and that regardless of any rumour or speculation (because the Merovingians have always throughout history been treated as something quite different, even by the Church, and some have even speculated that they might have been spacemen) were just another unknown wandering Eastern tribe that finally collided with Western “civilisation” during the great Western migrations. And I pointed out loads of things that related to the hill-fort that had caught my eye. I didn’t realise it at the time that my “lecture” had drawn quite a crowd and a family came over to me afterwards and asked me to give them a guided tour. I explained that I knew nothing and was merely interpreting, as an amateur, what I was seeing, but they were most insistent.
A little later, I was in Crewe, right down the end of West Street by where Barlow Brothers scrapyard used to be, and I had a pick-up that was towing a trailer. I was out of the vehicle doing something on the verge when a huge lorry went past and the draught sucked my pick-up off down the road. I was sure that I’d applied the handbrake and left the pick-up in gear, but there it was – going off down the road. I ran after it but it was long-gone, and suddenly it burst into flames, going faster and faster down the street. A horse of mine (now, what would I be doing with a horse?) leapt off the trailer and ran back towards me. It was on fire, and quite badly too by the looks of things, but a passer-by threw some water on it and doused the flames. I had a look at the horse and although the hair was charred, the skin looked okay and so I debated as to whether I should call a vet as I put it back in my back garden. But my pick-up was long-gone by now.
And even later, I was driving along a dual-carriageway, “my” side of which was under heavy repair and the road was limited to one lane and was in dreadful condition, so most vehicles were driving the wrong way along the outer lane of the other carriageway. I attempted to do the same but was cut up by a big van so had to continue trudging along, and at the next break in the central reservation, the same big van cut me up yet again. I ended up at my doctor’s, on the second floor of a tall terraced house, right by the side of this dual-carriageway and by now the road had deteriorated into one massive construction site and vehicles were picking their way through it as best as they could. Some young boy in a souped-up American sports saloon of the 1970s was driving like a maniac and as we watched, he clipped a small car coming the other way and turned it over, and spun into a pick-up and totally flattened it. He, of course, escaped unhurt. The small car that was on its side, the construction workers used one of their machines to try to turn it right-side up but they dropped it into a water tank and had to fish it out with a fork-lift truck. After all of this, a small woman with a shaven head emerged from the car. All of her worldly belongings were in the car, ruined by now, and she was destitute. She looked quite shaken and so I beckoned her up to the doctor’s. When she arrived, I explained that the doctor was busy but we would let her go in next for a check-up. She was clearly upset, and was going on about her car and her goods and however was she going to find a mortgage to replace everything?

Having resolved the issue of breakfast, off I toddled to the hospital. My appointment was at 10:50, and do you know what time I was seen? Anyone from the UK would never ever guess correctly – they would be at least a day or two out – but I was seen at 10:50 precisely – bang on time.

They took a blood test from me and fitted a drain in me, and then I was told to wait in the waiting room. And wait I did – for all of about half an hour when I was summoned to see the doctor – a nice young female trainee who can soothe my fevered brow any time she likes. I told her everything – about my arm, about the compression in my chest, about the loss of appetite, the fatigue, the nausea – absolutely everything, and she poked and prodded me just about everywhere – right at the end she asked me “may I feel your groin?”. Well, who am I to argue with that?.

She then went off to consult her professor, and came back 10 minutes later. “We need an ecography of your stomach”.
“When is this likely to take place?”
“14:15” she replied. You can see that we are clearly not in the UK. That was only 90 minutes, not 90 days away.

So I had my ecography and then went back to hear the news.

And I suppose that you are all dying to hear what is going on, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you, but it doesn’t make pleasant reading – not for me and probably not for many others either. But here we go.

Basically, the embolism is back in the right arm. It seems that the veins in there are not good enough to support a drain. This means that everything will have to happen in the left arm, and the veins aren’t all that much better in that arm either and they are worried. In view of everything else that is likely to happen to me, more of which anon, they propose to fit a catheter port in my chest. This news (the catheter in the chest, not the embolism) has filled me with complete dismay.

Secondly, they have detected some gallstones. These are by no means a problem but they are blocking a good view of my intestines. They are talking about sending a camera down, but this, I assure you, they will do over my dead body. I’ll suffer like this before I suffer like that.

Thirdly, the chemo hasn’t worked as well as has been expected and so I have to have another transfusion. I had one pochette on the spot then and there, as well as an injection to stimulate the red blood cells.

Fourthly, I have to go back for more chemotherapy, and that’s fixed for 29th April. This is after the end of the 15-day period during which I’m allowed to stay here, so something needs to be done. Those of you with long memories may recall that I was given “advice” by that guy in the European Union’s Social Services department, but the net result of that as been zero. He hasn’t even bothered to reply to my e-mail, never mind do anything about the issues involved. What a waste of time that was!

However, the girl from the Social Services at the hospital seems much more helpful – she sought me out today at the hospital and we had a little chat, and she thinks that once she knows what the programme is, she might be able to help me find somewhere to stay in the neighbourhood. That’s the ideal solution – she seemed to know what she was doing while all of this was going on.

So beaten, battered and bewildered, I left the hospital and went to move Caliburn around the car park and to rescue the clean clothes that I forgot the other day. And then, I took the bus back here.

I did have a pleasant surprise tonight though. I’m limited with what I can eat right now as my taste buds are out of order and I still have some nausea. I seem to be limited to pizza and to the cheapo pasta shop up the road and round the corner. But tonight, looking for a change of diet, I found an Asian take-away. They did a huge portion of vegetable stir-fry and rice for just €5:00.

I’m not a big fan of food from the Chinese end of Asia, but I did cheer up when he started chopping up half a broccoli. And I do have to say that this was one of the nicest commercial stir-fry meals that I have ever eaten (I stress the “commercial” because nothing whatever can match Liz’s stir-fry). I shall add this place to my list.

So tomorrow I need to start work. I need to sort out this accommodation question because I reckon that I’m going to be here for the duration, so I may as well come to terms with it.

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Friday 8th April 2016 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about last night. Another dreadful night where I couldn’t drop off to sleep and at 04:00 I was still wide awake. How I hate this. And it’s a long time since I made so many trips down the corridor too in one night, but I didn’t really care about that. If I’m suffering, so should everyone else too.

But I did manage to drop off and go on the odd ramble or two. The first part of my little voyage involved producing a rock concert for one of my heroes – the Welsh rock group “Man”. I decided that their long concert of two and a half hours would be played in two sets, each of an hour, and then a third set of whatever remained. The group seemed to be okay with it, although I did have the impression that they would have agreed to anything that I proposed. I went off to do something and on my way back I noticed that one of the group was busy siphoning some diesel out of the fuel tank of my lorry, which was an old ex-army three-ton truck. I was annoyed about this but I had to remember that for important and valuable clients, you need to be prepared for this kind of thing.
From here, I was back at University and it was the first day back. We were all in a huge group sprawled over a great big bed and other groups of people were dressing up in disguise or in some kind of prop, swarming over the University grounds. One or two were heading our way so I had to warn our people that they were coming. No-one was taking any notice however and this was annoying me (my bad mood seemed to spread all through my rambles during the night) so in the end I lashed the head of the bed with a length of chain. Even so, although this did lead to people beginning to talk, it didn’t have the effect of galvanising them into action and I was quite disappointed, if not totally fed up, of all of this.

First off this morning, I had to give a blood sample and the nurse had an enormous amount of difficulty trying to find any. But then, as you know, she’s not the only one who has had difficulty doing it. And then I had to wait.

And wait

And wait.

And then the blood came round at about 11:15 and we started off the transfusion. I’m to have two pochettes apparently (so this is going to be another all-dayer and we’ll see about whether I’ll be able to leave today).

But the Professor and the Doctor came to see me. The plan seems to be that I can leave after the transfusion, and go to this guest room in town. I need to come back in a week for another blood test, and then again in two weeks time for another go at chemotherapy. If this all works, then I’ll need chemo every month and I might maybe no longer need any blood transfusions. And won’t that cheer me up too!

But I’ve been led up the garden path before, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

However, to my surprise, the transfusion was over by 15:00 and by 15:30, armed with a date for a further appointment and a prescription for the gout from which I seem to be suffering (and which was missed by Montlucon, apparently) I was heaved out into the unsuspecting public.

I picked up a few things from Caliburn, moved him around the car park to make sure that it looks as if he’s in regular use, and then caught the bus into town. Four or five stops away, Sint Pieter’s Hospital is, and that’s where I’ll be staying for two weeks. It’s basic and primitive, but quite clean and reasonable comfortable, and €20:00 per night including breakfast, so you’ll hear no complaints from me.

But check-in isn’t until 17:30 so I left my luggage behind in the office and went for a walk because that was quite clearly a big mistake. I came over all queer after about 15 minutes and had to retrace my steps to the hospital where I crashed out in a chair in the waiting room.

Once I had been admitted to my room (which is, as you might expect, room 13) I crashed out and that was that. The strain is clearly telling on me these days.

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Monday 4th April 2016 – I WAS UP …

… quite early this morning and on the road almost straight away. I wanted to be at the hospital early and it’s a good job that I was because there were traffic queues and road works all over the place.

Once I’d found a good spec for Caliburn (there’s an outside car park that I needed to locate as the main car park has a 2-metre height limit), I went off on a route march to sign myself in. And that reminded me of the queue for registering a vehicle at Riom – I was ticket 259 and they were dealing with n°208.

But with 10 registration desks open (not like at Riom where there is just one) I was all done and dusted within 10 minutes and even had time to go to the café for breakfast. That worked out to be somewhat expensive for some bread and jam, but it would have been a lot cheaper had I realised that what I took to be orange juice was actually freshly-pressed mango.

I found the day hospital, and it’s nothing like Montlucon in that there were probably 100 people there. But I was pretty quickly whisked into a side ward and had a drain fitted. From there, I was shunted off into another room to wait for my blood.

But it’s not like Montlucon in another respect either. I hadn’t been in there long before someone from the Welfare Department came to see me. And never mind the interminable wrangle that we had at Montlucon (and is still going on) about payment – she was brandishing photocopies of my Insurers’ registration form and we filled it in on the spot. They are of course much more used to my situation here and are fully prepared.

We also discussed the situation about my accommodation for when I’m released. She went off and came back 20 minutes later with the news that I have been booked for two weeks into the “family guest-rooms” at the old hospital in the city centre. That’s pretty quick, I have to say. And it’s pretty good news too. All of which is compounded by the fact that the parking here at the hospital (€4:00 per day for inmates) is capped at €12 per week for long-term visitors, and they expect me to be undergoing treatment for … gulp … six months. And so this two-week “stay of execution” gives me time to think of a “Plan B”.

But treatment here wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been. They needed to do all kinds of tests and so on that hadn’t been carried out at Montlucon apparently, and by the time that they had finished everything and the blood had finally arrived, it was 15:30. For food, it was jam butties because, having caught them à la depourvu, there was nothing arranged for me, but at least there was a free coffee machine just around the corner.

By the time that my transfusions were over, it was 19:30 – far too late for chemotherapy and far too late for me to go anywhere else, and so they have found a bed here for me until Wednesday, and chemotherapy will start tomorrow morning. But I’ve missed the evening meal tonight because of all of this, and so I had … errr … jam butties for tea. However, I went down to Caliburn for my things, and profited by stuffing the suitcase full of goodies.

But damn and blast my neighbour. I’m having to share a room and of course, he snores. It’s been a long time since I’ve been still awake at 01:00. This is going to be a very long night.

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Sunday 3rd April 2016 – I DIDN’T FEEL …

… much like it this morning, that’s to be sure. I was awake at 07:20 but that is of course not the same as getting out of bed. In fact it took me a good hour to summon up the courage to leave the bed. But once I was up, I started to collect all of my affairs together and it didn’t take too long to be ready.

And I discovered why the internet had dramatically reduced in speed and strength. It seems that the repeater for the wi-fi was in my room underneath the bedside cabinet and I’d unplugged it in order to plug in my laptop. It didn’t half work better once I’d reconnected it

I picked up Caliburn and then headed for the Belgian border, stopping off o pick up a baguette on the way. And then I had a nice drive along the Meuse where I stopped at a good spec somewhere just north of Profondeville to admire the view and have a little kip. Crashed out again!

My baguette was enormous and I struggled to eat it all, and then once I’d gathered my wits (which doesn’t take long these days) I set off. And by the time I got to Phoe … errr … Namur, the sun was out and everywhere looked so nice.

I had an uneventful drive back to Alison’s, stopping for a couple of hours on the Motorway Service Area at Heverlee to crash out for a while in the glorious, warm sunshine, and then to bring up-to-date the paperwork. And to have a coffee too, which is the first coffee that I have had since Thursday, would you believe.

But with the internet at the Motorway crashing out, I lost interest after a while and headed back to Alison’s. She loved her tree, which pleased me greatly because I don’t really ever know how to thank people properly, and we ended up having a good chat.

But now I’m off to bed because I have an early start in the morning. My treatment begins at 09:30, so they say, which means that I need to be signed in at 09:00. But I want to be there much earlier than that because, firstly, the earlier we start, the earlier we finish and secondly, I’ve no idea how long this treatment is likely to take, there will be side-effects so I’m told, and I have to see the Social Services people. I need to be on top form.

So I’ll see you all tomorrow and let you know how it went.

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Friday 1st April 2016 – I’M BACK …

… on the road again today. I was awake early enough but when I switched on the laptop, there was someone on line with whom I wanted to have a chat. Consequently it was about 09:30 when I went downstairs and I hit the road straight away.

My first stop was at the town of Ramillies, the site in 1706 of one of the major, if not decisive battles of the War of the Spanish Succession. And it was here that I realised that I had forgotten my mobile phone and camera. Still, start as you mean to go on, I suppose.

Instead, I went shopping at the Delhaize at Inhout so as to stock up with food for my couple of days, and here I received a lovely smile from a young girl. I suppose that I’ll have to add it to the list of places to revisit. After all, it’s not every day that I have such a nice smile like that and I need to remember these places.

I called at a nursery on the outskirts of Namur. Alison is a very keen gardener and I want to thank her for being so kind to me, so I managed to pick up a young almond tree that will look really nice when it starts to blossom. I hope that she’ll like it.

Fuel at Namur was a mere €0:97 per litre, which is the cheapest that I’ve seen it for about 15 years. Caliburn was running quite low and so I profited by fuelling him right up, as I’m sure you would have done too at that price.

I missed the turning that I wanted at Namur and ended up on the wrong side of the Meuse – the eastern bank which is quite industrialised. It took me ages to find a crossing over onto the western bank, by which time I reckon that I had missed all of the picturesque hotels. but not to be outdone, I carried on southwards to Dinant, where the streets were undergoing a total renovation. There was nowhere to park, nowhere to move around, and walking around the town didn’t look very easy at all.

As a result, I pressed on towards the frontier, stopping for my butty somewhere where there was a lovely view across the river. Having no answer at a couple of bed-and-breakfasts, and at yet another, being told that it was full and I should refer myself to the other two in the town.And so I eventually found myself across the French border, in Givet. The first hotel that I found had transformed its rooms into apartments.The prices at the next few that I found frightened me to death and so as a last resort I found myself at the Ibis Budget on the outskirts of the town. I had no luck here either as the computerised registration system was down.

From here, I decided to cut across country to Rocroi where I knew that there were a few cheap hotels, but instead, negotiating the narrow one-way streets of Givet I found another hotel, the “Reflets Jaunes”. They were busy too and all of the cheap rooms had gone, but when I moaned about the price they allowed me a 20% discount which made it much more like my kind of place. There was secure vehicle parking too round the corner which was very handy because the streets weren’t half narrow.

Once I’d installed myself, I crashed out for an hour or so and then had a shower and washed my clothes. And I do have to say that I wasn’t disappointed with my hotel. I’ve been obliged to decline breakfast because it’s so expensive, although had I been a meat-and-dairy eater, I wouldn’t have complained for a moment because it really did look excellent, the way the receptionist described it. But the room is nice, warm and comfortable, and the towels are so fluffy that I’ve no idea how I’m going to close my suitcase when I leave here. The shower is lovely too and the internet connection is superb.

Later on in the evening, I went to see what there was to eat. There are several fritkots in the town but none of them sell falafel from what I was able to see. One was however next to a Carrefour “City” so while my chips were frying, I went next door and bought a cucumber salad to have with the chips.

After tea, I started to watch an Inspector Hornleigh film but my heart wasn’t in it and I’d gone in about 15 minutes. I’m definitely noticing how much I’m struggling now so I hope that the next few days will start to see a slight improvement in my health. It’ll be three weeks since I will have had a blood transfusion.

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Wednesday 30th March 2016 – OFF TO BRUSSELS.

And I’d forgotten what a horrible place Brussels was. That I can tell you for nothing.

I fought my way through the traffic and left the Motorway at Woluwe, only to find myself in a huge set of roadworks that seemed to go on for ever – way beyond the Woluwe Shopping Centre. But eventually I found myself on the car park of the Carrefour at Boisfort, right by the Demey metro station.

It goes without saying that the metro station was closed – in fact about half of them were, so I had a weary trudge all the way back in the opposite direction and beyond, to the station at Hermann-Debroux.

I arrived at the bank, which was to be my first port of call, where I needed to transfer some money from my savings to my current account. But I ruled that out when I discovered that I’d left my passport behind in Caliburn. That was no use.

But I made about 30 phone calls to the EU’s Personnel Department (I refuse to use the derogatory term of “human resources”. I’m a human being, not a unit of production, and the whole world went wrong when employers stopped treating their staff as human beings and started to treat them as just another business resource) before someone answered the phone. I explained my problem – and I’m not sure why I had to because the person to whom I was speaking couldn’t see me. So wasn’t that a waste of time? But she did say to call back at 16:00 precisely as her colleague would just be back from a meeting and I might just catch him before he leaves the office.

I bought some bread and tomatoes and had lunch in the Parc Solvay, then went on the bust and tram to Ixelles and the Health-Food shop to buy some more vegan sliced cheese. Four packs, so that’s me OK for a while. And then I went off to see Marianne and have a chat. She was probably surprised to see me, and she’ll be even more surprised shortly if I end up in there with her. But I’ll be heading in the opposite direction, that’s for sure. They are stoking the fires already.

By now, I’d pulled a muscle in my right leg and was in agony. But I pressed on and found my way back to Schuman, having been obliged to take a really circuitous route there, due to “perturbations”. passing through Maelbeek Station, which is all fenced off and covered over, the thought did occur to me that this bomber can’t have been much good, and his infrastructure even worse. Just 400 metres further on is the Arts-Loi metro station, which is the key hub of the underground network, and it doesn’t take much in the way of brains to realise that had his bomb gone off there, he could have crippled the Brussels Metro for good.

I’m on record, and from as far back as 2002 too, as saying that the only reason that there aren’t more of these attacks is that the perpetrators can’t be bothered.

And it’s no use crying about it either. The time for crying was in 2002 when millions of people took to the streets to protest at the actions of Western Europe in becoming involved in a war that had nothing to do with us. But the politicians took no notice, and here we are. And only a politician or a westerner can be so naïve as to believe that if you declare war on someone and start to attack them, those people aren’t going to turn round and fight back.

Ever since 2002, the West should have been preparing for casualties. The first actions of the UK politicians in 1939 was to order 200,000 cardboard coffins “just in case”. The naîveté of the West, its politicians and its citizens, has been unbelievable.

As Douglas Haig once famously said, “fear of heavy casualties is a good enough reason for not going to war, but it’s a pretty poor reason once you are already fighting” or something like that.

I telephoned my Personnel guy bang-on 16:00 and he answered the phone. And I could feel the disappointment in his voice as I spoke to him. But 15 minutes later, there I was and he gave me a few bits and pieces of useful information that I have filed away for future reference, including the fact that I’m entitled to claim travelling expenses for all of my appointments at Montlucon and if I can persuade them at Montlucon to wash their hands of me, which they have done already, for travelling expenses to Leuven too.

But I had the shock of my life in the coffee shop round the corner where I stopped for a rest. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the regular appearances of a young girl known by the name of Zero after an Al Stewart song, the lyrics of which were extremely relevant – a girl whom I haven’t seen for … ohhh … 8 years, I suppose. But breezing into the coffee shop was a girl who would have been the spitting image of this girl, allowing for the passage of time. Even the shade of red hair was correct to the minutest detail. The surprise was so complete that I dropped my coffee. Of course, it probably wasn’t her but nevertheless, it was an astonishing resemblance. I felt like bursting out into the Warren Zevon “there’s a red-haired girl in a red silk dress. I’m asking her to dance with me, she might say yes!”

But I dunno – it quite caught me à la depourvu, as the French say.

At the moment, the Metro is closing at 19:00 so I leapt on a bus and asked the driver to throw me out when we reach a tram route. This was at the Arsenaal and I could board a tram 25 and then the bus 71 which ended up by me being at the fritkot that does lovely falafel.

From there, another bus dropped me off at the Place Weiner from where I could take the tram 94 round to Hermann Debroux and Caliburn again.

And then back to Alison’s.

I’ve had my money’s worth today, although my leg is killing me and I’m thoroughly exhausted.

But seeing this girl has quite disturbed me. Whatever is going on these days?

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Friday 25th March 2016 – NO COMPLAINTS FROM ME!

Yes, this hotel might be expensive but it is Easter weekend, my little room is quite comfortable and the breakfasts are superb. They certainly know how to make coffee in this place. The bread is superb too and if I were to eat animal products, there is enough meat and cheese on offer to satisfy the most energetic appetite.

I could wish for a more comfortable chair though, but that’s just a small complaint.

The bed is quite comfortable too, but I’m not very comfortable in it. I’m sensing that my blood count is going down, and I’m starting to have attacks of cramp again as I explained the other day.

It’s not stopping me going on my nocturnal rambles though. I had travelled to Australia last night to some kind of house where there was a father and a young son. There was only one bed in the house and they shared it, and I had to go and awaken them. I wasn’t able to do that and so I had the idea of switching on the printer and leaving messages everywhere for them. Whoever it was in charge of the printer said that this would never work and to leave it with him – he’d see to it. And so he pressed a combination of key characters on the printer and this caused the printer to emit a high-pitched whine. This succeeded in awakening these two people and they sat upright, puzzled by the noise (which we found quite funny). The discussion turned to this bed and how they each had their own side of the bed and each had their own way of sleeping. In fact, it was all very reminiscent of life 100-odd years ago where travellers would arrive at inns and not only be expected to share rooms, but to share beds with complete strangers. One of the Hercule Poirot short stories recounts how, even in the late 1930s, Japp and Hastings were obliged to share a bed in a hotel somewhere in rural England.
From here we became involved with Royalty with the future Charles IV and with Rebekah Wade, disgraced former editor of the former News of the World. it actually concerns the birth of the baby who would become Charles IV and how Wade was doing her best to suppress the news because it didn’t suit her newspaper’s agenda. There were all kinds of goings on, with places being set on fire, places where people lived who might give evidence in support of the existence of the the birth. Many people attributed these antics to Wade and her clique although she was making out that it was someone else behind it all (I think that I ought to stress that this is what happened in a dream that I am recounting and I make no accusation or allegation about anything that might or might not have happened or will subsequently happen in real life) – places which for the most part belonged to people who were trying to publicise this birth. While this was all going on, I was in a relationship with Lorna so I had all of that to contend with too. My transport at this time was a single-decker bus of the 1930s that I had borrowed from somewhere and was in a deplorable state, falling to bits, but nevertheless it was all that I had and so I had to drive it. There was only one way to drive it and that was with loads of revs and rapid gear-changes, just like a sports car. And I needed to as well, if I were to forestall what these opponents to the birth of Charles IV had in mind. We had to keep one step ahead of them and let them chase after us. It was all so thoroughly weird.

When I came back from breakfast, there was the maid making my room. I went for a walk while she finished but I didn’t go far as I had forgotten to pack my sou’wester, oilskins and waders. But there’s a small supermarket around the corner where I bought a baguette, some wheat biscuits and some more Raak Campagne Pils.

coast and beach zouteland netherlands scheldt estuaryThe weather did clear up later and so I went for a walk along the promenade. Like most places in the Netherlands, the coastline is protected by a very high embankment following the disastrous sea-floods of 31st January and 1st February 1953.

This area was quite badly affected by the floods and as a result, the sea wall is about 40 feet high on the landward side.

coast and beach zouteland netherlands scheldt estuaryI’m going the other way though, heading north-west along the coast. I’ve seen a strandcafé – a beachside pie hut – in the distance and I reckon that that would be as good a place as any to stop for a pre-prandial coffee.

I need a coffee too because there’s a biting wind that is really uncomfortable. But at least, if you look to the far right of the photograph, you’ll see some blue sky being blown in from the north.

ship coast and beach zouteland netherlands scheldt estuaryAnd as to why I’ve come to spend a few days at Zoutelande, then you need to look no further than this photo, taken from inside the strandcafé.

The deep shipping channel is only about 200 yards offshore and ships sailing up and down the Schelde pass this close to the shore. I was hoping to catch a 300,000 tonne oil tanker or maybe a 50,000 tonne container ship, but this will have to do for the present. We’ll see what happens at a later date.

zoutelande netherlandsFrom up here, there’s a good view of the town and you can see what I mean about the height of the sea defences. They really are impressive and it does bring home to you the fact that much of the Netherlands is actually below sea level.

But it’s a nice town and I discovered a big supermarket on the edge of the place where I stocked up with some more stuff, including some banana-flavoured Vitamin B12 drink and some gelatine-free spongy sweets. There was a coffee machine here too but it was marked “defekt”

vv de meuwen football ground zouteland netherlandsThere’s a football ground here too and so I made a note and dashed home to make enquiries about some footy this weekend. But no luck on that point – all of Dutch amateur football is postponed for the Easter weekend so I’ll have to go without yet again!

But it was a nice football ground, quite modern and clean. It would have been a good place to come to watch a match. Still, you can’t have everything.

windmill zoutelande netherlandsYou can’t feature anything about the Netherlands and not include a windmill in there.

There’s a beautiful windmill in the town and as I was going past it back to the hotel, my route took me past it. It was whizzing round like the clappers in the wind that we were having and I’ll post a little video of it in early course.

And just to add to the Dutch flavour in this photograph, you can see some tulips in the foreground too – or are they daffodils? I dunno, but it all looks very Dutch to me.

I went back to Caliburn after that, did some tidying up in the back, and then came back to eat my butty.

I crashed out for an hour or so and then went on with some paperwork. Later on in the evening, I went for a walk and found another pizza place where I had a mushroom pizza. I’ve still not found a fritkot in the town and I’ll be running out of vegan cheese at this rate.

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