Tag Archives: rainstorm

Tuesday 27th June 2017 – THIS NEW WOK …

… is absolutely superb. The genoux d’abeille as they say around here

This evening I cooked a mega curry, with onions, garlic, green peppers, chick pies, a tin of mixed vegetables and spices (and the ground coriander that I bought at the weekend added a new zip to my cooking).

And not only was the meat excellent (and there’s enough for three more days so it will become even better) the new wok handled it splendidly.

In the past, ‘ve had new saucpans and new woks and the like, and they may have started well but their performance (and the non-stick coating) has always fallen off after a while. But I have a good presntiment about this one. I’ve never had anything that seemed to be as good as thins.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that I’m almost as impressed with it as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin.

I was flat out this morning when the alarm went off and it was something of a disorganised stagger into the bathroom. But sticking my head under the cold tap restored my sanity (such as it is) and I was able to attack breakfast in a reasonable state of mind.

A trip to pick up my baguette was the highlight of my day beacuse that’s the only time that I’ve set foot off the premises. I was intending to go out and sit on the wall above the harbour to have lunch, but it started to rain at about midday – the first rain that we have had since I can’t remember when.

And apart from a crash-out at about 16:00, I’ve spent the rest of the day on the blog, ipdating it. I’m well into February 2012 right now, but I’ll shortly be running aground as there is a spell of 6 weeks at the end of April where a whole raft of work needs to be done before I can prepare anything. This might be another period to skip and to add to the waiting list, along with a few other periods that are far too complicated to handle “off the hoof”.

Just 250 pages that need to be brought up to date before the hard work begins.

But it won’t be done tomorrow as I have a mammoth cleaning session to perform. My calm, tranquil quiet life is about to undergo a major upheaval.

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Monday 29th May 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… we had the most tremendous storm that I have seen for years.

It started off at 23:00 exactly with the most terrific crash of thunder that rattled just about everywhere in the vicinity. And then the heavens opened and we got the lot.

I’m not sure how long the storm went on for but it was a good couple of hours at least – although I did eventually go to sleep.

And I was on my travels too. A Rock concert that I wanted to see and I ended up seeing it from backstage. A group of about five young men who should have been a rock group but it was more like a Boys Band with them dressed in suits. And I was horrified to notice that they were actually miming, not singing or playing their instruments.

After breakfast I headed off out, and had to swim across the entrance hall as it seemed that the whole of last night’s rain entered the building. Good job I’m on the first floor, isn’t it? It was still raining when I went to pick up the baguette.

Back here, I spent the morning shortening the lace curtains. Well, not exactly shortening them but measuring them and pinning them up so that they don’t drag on the windowsill. In time, I’ll sew them up and cut off the excess. That’s a nice job for a cold winter evening I reckon.

Apart from that, not much else. I rigged up a printer (and that was no easy task either) and printed off a form that I need to complete – which I duly did. It needs a rubber stamp from the Bank and that was my project for this afternoon but I wasn’t going out anywhere in this weather.

As for the oven chips, they were a disappointment. They had been in there for 30 minutes, not 20, and at 230°C, not 210°C, and they still weren’t cooked. It’s rather a disappointment if you ask me.

Another item of interest is that every now and again I develop a raging thirst. When I was in that hostel it was almost perpetual but I’ve not noticed it for a while. However today, I’ve had four or five mugs of coffee and demolished 1.5 litres of soft drink. Is this a sign of something?

So now it’s bedtime. And if the weather is better I’ll be off on a Great Trek down to the Bank and, subsequently, to the Post Office.

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Sunday 28th May 2017 – IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG …

… hard winter with this new oven.

As the cynic in me expected, the timing and the temperature is all wrong. You can basically add 50% on to the cooking time and 30° onto the cooking temperature and eventually you’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of where you want to be. I’ve had better-cooked pizzas than this, but at least it was my own so I can’t complain.

It was 02:00 when I went to bed last night what with one thing and another, and my delightfully long lie-in took me up until all of 08:05. After breakfast I headed off in search of a baguette but I didn’t get very far, and for two reasons too.

  1. the newsagents was open and he had some bread in today
  2. for some reason that I don’t understand, all the joints in my legs are aching as if I’ve been on a marathon hike and that’s certainly not the case

It’s Sunday today and that’s a Day of Rest. And that’s precisely what I have done today. I’ve not even been outside apart from the baguette because the weather has changed and we’ve had a rainstorm.

That’s not quite true – because I’ve taken the box that the oven came in down to Caliburn along with another pile of paper and cardboard rubbish. Next time that I’m passing the dechetterie I’ll heave it out. And I came back in with a couple of pairs of pliers to … errr … adjust the pizza tray so that it would fit in the oven. But that exhausted me so much that I crashed out for an hour or so.

Monday is when I’m intending to start work. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve let lapse and it’s high time that I exerted myself.

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Thursday 18th May 2017 – TODAY WAS ANOTHER …

… day when I didn’t do anything at all and I’ll have to get to grips with things pretty soon.

I’d had a late night what with one thing and another and I’d been on my travels too. I don’t remember very much about it now but it concerned a meal that I was cooking – something similar to the one that I made the other day.

Although I was awake early, it was the alarm at 07:00 that drove me out of bed. And there wasn’t really much incentive to leave my stinking pit either, with the rain teeming down outside.

Nevertheless, I had to brave the elements to go down and pick up my baguette. And despite my vow of yesterday to come home the scenic way, there was no chance of that in the driving rain. It also put paid to any idea that I might have had for going for a walk.

Instead, I did a little more tidying up in here and spent the rest of the day sorting out a pile of files on the computer that I had resurrected the other day. And there are still hundreds of files that need removing too – duplicates that have been stored in all kinds of places on the hard drive that somehow have escaped the filing system that I installed all those years ago.

Once I’ve done all of that, I can back it up. That’s another one of my long-term projects once I buy a desk and set up a little office in the bedroom. In fact, this place is taking on much of the configuration of how I had my apartment in the Avenue d’Exposition in Brussels, which I suppose isn’t very much of a surprise.

All of this was far too much effort for me and at about 18:00 I had a crash-out for half an hour or so.

Talking of tea last night inspired me to do something different. I fried up some onions and garlic in one of the saucepans. Once it was looking good, I added some bulghour, a tin of lentils and a tin of mixed vegetables and some curry powder to taste.

And here’s the thing. I’d bought a little cheap electric slow cooker ages ago and I’d never used it. But I could see the advantages of it which is why I brought it with me. I tipped all of the curry into it and let it simmer away. That way, I had the induction ring empty so I could cook a pan of rice.

There was enough curry made for three meals so two went into the fridge in the vacuum jars that I have, and the other one went down really nicely. And pudding was fruit salad with strawberry sorbet.

So it’s an early night tonight and I hope that I can have another good sleep. Tomorrow I’m measuring up for curtains ready for shopping on Saturday. But on Monday I’m going to have to start making an effort to do something, or my life will simply ebb away.

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Wednesday 17th May 2017 – TODAY HAS BEEN ONE …

… of those days where, rather like the mathematician named Hall, I accomplished three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing.

It all started to go wrong during the night – I kept on waking up, tossing and turning. And I’ve no idea why because the bed is quite comfortable and I’m very warm in there – or else that’s it and I’m too warm, but that’s not very likely now.

It was disturbed to such an extent that I was up and about by 06:30 and having breakfast when the alarm went off at 07:00. This is happening more and more often and it’s not like me at all in the past.

Apart from going down to the old town for my baguette (and coming back via the city walls) I’ve spent most of the day on the sofa. I can allow myself the odd day here and there to do this – after all, I am retired.

Liz and I had a chat on the internet, and I made a phone call. And I also did some tidying up. But most of the day was spent checking over the contents of an old computer that I’ve managed to fire up. 12.3GB of duplicate files on there, so I’ve been weeding them out. And the program that I use, although noted for its efficacy, is not noted for its rapidity. It also has a tendency to eat up all of the processing capacity of the machine so it very slowly grinds to a halt. So you have to switch off and start again.

In fact, I had such an exciting, stressful, exhausting day that I crashed out for half an hour too. Just for a change.

Not a day for going outside, because it started to pour down with rain this afternoon and it’s kept it up ever since. So it’s a good job that I had things indoors to amuse me. There haven’t been too many wet days since I’ve been here, have there?

Tea was more stuff out of the European Tinned Food Mountain. I’ve been slowly demolishing it for a couple of weeks and it doesn’t look any different. But one day it will all be gone – whenever that might be. If I had an oven, or some different pans that would work on the induction hob, I could perhaps be more adventurous. But that will come, one day or another.

And so will tomorrow, because I’m done for today. If the weather is better I might even go for a walk, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Saturday 6th May 2017 – THIS SOFA …

… isn’t all that bad to sleep on. It’s slightly too short so I have to curl up a little and my neck aches slightly if I’m not in a good position, but I’ve slept in far worse places far more uncomfortably than this. It’ll do fine for a few days, and again whenever it’s necessary.

I fell asleep watching the film last night – same as usual, and I was off on my travels again. On a long-distance bus going to Crewe and I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to alight, and I was astonished that the conductor never came to collect my fare until we turned off Nantwich Road into Edleston Road, so that put paid to my idea of asking him about where I should alight.

I was awake long before the alarm went off but it took me a while to pluck up the strength to leave my nice warm and comfortable sofa. And it was a delight to have nice cold soya milk, nice cold grapefruit juice and all of that, although I have realised that I don’t have any glasses. A bit of a miscalculation there, I reckon. I’ll have to sort through the boxes that I brought with me that originated from my flat in Belgium in 2011.

At 08:30 I went out through the driving rain down to the newsagents where there’s a depot de pain. His baguettesare quite expensive and not very good value. I shall have to see what I can do about bread in the long term because I’m not sure how sustainable this idea of the depot de pain is going to be for my projects.

And I had a laugh on the way back. The rain really was dreadful and some old codger actually stopped in his car and offered me a lift back. But I was only 50 yards away so I declined. But it was interesting to say the least.

That’s the only time that I set foot outside my door today. For the rest of the time I’ve spent trying to tidy up and sort out my stuff. If you remember the piles that were all over the place the other day, it’s now a lot more tidy and there are a lot fewer boxes lying around. They have been … errr … consolidated.

Another thing that I did was to cut my hair. It’s been getting too long. And I’ve had a shave too. There’s hot water now which is really nice and tomorrow I’ll be having a shower. That will be nice.

Tea was another cooking on the portable halogen hob and it worked a treat too. A tinned curry with rice and everything.

I’m going to have another go at watching a film now. Let’s see if I can watch it right through to the end.

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Sunday 30th April 2017 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

I went to bed early and fell asleep after just about 10 minutes of a film that I’ve tried to watch on several occasions. But it didn’t do me much good because I was awake again at about 01:30, really uncomfortably, and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

Not only that, there was some kind of incident early in the morning. I thought at first that the cat had caught a seagull or something, but apparently the landlady’s dog had had a fit – and I bet that it was a tight one too.

Mind you, I must have gone to sleep at some time or other during the night because I had been on my travels. I was with Roxanne and Laurence, trying to negotiate Roxanne’s entry into a different school. But the negotiations were extremely complex and I discovered that you had to pay for the lessons – including the basic ones like English (which surprised me – by the way, it was English as a first language too). In the end I turned to Laurence and suggested that Roxanne stay at home and Laurence teach her – after all, Laurence is a qualified teacher (which she wasn’t, but never mind).
We ended up being on a coach going down a steep hill – I wasn’t driving but the man who was driving it was having a few difficulties. trying to negotiate his way between a couple of parked lorries he ripped the right-hand side mirror out of its housing. No amount of fiddling about could get it to go back into position.

After breakfast I had a shower and a good clean-up, tidied up my room, packed up everything and then spent an hour or so catching up with some stuff on the internet. Once I’d finished organising myself I got my motor running and headed out on the highway.

There’s no electricity in my new place until Friday morning and so Liz and Terry had told me that if I didn’t mind sleeping in the middle of a building site, I could stay at their new place for a few nights. Of course, it’s not where you are and what you are doing, it’s who you are with that counts and so I headed off through the rainstorm (the first real rain that we have had since I’ve been up here) to Roncey.

Liz had cooked a gorgeous soup for lunch, and then I had a little surprise. Liz and Terry had bought two really nice sofas for the living room at their house in the Auvergne but there wasn’t room for both of them in the living room in the place that they have just bought. And so in thanks for a service that I had rendered to them a few months ago, we heaved the redundant sofa into the back of Caliburn and drove off to Granville.

Once we had dropped off the sofa, we went for a walk around the area where my new place is. It’s an old town full of beautiful stone buildings, narrow alleyways and city walls. And we found a café that looked like something out of the 19th Century, with live music too.

Back through the rainstorm and the roadworks for another one of Liz’s special meals followed by home-made vegan cake and a nice wood fire. Here I can sit and watch the rain falling outside while I am in the warmth.

And I have some furniture now. I’ve slept on that sofa before and I’ll be sleeping on it again until I can organise myself a bed. It’s only a sofa, but it’s a start.

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Friday 24th March 2017 – CALIBURN HAS RETURNED!

And I should know, because I had to go and fetch him back. Of course that meant that I had to take back the little Skoda hire car but that’s no big deal.

Caliburn has had his rear end fixed (they even repaired the towing light sockets that I broke about 5 years ago but I didn’t say anything) and not only that, the nearside was stripped bare, all of the rust and stone chips ground out, the bare metal treated with anti-oxydiser, everything stopped, filled and sanded down, and a coat of primer then a coat of paint and then some varnish.

All of that came to a mere €283 – well, my bit did anyway – and I was expecting it to be more than twice that.

It’s true to say that you can see the join between the old and the new paintwork, but I’m not bothered about that. Caliburn is 10 years old and showing his age like I am. I just need him to keep on going for as long as I do without dropping to bits – that’s the plan anyway. Spending less than €300 to keep the bodywork together sounds like a good investment to me.

Last night was not so good. I went off to sleep easily enough but was awake by about 04:30 and struggled to go back to sleep again. By 06:30 I was up and about, and drinking my morning coffee when the alarm went off.

It was cold, damp, wet and miserable too, and so I lit a fire. I’ve decided that I need to keep warm no matter what while I’m here. It’s not as if I’m short of wood, as Terry keeps on reminding me.

I didn’t do much though this morning – spending a lot of time thinking about this and that and tidying up a pile of files on the computer that I have here – the old one with the smashed screen that I use as a desktop computer with added mouse, keyboard and external screen (the HDMI socket of the DVD viewer in fact).

Lunch was the rest of Ingrid’s delicious soup and then gathering my wits, I decided on a plan of attack. I fought (and I DO mean “fought”) my way into the verandah and the lean-to.

And there I really did hit the depths of despair because everything that I had set aside all those years ago – everything from Expo, the crockery and cutlery that I had bought specially – well, it’s all in a lamentable state having been stored in the verandah and the lean-to for 6 years. I should really have unpacked it all years ago, but I really didn’t have anywhere to put it.

Anyway, that really depressed me. I started dumping stuff into plastic bags to take to the tip – piles and piles of it – but that was soul-destroying and I lost all enthusiasm. The freezing cold and driving rain didn’t help matters either. I ended up with nowhere to put anything.

Instead , I went and fetched Caliburn, and then came up here for a warm by the fire and some more of Ingrid’s pepper, lentil and tomato sauce to go with my pasta.

Now I shall endeavour to fight off the depression that I’m in and go to bed. And hope that I can sleep too. It’s been a long hard day and the next four days are going to be even worse.

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Monday 20th March 2017 – NOW I KNOW …

… why I spent all that money two years ago buying that new bed and expensive mattress and all of that nice bedding. For I was out like a light last night and had one of the most comfortable sleeps that I have had in years. So much so that in fact I was rather reluctant to leave it.

Even more so when I saw what the weather was doing outside. Cold wet and grey, just like I was feeling in fact, so no change there.

But anyway, I managed a decent breakfast – muesli with soya milk, an apple puree thing and grapefruit juice all washed down with coffee of course. And then gathering my wits as well as a few things here and there, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I hit the streets.

We ended up at Evaux-les-Bains where I took Caliburn to the menders. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in October in Brussels, Caliburn was the victim of a Belgian driver who didn’t know where the brakes were on his car. Anyway, today he goes to be mended.

And not only that, there’s some rust creeping through that’s making him look a little untidy, and so he’s having that attended to. He’ll be 10 in a couple of weeks time and, unfortunately, he’s starting to show his age. But then, aren’t we all?

They had a little Skoda Fabia for me to borrow while he’s being fixed (that’s why I’m having his body done right now – while I have free access to a hire car). It’s not a bad little car but it’s very plasticky and I can’t see anyone having 10 years out of one of these. But it’s free for five days so good luck to me.

Once I was properly organised I went round to Ingrid’s at Biollet. Ingrid was the only one of my Auvergnat friends who came to see me while I was really ill (of course, never forgetting Jean-Marc who drove all the way from Macon to see me, for which I will always be grateful) and it’s only right that I go to thank her. Generally-speaking, my Auvergnat friends turned out to be one big disappointment. When the going got tough, they certainly got going – but in the opposite direction.

And after all that I’ve done for them too.

Ingrid and I had coffee and a good chat which was very nice, and then I had to go to Montlucon to change my Livebox – that seems to be the reason why I’m not connecting to the internet. And Ingrid offered to come too for the ride and the company which was nice.

Changing the Livebox was a matter of minutes and then it was lunchtime. We repaired to a cafe across the street which fixed us a couple of salads and the dressing was superb.

By now, the sun was out and it was a glorious day – far too nice to go back home, and so I proposed a trip to Clermont Ferrand. Something that I needed to do there and now seemed like as good a time as any. We had an exciting time trying to find the Prefecture, and an even more exciting time trying to find the car afterwards. But it was only 5 minutes at the Prefecture and we spent the remainder of the two hours sitting in the sunshine at a cafe on the Place de Jaude. And very nice it was too.

I stopped for a coffee back at Ingrid’s and then headed for home. The Skoda is a nice little car but it’s not for me – I’ll tell you that for nothing. And back here I crashed out. It had been a long tiring day and I’m not as young as I was.

And the new Livebox?

That’s not perishing working either!

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Tuesday 7th March 2017 – WELL, I SAW A SIGN …

… and it said “Verdun”.

That’s another one of the places on my bucket list to visit before I go off to visit the hereafter, and there’s no time like the present so here I am.

papillon d'or arlon belgium march mars 2017But before we start, let me show you a photo of my room at the Papillon d’Or from last night and this morning. It’s a lovely room and a lovely place, and the breakfast was really nice too.

But the landlady clearly has a finely-developed sense of humour. There are two mattresses on the bed of course, and one (the one upon which I was sleeping) was thicker than the other.

And so in the middle of the night I rolled onto the other one, but it wasn’t where I expected and so I awoke in a panic, thinking that I was falling out of bed.

So by 06:00 I was wide awake and went for a shower as early as possible.

I had a slow recovery and by 09:30 I was on the road. And by 10:00 I was waiting in the queue at the IKEA on the border between Belgium and Luxembourg. It’s sale day today, there’s free coffee, and a €15:00 gift voucher for anyone spending more than €100 in the store. I need all kinds of new stuff for my new kitchen, wherever that might be, and so with some judicious purchases, I came out with €101:35 of new utensils, saucepans and the like.

But the most surprising thing of all this that I bought cost me €39:00 and I’ll post a photo of it in due course. Let’s just say that it will revolutionise my hotel-camping.

silly sign ikea arlon belgium march mars 2017But the prize for one of the silliest signs ever must surely go to this one here.

It says, with absolutely no trace of irony “no spring-cleaning without a cup of tea”. However, as we all know, putting me with something light-coloured like this is a recipe for disaster.

The sign really ought to read “no cup of tea without spring-cleaning”. That’s much more like it where I am concerned.

fire on border belgium luxembourg march mars 2017I had a glance out of the fire escape window while I was wandering around. Over there is the border between Luxembourg and Belgium and there seems to be some kind of “incident” going on out there.

It looks like a fire to me, with all of that smoke.

And you’ll notice the weather. It’s foul out there with the rain pouring down like nobody’s business.

I had lunch and then I hit the road. Straight into a traffic queue that lasted for 7 kms. I despaired of this and took a detour out of the traffic, and that was when I picked up a sign for “Verdun”.

It’s a nice cheap hotel, the Hotel du Tigre (named after Georges Clemenceau, the French politician) and I’ve just had one of the best pizzas that I have ever eaten. And tomorrow I shall be off to visit the battlefields of Verdun. I’ve never been here before.

And Caliburn and Strawberry Moose have been able to cross off “Luxembourg” of their list of countries to visit.

Another milestone achieved for them.

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Sunday 5th March 2017 – THAT WAS A …

… cold and wet day today.

But it was a bad night for me, because although I’d settled down to relax in some kind of comfort, the wind must have changed during the night. There’s an air vent in the bathroom with a cap that’s presumably above roof level, and the wind must have turned to go underneath it because the rattling came right down into the bathroom at about 03:15.

That kept me awake for hours, it seemed like, and I don’t remember going back to sleep after that.

Nevertheless when the alarm went off I eventually managed to crawl out of the bed and into the shower. And then I was downstairs to breakfast at 08:00. Following that, I wandered over to the station to buy a couple of rail tickets.

At 09:30 Hannah came round and we went off to explore the market – there’s a huge market here outside the Gare du Midi on a Sunday morning. But at 11:00 we were on the railway station platform for the train coming from Leuven to Oostende. Alison was already on board, and we joined her for our journey to Bruges.

It had been beautiful in Brussels but by the time that we reached Bruges it was teeming down. Nevertheless we hit the streets and swam up to the city centre.

We had a beautiful day around the town despite the weather. Alison and Hannah even climbed up to the top of the belfry, all 366 steps of it, and I would have liked to have gone up too, but I have to be realistic.

streets illuminated church night time bruges belgium march mars 2017The day ended with us in a restaurant in a side-street. It catered for people with different allergies and our meals were delicious. Hannah and I had coconut curry and Alison had a polenta lasagna.

We arrived at the railway station at the same time as a train to Leuven so we hopped on board. And now I’m back in the hotel. Totally exhausted.

Hannah leaves tomorrow afternoon and then I’m going to sleep for a week.

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Friday 24th February 2017 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me! And I’m at the age where you don’t count the years that you have had, you count those that you have left. And a decision from the Environmental Authorities ruled out the possibility of a birthday cake – fears of Global Warming apparently.

Despite having a reasonable night last night, I was wide awake yet again at 06:30 – dunno whose alarm it is that’s going off at that time. I wish that I wasn’t such a light sleeper.

I could only manage a small breakfast too, and then I came down here for a morning of not very much at all. After all, it is my birthday. I just had a chat with a few people on the internet.

Round about 11:00 I went up into town and the Delhaize for a walk but I wasn’t out long. It was fairly nice, if rather windy, up in town and it started to rain just as I arrived back here. I’d been lucky for once. And as it’s my birthday, I treated myself to a bag of Bombay Mix and a bottle of Dandelion and Burdock that I had bought from the English shop the other day.

This afternoon, I had rather a health relapse and spent most of it fast asleep. I dunno why because it’s not as if I’ve been doing very much. A sign of the times, unfortunately.

Tea was exciting. Now that we have some freezer space I had bought some frozen veg to replace the tinned stuff. And so tea tonight was curried mashed potato with frozen peas and carrots and a veggie burger. And absolutely delicious it was too, smothered in vegan margarine.

And so now it’s beddie-byes time. Tomorrow I’m going to start packing and to empty my room here. If all goes to plan, I’ll be leaving here Tuesday so I need to organise myself

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Tuesday 21st February 2017 – WE DIDN’T HAVE TO …

… clean out the fridge today. When I returned from my day out this afternoon, I found that the fridge had already been cleaned out. Nice and clean and pretty and disinfected – and empty! Next task is to find out where my food has gone, although I do have my suspicions, and I’m not going scavenging in the rubbish bins to find it.

Nevertheless, I sent an irate mail to the hostel manager. being without breakfast on a couple of occasions is one thing – having my lettuce, garlic, olives, a container or two of other stuff and a bag of vegan cheese, that’s going too far.

Last night was another one of these crazy nights where I had difficulty sleeping. Some people having a party in the street outside didn’t help matters much either. But I went off on my travels too, although now I don’t have a clue where I was or what I was doing.

At breakfast I was alone, which suits me fine of course, and then after a little relaxation for half an hour or so, I hit the streets.

Caliburn and I headed out for the motorway (it’s nice to be behind the wheel of Caliburn once more) and headed through the traffic jams – which took us ages – to Brussels and the Woluwe Shopping Centre. Plenty of parking there and there’s the Roodebeek Metro station.

Bad news at the Roodebeek. They have changed all of the public transport fare structure in Brussels. I might have mentioned something about this the other day, but the 10-trip tickets have been replaced by a chip card. The ticket office was closed at the station when I arrived so I had to take a single ticket 5 stops up the line to the Merode Metro.

I had a lengthy chat with the people at my Health Insurance Provider. They didn’t give me too much hope about things, and the help for setting up of the on-line claiming system could have been better. But I’ll have a play around with this tomorrow and see where it takes me.

One of the people that I saw told me about the Association for retired people. She said that they might be able to help me too so I went round there. But they didn’t give me too much help either. I’m a little pace or two further forward I suppose, but not too much.

One the way between offices, I happened to go past the building where a former girl-friend of mine 20-odd years lived. I stuck my head in the door and the concierge was cleaning the foyer of the building. She told me, much to my surprise, that my friend was still living there. So I left a note in her post box. Whether she contacts me or not I don’t really know, but I have two chances, don’t I?

For lunch, I went to IKEA and had a salad, followed by a fruit salad. There has to be a walk around the shop of course and I didn’t buy anything exciting. Just a few storage boxes and some perfumed candles. Mind you, I saw some more stuff that I would like to have in my living accommodation, so I shall be having a good thing.

Back here in the pouring rain and I had a crash out for half an hour.

Tea was chips, beans and sausages followed by soya dessert. Now I’m having an early night – tomorrow I have some scanning to do.

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Wednesday 16th November 2016 – HOW STUPID …

… can you be?

I need to leave Belgium for a while for various reasons, and so I checked all around the area of Sedan, which is not too far away from here but across the border, and I found a place that looked absolutely perfect from my point of view. Isolated in the countryside miles from anywhere up a mountain and probably swathed in fog. And bed-and-breakfast at the same price as my hostel.

And here I am gazing across a river and over the river is in France, and here I am, stuck on the Belgian side of it all in the Hostellerie La Sapiniere at Vresse sur Semois.

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

So why aren’t I heading back to my house then? The answer is that while my blood count has gone up slightly to 10:0, the protein loss in my body is accelerating slightly and that’s causing them some concern. As a result, they’ve changed my medication and they want me back IN A WEEK to see how I’m doing.

And not only that, they have some more appointments for me in the haematology department in two weeks time, and so I’m stuck here yet again. But I don’t want to be stuck in Leuven – I need a change of scenery;

But returning to our moutons as the French say, the trouble with going to bed early is that everyone else comes in later. And so even if you do drop off to sleep by 22:30, then at 23:30 you are wide awake as people come back into the building. and that’s rather annoying, so say the least.

So having had a disturbed night (for many reasons) I was awake quite early as the alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels too. I had to visit a town that was “just across the border” in some kind of Spanish-speaking area. I’d found a bus that would take me there and so I climbed on board. It wasn’t a journey of 10 minutes either as I was expecting, but one of hours and interminable hours. A woman on board the bus, small and dark-haired, tried to help me out – every ten minutes or so coming to reassure me (although I couldn’t understand what she was saying) and then as we reached the border I suddenly realised that I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going or at what stop I needed to alight, and I had no way of asking either.

There were the usual hordes at breakfast this morning, and we had a major problem with the kitchen area being flooded again. The skylight had been left open and we were in the middle of a torrential downpour.

Still, I’d breakfasted and even showered and back in my room again long before 07:55. THat’s something of a record, isn’t it? And once I’d tidied up and packed my rucksack I set off to the hospital, braving the driving rain.

I wasn’t feeling so good this morning either. All of the joints in my legs were aching and I didn’t have the puff to climb the hill. I had to stop on four or five occasions to get back my breath. This is the worst trip to the hospital that I have ever had.

I was there and registered by 08:30 and sitting in the waiting room. I was seen a little later than my 08:50 appointment , and given all of the tests and the like. My weight was stable which was bad news – I want to lose it all and I can’t do this as it’s all to do with the water retention issues that I’m having and that’s one of the issues that I need to resolve – hence the new medication.

By 11:30 they released me from the hospital and that was that. I went down to Caliburn and we all, Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I set off for the wilderness.

The weather was pretty miserable – with rainstorms and the like all the way down to the Ardennes. And once I started to climb up into the mountains I was encased in hanging clouds just like home. In fact it made me feel quite at home.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav couldn’t find the hotel, which was hardly a surprise seeing as I was looking in the wrong country. I had a beautiful drive through the Ardennes and ended up in Sedan in the driving rain. I took the opportunity to do a huge pile of shopping at the Leclerc – what with food prices in France being much less than in Belgium – and then tracked down the hotel where I’m staying.

It’s a very impressive hotel from the outside but it’s all very 1960s from the inside. And there’s no internet in the bedroom which is very depressing to say the least. I’ll have to sort this out somehow but I’m quite tired after my drive. I made a butty (because I wasn’t able to check on what the surroundings had to offer) and had an early night instead.

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Wednesday 9th November 2016- AT LEAST THE WEATHER …

… didn’t let me down today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever is the world coming to?

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