Tag Archives: leuven

Tuesday 17th January 2017 – THIS REALLY WAS …

vegan potato mushroom curry leuven belgium january janvier 2017… delicious tonight – and if the improvement overnight is anything to go by, it’s going to be magnificent by the time that I get to the last portion.

On a plate too – not out of a saucepan either. And because it looked so nice and the presentation was so good, I took a photo of it. Just imagine it with some fennel and coriander leaves sprinkled over the top.

And I wasn’t alone in the kitchen either. I have been invaded by a pile of Eastern European workmen. There are at least five of them and they were eating away in the kitchen when I went up there. They seem friendly enough inasmuch as we could understand each other, but I wonder how noisy they are going to be.

That’s quite a good point on which to ponder too, because for once, last night, I had my best sleep for ages. In bed early, crashed out quickly enough, awoke to switch off the laptop and then I remember nothing at all until the alarm clock went off.

Well, that’s not quite correct either because I’d been on a mega-ramble during the night. And a mega-ramble it was too. I was with the girl who has been described in these pages as “The One That Got Away”. We’d gone to buy a caravan from some kind of second-hand car sales place. We’d turned up as soon as the place opened, explained what we wanted, and were told to wait. And wait we did, for five hours at least until we lost patience. We then went off in search of a salesman but ended up with the female secretary again, the one whom we had seen as we arrived. She wouldn’t put us in touch with a salesman instead but came out with a variety of reasons why we couldn’t see one – all kinds of silly statements such as “if we moved he caravan what is going to happen about the bare, worn patch where the caravan is sitting?”. Despite the silliness of the questions and the ease with which we could answer the questions and solve the problem, she just came up with even more silly problems and we weren’t getting anywhere with this.

A little later I was with the father of Zero, a girl who sometimes accompanies me on my travels although she wasn’t out there tonight. We were driving somewhere in Canada at the back of Montreal.The road that we were taking was a road that I didn’t know but at a T-junction where we hit a main road, I suddenly recognised the road and where we were – we had just come a different way round. We were very low on fuel but it didn’t really matter because I knew that along this road was a big “Shell” service station where we could stop.

We haven’t finished yet either. I was back at school, and it was here that I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It was just a case of getting on as best as I could – the same for a few other people who were having similar problems. One boy in particular was having a hard time coming to terms with his illness and I had to keep on telling him to pull himself together. But then he put in another appearance, moping around, and although I could only see him from behind I was convinced that it was him, so I snapped at him to “pull himself together”. He turned round and it wasn’t him but a good friend of mine whose wife was ill, and I immediately regretted having said what I had said. We ended up having a chat about our various problems but it wasn’t doing anyone any good.

Yes, with a night like that, I can do with another half-dozen

I was alone at breakfast, and then came back down here to carry on with my work. I’m still on the notes of that Finnish expedition and we are discussing vegetation right now. I’m up to page 424 and that’s about half-way. I can’t wait to get onto the history and anthropology bits, but whenever that might be, I really have no idea.

What is interesting though is that they haven’t actually gone into the interior – I suppose that in 1937-39 the interior of Labrador is pretty much unexplored. They are making interpretations of the interior based on other people’s published voyages and I note that the works of Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace are referred to quite often, as well as the notes of an explorer by the name of AP Low who went into the interior in the late 19th century in a canoe.

As an aside, it was Low’s badly-drawn maps that led Leonidas Hubbard up a creek without a paddle on his ill-fated voyage of 1903. Low only recorded one river at the end of Grand Lake when there are in fact three, the Beaver, the Susan and the Naskaupi, and Hubbard could only find one – but the wrong one.

I’ve had a play around with my 3D program too, as well as a good crash-out after lunch. So soon after lunch that I hadn’t even drunk my lunchtime coffee.

And I made it to the supermarket for my baguette today. There were also a couple of black plastic storage boxes in the rubbish, so I’ve liberated those too. I really do need to take some down to Caliburn as my room is filling up. At the last count there’s 11 of them in here.

photographer photograph new BMW kruisstraat belgium january janvier 2017Now here’s a thing.

Parked in the Kruisstraat this morning was an almost-new BMW saloon. And a short while after it pulled up and the owner disappeared, another car pulled up.

The driver was extremely interested in the vehicle and stopped, took out a camera, and snapped it about a dozen times from all angles, including a close-up of the rear number-plate and of the wheels.

photographer photograph new BMW kruisstraat belgium january janvier 2017And then he got back into his car and drove off.

Of course, I’m making no suggestion or allegation whatever. In fact, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m quite often pulling up at the side of the road to take photos of vehicles parked in the street or in people’s driveway.

But not of brand-new BMWs though, and it did look rather weird to me. But without any doubt he had a good reason for doing it.

So now, I’m going to try to have an early night again. Despite all of the new arrivals, I hope that my sleep will be as good as last night’s!

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Monday 16th January 2017 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… tea that was!

First of all, I sliced up a large carrot and potato and put them on to boil. And while they were doing, I sliced up an onion and some garlic and fried them in vegan margarine with some cumin and turmeric.

Once they were fried to perfection, I added a tin of mushrooms and a small tin of macedoine vegetables, and then tipped in the potato and carrot. Once they were simmering away, I cooked a pan of rice in turmeric.

There’s enough curry for four days, so three helpings went in the fridge and I had the fourth with the rice. And just for a change, I had it on a plate instead of eating out of my saucepan. Completely delicious. And there’s more to come over the next three days, when the spices have had more of an opportunity to percolate into the food.

A job well done, my curry!

I slept right through until the alarm went off, with only one distraction and no nocturnal rambling either. Alone again at breakfast and I might well be alone in the building too, because I’ve not heard a thing from anyone else for a good few hours.

That gave me plenty of opportunity to crack on with some other stuff today. I did some stuff on the 3D program that I use, using the design function and I actually managed to create something. Or, rather, modify an existing prop. It wasn’t difficult but it’s a step forward all the same.

As well as that, I’ve been doing some more research with my Labrador project and the Finnish espeditions. Interestingly, they make reference to a Priest, the Reverend Paul Hettasch, who was a Moravian priest from Germany who ran one of the Moravian missions on the coast, at Makkovik. The author of the report, Vaino Tanner, talks at length about all of the weather reports that Hettasch was keeping – how precise, complete and thorough they were. And a further search about Hettasch on the internet revealed that according to the Canadian Police, Hettasch was a Nazi sympathiser who sent all of his weather notes back to Germany and these formed the basis of the weather predictions that aided the German bombers of the Luftwaffe in their attacks over the UK in the early days of World War II.

It’s amazing what you can uncover these days in all of these research projects.

But while I was looking over the Labrador censuses during the inter-war period I came across some interesting notes taken by the census-recorder at Davis Inlet while he was asking about the Innu settlement at Voisey’s Bay in 1935. His notes were extremely brief, with just the most basic details recorded, and he explained that the “… information was furnished by a Davis Inlet Indian and it was impossible to get further details. Their life is a nomadic one and it would be futile to go look for them.”

But it was difficult this afternoon. I kept on dozing off here and there, and when I was awake, it was difficult to concentrate. I need to do what I can to recover my fighting spirit and get back to work properly.

I can’t go on like this!

And you may well have noticed – I’ve not set a single foot outside the building today.

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Sunday 15th January 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about suffering today for my efforts of yesterday.

Although I had a brief awakening at about 06:10, I don’t really remember anything until 07:00 when the alarm went off, and although I remember switching it off again, the next thing that I remember was the alarm going off at 07:15 for the second call. That’s not happened for months, if not years, that’s for sure. I didn’t even have to leave my bed during the night, never mind going on a nocturnal ramble.

I was alone at breakfast and once I came down here, I crashed out until 09:30. And then I wasn’t up to much for quite a while. And aching too! Yes, I knew that I had had a tough day yesterday.

Once I’d gathered my wits, which doesn’t take long these days, I rewrote yesterday’s entry – all 2004 words of it – and included the photographs that I had taken. That took me most of the day, as it happened. It’s not very often that I din’t feel up to that kind of thing.

For lunch I had my butties, using the loaf that I had bought yesterday morning. And I was joined by the boy-friend who was making a coffee. It’s the djervushka‘s last day today and she said goodbye to me. But I’m not alone. There’s an Asian woman here as well as some others on the ground floor whom I have yet to meet. I’m not even sure if there really is anyone there, but there is certainly some kind of noise from down below.

My pizza and garlic bread tonight was excellent. I think that I’ve finally sussed out the little table-top oven because everything came out superbly. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

coconut vegan chocolate fennel flavoured sweets aachen germany january janvier 2017Talking of enjoying it, I forgot to mention these yesterday.

While we were in Aachen yesterday we walked into a shopping arcade where there was an absolutely overwhelming smell of licorice. Further enquiries revealed a stall selling home-made sweets, some of which were fennel-flavoured.

Having checked that they were vegan, I treated myself to a packet. And they are delicious.

Not only that, in an ordinary run-of-the-mill supermarket, they were selling vegan chocolate. And one lot was made with coconut milk and contained coconut gratings. And this is the nicest chocolate that I have have ever tasted.

I’m well-impressed with this and it makes me feel much better.

So now, it’s early-night time yet again. And I’ll probably have a bad night tonight seeing as how I’ve done nothing at all. I seem to sleep so much better when I move about during the evening.

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Saturday 14th January 2017 – PHEW, I’M WHACKED!

I’ve had a really busy day today and I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. But ask me if I care!

I’ve always said that I’ll do what I have the opportunity to do whenever I have the opportunity to do it, and today was just like that.

Remember when I went shopping with Alison last weekend? She ended up not buying a ski suit but she did manage to pick one up during the week. But she decided that she would go to look for another one today – in Aachen, Germany, to be precise. Did I want to go?

Well, do bears go for picnics in the woods?

Last night was another typical bad night with an interruption in the small hours as usual. And that’s annoying me as you can imagine. But I made it into the kitchen for breakfast bang on time all the same.

Now here’s a thing that is more than unusual. it’s more than surprising too, and certainly extraordinary. And that is that I was down at the Delhaize in town, doing my shopping and back in my room afterwards for 09:00. When did that ever happen?

By 11:00 I’d showered, shaved, had clean clothes, all of that and gone outside where Alison was waiting for me.

aachen germany january janvier 2017And so, all aboard, we headed off eastwards down the motorway to Aachen. We farhn, fahrn, fahrn’d down the autobahn, in fact.

The weather could have been better though. It was cold, although not that cold, and grey and overcast with snow flurries throughout the day.

We arrived at Aachen where the snow had beaten us to it, and first stop was to sort out some clothing for Alison.

aachen germany january janvier 2017While Alison was searching around in the shops I went for a little wander around in the vicinity. Of course, when women are buying clothes, there’s plenty of time to do that, and even more so when people are in the queue for paying.

It seems that almost everyone in the city was shopping for ski-wear. After all, it’s Carnival quite soon and this is the traditional time for the kids to hit the slopes.

aachen germany january janvier 2017From there, we walked up the hill into town past some nice fairly-modern brick-built buildings that looked quite nice and blended quite well into the surroundings.

A coffee was next, and Alison knew a pretty good cafe. And I’ve drunk much worse coffee than that, I can tell you. I was surprised though, that there was no public toilet in there. I wonder what the EU would have to say about it.

But it does reinforce everything that I have said about the different attitudes that different countries have. Most countries agree to everything, and then have a very lax attitude about enforcing it. The UK fights tooth-and-nail, wasting everyone’s time, about various legislation, end then enforces it to the most ridiculous lengths. Remind me to tell you one day about the tip at Leek.

city square aachen germany january janvier 2017After the coffee we went off up the hill into the city centre, and while Alison went off in search of a woolly hat to go with her new ski jacket that she had bought, I went off for a wander around.

Luckily, Aachen was spared the worst excesses of the Allied terror-bombing of World War II so there is a great deal of the medieval city remaining, despite the American shelling and the SS demolition squads during its capture in October 1944.

And while it’s not the most attractive medieval city that I’ve ever visited, it certainly retains a lot of its charm.

town hall rathaus aachen germany january janvier 2017The Town Hall, or Rathaus, which I always thought was a quite appropriate name for a town hall in any country or any language, was damaged during the capture of the city, but you would never ever think so from just looking at it.

And I don’t just mean the quality of the restoration either. The building could do with a really good clean for a start and it would look so much better if they were to take the time to do it.

town hall rathaus aachen germany january janvier 2017One of the things that I did like about the Rathaus were the beautiful medieval wooden buildings – a pub so Alison told me, that were attached to the side, taking advantage of the stone wall of the Rathaus at the back.

It’s not the first time that we’ve seen this style of construction. There’s the same kind of construction in Belgium at a church near the Bourse that has wooden buildings constructed against it. It certainly saves on construction materials

aachen germany january janvier 2017Round the side of the central square was another small square tucked away out of sight. Alison told me that there was a restaurant there that had vegan food advertised on the menu, so that sounded like a good place to go for lunch.

It’s over there at the back, on the right, hidden by what look very much like historical remains. And I was intrigued to see these remains still standing – they look like the kind of remains that would have fallen down years ago.

living room aachen germany january janvier 2017Alison had a salmon steak and new potatoes, and my vegan ratatouille made with fresh vegetables of the day was even better. It was a little over-priced in my opinion, but it was still delicious and light years away from a bag of chips.

It too was served with sliced new potatoes and that worked so well that I’ll be trying this as soon as I can, now that I have a bag of spuds to play with.

But I didn’t think that the name of the restaurant was appropriate – fancy calling it the Living Room, which could be translated into Lebensraum, the project which concerned the Nazis invading Eastern Europe and exterminating its population.

And I shan’t say anything about setting the décor on fire either.

cathedral aachen germany january janvier 2017Outside the Living Room there was a view of the cathedral, to the right of the historic arches, and if you excuse the building work and the crane thing in the way.

It’s not the best view in the world but unfortunately, like many other well-preserved medieval cities, the cathedral is tightly hemmed in by buildings and it’s not possible to do any better than this.

If the RAF and the American artillery can’t clear the scene, neither can I

cathedral aachen germany january janvier 2017The cathedral itself is a magnificent pile and I expect that you are waiting with bated breath to see a whole raft of photos of the gorgeous interior, the tomb of Charlemagne, and all kinds of relics, including building materials such as marble that were sent by Pope Hadrian I to incorporate into the construction

Unfortunately there was a person loitering just inside the interior whose task it is to pounce upon anyone pointing a camera at anything, and demand a “licence fee” for the privilege of so doing.

Clearly the cathedral authorities have never ever heard of “Christian Charity” and don’t understand the concept of “sharing”. It’s not the first time that I’ve passed comment on the quality and value of the treasures contained in a church – something that goes totally against the concept of Jesus viz “give all thou hast to the poor”, but when it even comes down to naked exploitation and profiteering of the idea of sharing images of what the church possesses, then I’m convinced that there is something totally wrong with the church’s morality.

The oldest part of the Cathedral dates from 792 and is part of Charlemagne’s Palace – probably the only surviving part. And its rare octagonal shape is an indication of its age.

The stained glass therein is stunning too and all in all, it’s quite an impressive building. One day I shall go back – alone – and bring you back some photos to demonstrate what I mean.

medieval city centre aachen germany january janvier 2017The streets surrounding the cathedral are not without interest. Small, tight and cobbled – the very typical medieval street scenes that were swept away in the mid-20th Century in most cities in the UK

And this sculpture was quite exciting too. All of the models on it are mobile and can be manipulated around. It drew quite a crowd and I had to wait ages for a suitable opportunity to photograph it, when there was no-one else loitering in the vicinity.

old ruins aachen germany january janvier 2017Aachen is quite a historic city.

Settlement dates back to neolithic times and was settled by the Romans, attracted to the site by the warm sulphur springs. It was in fact on the frontier of the settled Roman area.

Excavations have taken place in the city from time to time and some of the discoveries are on display, like this site in one of the town squares that is surrounded by a glass case. I particularly liked the idea of the drainage channel just here in the foreground.

The warm springs are just lower down from where these ruins are located, and I went off for a taste. Very sulphuric, and quite warm too. The taste was disgusting, but I had to try it. No point in being here if you don’t do something like that.

There is no photograph of the springs, and no photograph of the plaques with the list of names of the notable personalities who came here to take the water. This was because at this moment we were engulfed in something of a snowstorm.

shop window aachen germany january janvier 2017As the snow eased off we walked back to the car.

Parts of the town are still decorated for Christmas, and some of the shop windows are phenomenal. This was one of my favourites, with the snowmen and other winter scenes, but there were plenty of others too.

And I can’t get over the bakeries either. I love German bread – there is just so much of it and it’s all good, and Aachen is no exception. Thoughts such as working out where the railway station might be in connection with the railway line to Leuven started to run through my mind.

As it grew dark, we hit the highway and headed for home. The return journey was quite quick and I was back here by 18:15. Many thanks to Alison for a good day out.

My day wasn’t finished though. OH Leuven were playing at home against Tubize, kick-off 20:00, so I braved the snowstorm and the freezing cold to go down there, grabbing a bag of chips on the way.

OH Leuven stadion den dreef afc tubize belgium january janvier 2017For a change, I wasn’t behind the goal but high up in the stand along the touchline level with the edge of the penalty area. A grandstand view, especially of down there where I usually sit.

AFC Tubize looked the better side and they had a player, the n°97, who looked streets ahead of anyone else on the field. His name is Jae-Gun Lee and he’s a recent signing, aged just 19, from Korea.

He’ll go far in European football, that’s for sure. Remember that you heard his name first on here

OH Leuven stadion den dreef afc tubize belgium january janvier 2017But OH Leuven went into the dressing room 1-0 up at half-time, rather against the run of play, thanks to an audacious step-over in the penalty area that totally flat-footed the Tubize defence.

I said that there was still plenty of time for OH Leuven to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and how prophetic those words were. From the first attack of the second half, Tubize won a penalty and it went all downhill after that.

OH Leuven stadion den dreef afc tubize belgium january janvier 2017And so in the torrential snowstorm that we were having, OH Leuven’s hopes drifted away. Tubize ran out 3-1 winners, and ended with the crowd booing the home side and cheering on the visitors.

That was rather harsh because OH Leuven had tried very hard, but their final ball was always falling short of where it was supposed to go. Nevertheless, they had plenty of chances to equalise, if not to win. But it was one of those games where nothing at all went right.

I walked back, freezing cold, and I’m tired and ready for bed. And I know that I’ll pay for all of this effort in the morning.

I’ll leave you instead with about 2,000 words and hope that you enjoy it.

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Friday 13th January 2017 – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

… du deh du der deh … to find that the snows of winter have once more been covering our landduring the night.

Nothing like as impressive as the other morning (not that that was particularly impressive) but snow just the same. And just like me, it didn’t last all that long either.

And that’s right – I didn’t last long either. I’d had a bad night and had an awakening at about 03:15, but this time I don’t know why I awoke like that. At 04:15 I was still awake too and I didn’t feel at all like going back to sleep, but nevertheless I must have done because the alarm awoke me yet again.

I was alone at breakfast at first, but someone whom I didn’t recognise at all came to join me later. A new tenant because I had to show him around and show him how everything works in the kitchen.

Back down here I did some work, reading this paper that I talked about the other day, and then I had some real work to do. I didn’t mention it yesterday but I had made a start on defrosting the freezer compartments in the fridges here. I have spoken about the oven chips and how they come in big bags. There is in fact the space to put a bag like that although you might not think so seeing how the ice compartments are full to the brim with ice, the doors having been left open at some time. With my mini-wok and boiling water, I managed to defrost everything after a while and clean them out. Now we have room for all kinds of stuff and quite rightly so.

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket for the baguette, and ended up having a good chat to the girl who seems to manage the place. We were there for about 10 minutes chatting, although I probably understood as much as one word in 20.

After lunch, I went down to Caliburn to bring back some more stuff and the laundry sop – braving the snow because by now the snow was teeming down quite heavily – although it didn’t stick at all.

The launderette was next and I washed a ton of stuff. And now I have all clean clothes, as well as three odd socks and I’ve no idea how I managed that. But it always happens, doesn’t it? There’s a sock goblin living even in launderette washing machines.

Back here I had a crash-out and then made tea. A quick tea out of a tin seeing as tomorrow I’m footballing and Sunday is pizza night.

The djervushka is still here too, but with a young boy in tow tonight. So I can cross her off my list, which is a shame. It also means that I won’t have much of a sleep as her room is directly above mine and we know how these beds creak.

I’m still going to try got an early night though. If the weather is reasonable tomorrow there’s a possibility of a day out. We shall see.

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Thursday 12th January 2017 – I’M STILL STRUGGLING …

… with these perishing sleep issues.

An early night, a film on the laptop and there I was, gone. Only to wake up a short while later and take an absolute age to go back to sleep again.

But I was on my travels too during the night. My niece Rachel was in Canada trying to work out some connections with associated companies and was phoning around. She asked me to help out too, and one of them that I called was a taxi company in … errr … Detroit, about 1,000 miles away. And when I did phone them up, the girl who answered the ‘phone had the air of being totally gormless, and I couldn’t understand why Rachel would – firstly – want to associate her business with a business so far away and – secondly – why she would want her business to be associated with a firm that was so clueless.

Alone again at breakfast, and then back down here to carry on with my research. I’ve been wading through this report from these Finnish geologists and found some more exciting stuff that might change a few of my – and other peoples’ – perceptions.

And that is that the Moravian missionaries in the north of Labrador kept very detailed records of day-to-day life in their mission stations for a period of more than 150 years. And you’ll see where this is leading.

In my writings, I’ve commented on several occasions about how certain places, such as the Norse landing sites, don’t look like the kind of places that I would choose for landing. But my opinions might have to change.

Labrador and Newfoundland were, in the Ice Age, covered with ice to a depth of at least 4,000 feet and that has an enormous weight. Since the end of the Ice Age and the melting of a lot of the ice, the land has slowly been rising. Obviously the weight of the ice had compressed the earth, the soil and the rock, and now the pressure is off the land, it’s springing slowly back into shape.

The Moravians kept records for this at some of their stations, and a change of level of a rise of 15 feet was recorded at one station “in one generation”. Extrapolate that out over 1,000 years and you are going to have a totally different shape of coastline, and the raised beaches that you see all along the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland give ample testimony for that.

Looking at the coastline today may give you a totally different idea of what the land might have been like in recent history.

At lunchtime I went out for my baguette and then at some point in the proceedings I crashed out for half an hour or so. A brief exchange of pleasantries with my djervushka and then the second half of my mega-meal which was just as delicious as last night.

I’ll try again to have a decent sleep and tomorrow I have work to do. I need to go to Caliburn for the washing soap, and then to the launderette to wash my clothes. I’m running out.

But winter is on its way. Snow is forecast for the next few days and the temperature is threatening to drop.

Minus 9°C might not be cold in Canadian, or even Auvergnat terms, but it’s cold enough for here.

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Wednesday 11th January 2017 – WHAT A BAD NIGHT!

Just as I said, I was in bed early last night, and was soon asleep. But then I awoke at about 00:45 when a noise on the radio awoke me, so I switched off the laptop and went back to sleep.

And then it all happened.

All I can say is that I must have had a nightmare, because I had one of those dreams that was extremely disturbing and which made me sit bolt upright. and it wasn’t just the fact of the dream either but the person who was the central character and all of the people who surrounded her. It was such a graphic, disturbing dream that I couldn’t go back to sleep and ended up typing it up on the laptop to make sure that I didn’t forget it.

But I must have gone back to sleep because the alarm awoke me at 07:00, and for some reason we had a most astonishing cacophony from the church bells and I’m not quite sure why. But never mind anyone else in the building, it probably would have awoken the dead too.

At breakfast I was on my own, and then I came back down here to carry on with my research. I started to read the report of that Finnish expedition to Labrador. And it’s come up with a couple of interesting facts.

  1. There’s a lengthy discussion of the Churchill Falls and the Bowdoin Canyon into which the Falls descends. A huge pile of statistics that will be of great interest when I start to write about my trip out in the Wilderness of Labrador to visit the Falls
  2. Even more interestingly, you need to remember that this is the period 1937-1939, long before the discovery of the Norse remains at L’Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland. And yet there’s a map in the preface of this expedition’s report where they discuss the Norse settlement of Newfoundland, and as far as the small scale of the map can isolate, the expedition places Vinland in round about the same area that Helge Ingstad discovered the Norse remains (although Ingstad hesitates to identify them as “Vinland” and as you already know, I don’t think that it corresponds at all with the description given in the Norse Sagas). It’s a little-known fact that L’Anse aux Meadows was identified in 1914 as the location of “Vinland” by an insurance agent and amateur historian called William A Munn in his book “Wineland voyages;: Location of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland”, but Munn isn’t listed as a source by the Expedition, and so I’m now more intrigued than ever before about the source of this Expedition’s information about the location

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket on the corner for a baguette and came back with a black plastic box as well – another one in the waste bin and I now have a dozen of them ready for packing, whenever that might be.
And I also had a major crash-out this afternoon too, but that’s hardly a surprise.

Tea was delicious – potatoes, carrots, broccoli, gravy and a vegan Linda McCartney pie. That was the best meal that I’ve had for quite a while. And my djervushka from the Ukraine was there too. I have to make the most of my time with her because she’s leaving on Friday, having found a studio for herself. I wonder if she needs a flatmate?

And there are more new people here too – but I’ve not had the pleasure of their company as yet.

Tonight I’m looking forward to my bed. As well as having a shower and a shave, I have a clean bedroom and fresh bedding. I’m all set up for a good night’s sleep but whether or not I’ll have one is another thing.

Who – or what – is going to interrupt me tonight then?

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Tuesday 10th January 2017 – I TIDIED UP …

… this morning. In fact I spent a good 45 minutes making sure that my room was in really good, tidy condition (just for once).

Yesterday afternoon I’d had a knock on the door from the landlord’s sidekick. Would it be okay if they came by at midday and cleaned my room and changed everything around?

Of course it would, and so I spent all of that time making sure that everything was tidy and in its place, and then just before midday I headed into town.

I took my time, bought a pile of stuff in the Delhaize and then slowly wandered back here – to find that they hadn’t been. And here I am at 21:30 and they still haven’t been.

Last night I had my early night and was well-away. But at 01:30 I awoke to a loud noise on the laptop radio. And so I turned it off again and went back to sleep. And that was how I stayed until the alarm went off.

During the night I’d been travelling too – onto a stage where I was playing bass and singing in a rock group. But for some reason I couldn’t co-ordinate the singing with the bass playing and it was all coming out wrong. In fact it was quite a nightmare.

At breakfast I was joined by my Polish housemate (but not, unfortunately my Ukrainian djervushka which was a big disappointment. And immediately after breakfast, the Pole disappeared off with his suitcase. There’s a new arrival in his room but I don’t know who it is.

So apart from shopping and tidying up, I’ve been researching again today. I’ve found some exciting stuff too – the report of a Finnish archaeological expedition to Labrador in 1937 that came to an abrupt halt as the Finns were swept up in the Winter War against the Soviets. What’s exciting about this is that they report a story that they had heard in Newfoundland about a child in Labrador who was killed by a dog-team. This was denied by the inhabitants of the town, so they report, but yet I’ve seen a death certificate of a child in the town where the death has been described as ‘killed by dogs”.

And she’s not the only child so killed either. Look at the entry for 5th July 1941 as an example.

Not only that, there was some talk of the ancient lost (if not mythical) city of Brest being at Brador Bay rather than at Old Fort, following a discovery in 1968 of Basque artefacts there. But I also found the report of an archaeological dig at the site in 2014 where they concluded that it was actually an Inuit site with Basque artefacts having been recovered from elsewhere and reused
by the Inuit.

I was alone for tea, where I finished my kidney bean whatsit (and it was as good as I expected too) and now I’ll try for yet another early night. It’s quiet in here so I may as well take advantage of it. After all, it’s doing me good.

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Monday 9th January 2017 – I PAID …

… for my exciting, adventurous (and tiring) weekend today.

It was a late night of course, coming back from the football, and so that wasn’t so helpful. And then it was difficult for me to go off to sleep. It only seemed as if I’d been asleep for five minutes when the alarm went off, and it was a real struggle to go for breakfast this morning. And I wasn’t feeling much like it either.

And it went from bad to worse too. When I came downstairs afterwards, if was cold in my room so I snuggled back under the quilt to keep warm. That was at about 07:45, and the next thing that I remembered was that it was 10:10.

Out like a light!

And then it took me a while to heave myself out of my stinking pit too.

A coffee helped to revitalise me and then I continued my research into Labrador.

And I’ve made an exciting discovery too! A group of people went off to the Far North of Labrador in 1927 and they took with them one of the very first snowmobiles – a home-made job converted from a Ford Model T – a Tin Lizzy. It covered about 250 miles before a valve burned out. And the home-made repair lasted half an hour, and so the vehicle was abandoned.

And then, in 2013, a party of archaeologists discovered it and the following year they recovered it, and it’s now undergoing a process of restoration. That’s going to be exciting when it’s finished.

I have two new housemates today. There’s a Polish boy from Krakow who is just here for tonight and, separately, there’s a girl from the Ukraine. She’s here for a week and, believe me, she can come and share my samovar any time she likes.

She has the room above me, and I do wish that we were all on board that millionaire’s yacht that was commandeered by the Navy in World War II. The captain, in his cabin, found a secret button and pressed it. And the dividing wall between the captain’s room and the guest room folded down, the bed in the guest room canted up at an angle, and the captain found the second mate cascaded into bed beside him. That’s what I want for here.

So having had yet another day where I’ve not set foot out of the building, and having had my pizza and garlic bread, I’ll have an early night yet again. Let’s see how I get on tonight with a good night’s sleep.

I hope!

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Sunday 8th January 2017 – WHAT A MATCH!

Absolutely!

Just two matches in Belgian professional football. Both involved travelling, but one involved a train, a metro, a tram and a long walk to a huge 60,000-seater with a crowd of about 1,500.

The second involved a train ride and a long walk to a compact modern stadium with a belting crowd, a belting atmosphere and CHEERLEADERS!

And I’m glad that I chose the match that I did, because it was one of the most exciting – not to mention the most bizarre – matches that I’ve ever seen. Not even Pionsat could conjure up a performance like the one that I saw this evening.

As far as sleeping went, I had issues yet again. It took me ages and several attempts to drop off, and when I finally did, I was awake again by 06:15. I’d been on my travels too, doing something with a group of children, trying to train them to perform office work and I was also supervising a group of former colleagues at one stage during the night.

For breakfast I was alone again, and that was how the morning went. I read through a pile of stuff on Labrador but there was nothing that caught my attention today, just for a change.

After lunch, I left the premises and walked down to Caliburn for my gloves, seeing as the weather is cold today. And once I’d done that, I walked off through the back streets taking the short cut to the railway station.

sncb multiple unit train leuven station belgium january janvier 2017There was plenty of time before my train was due to leave, but I didn’t have to wait in the cold because it was sitting at the platform. And it was quite warm too.

And then we hit the rails and off we shot. Not to Antwerp and not to Aarschot either, but to Lier. The Herman Vanderpoortenstadion, the same football ground that we visited the other weekwhen OH Leuven was playing there.

het lisp Herman Vanderpoortenstadion lier belgium january janvier 2017The stadium is otherwise known as Het Lisp, and today, SK Lierse was playing Lommel United. Lommel United is a team in the Belgian Second Division that I have yet to see, and so with a choice of just two matches today, it seemed like the good choice.

A nice pleasant stroll through the thick fog took me to the ground and I warmed myself up in the pie hut under the stand with a nice hot coffee, much better than the usual football club rubbish where it’s more like coloured hot water.

But I’m clearly showing my age these days.There’s full security and searches at football grounds these days, and yet they took one look at me as I entered the ground and waved me straight on in.

cheerleaders het lisp Herman Vanderpoortenstadion lier belgium january janvier 2017I took my place in the cheap seats at the back of the stand with all of the other old fogeys, and we had the usual distraction of the cheerleaders performing on the field.

As I said last time, I’ve seen better cheerleaders than these, but at least they are here, and it gets me out of the house – and that’s quite important. I just wish I could find a seat closer to the action.

lierse sk mascot het lisp Herman Vanderpoortenstadion lier belgium january janvier 2017You’ll have to excuse the quality of the photos that are on here, and the fact that there are only one or two. But we were blanketed in a thick fog that was rolling across the pitch and at times, visibility was quite difficult.

And add to that the fact that the camera in the phone isn’t made for this kind of thing. It spent most of its times focusing on a fog bank rather than the action.

And so what can I tell you about the game? The fact is that both of the teams were quite evenly matched. But if anything, Lommel were much more composed on the ball and looked more confident.

And that’s what made the result so amazing.

The final score was 5-1 – in favour of … errr … Lierse SK. And that was absolutely astonishing.

I can do no more that itemise the goals that Lierse SK scored, and you’ll see exactly what I mean –

  1. A free kick outside the area that was heading straight into the keeper’s arms with no problem or danger whatever – except a diving header at the near post at the last moment by a Lierse SK attacker
  2. A penalty

    3. All totally against the run of play.

    I thought that the first goal in the second half would decide the match – and straight from the kick-off SK Lierse hit the post with the ball rolling along the goal-line and back into play just half an inch from the outstretched foot of an attacker.

    And 30 seconds later –

  3. A SK Lierse player runs into the penalty area with the ball. The keeper dives bravely at the attacker’s feet to block the ball, and the loose ball could have gone anywhere from here. It rolls free to an unmarked SK Lierse attacker

    4. From there, it went from bad to worse for Lommel United.

  4. Keeper makes a great block-cum-save from a fierce SK Lierse shot. he can’t hang on and the loose ball could go anywhere. It rolls free to an unmarked SK Lierse attacker
  5. A shot on the volley from 35 yards that can go anywhere. It takes a vicious swerve right into the far corner of the net

Five of the luckiest goals that I have ever seen – you won’t see this kind of thing ever again. And there was still enough time for Lommel United to score a consolation goal.

But I was amazed.

On the way back I bought a bag of chips and then came back on a couple of crowded trains, changing at Aarschot.

A nice walk brought me back here and now I’m going to bed. And judging by the sounds, I have a new neighbour next door. I hope that whoever it is, he or she is quiet.

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Saturday 7th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… afternoon out this afternoon. But before I tell you about that, let me tell you a little about the morning.

And it was a morning too because although I had an early night, I couldn’t drop off to sleep again. In the end I put on one of the films that I had downloaded from archive.org and as you might expect, that did the trick. In fact it did so well that I can’t now remember which film it was.

Nevertheless, I was awake before the alarm and although it took a good while to find the strength to leave the bed, I was up there quite early. And I wasn’t alone either because my housemate came up there. She left the house shortky afterwards and it seems that I am now on my own again.

snow kruisstraat leuven belgium january janvier 2017After breakfast I had a peek out of the window and sure enough, we did have another fall of snow during the night and early morning. It’s not a lot but just about half an inch or so and it’s freezing cold.

Minus 3°C in fact and heavily overcast. I was planning on going to watch the football this evening at Brussels, OH Leuven against Union St Gilles, but it didn’t look as if it would be hopeful.

But I did have a nice surprise. A message from Alison. She’s in town and so did I fancy a coffee?

Accordingly I went and had a shave and shower, and changed my undies. After all, I have to look my best and smell nice. And having accomplished that, I went off uptown in the freezing sleet to do my shopping.

The town was empty and there were only a few stalls on the market. And that wasn’t a surprise as the weather was thoroughly dreadful. I did my shopping at the Delhaize and that was all that I could stand. Freezing cold, with freezing hands, I came back here.

Alison and I had a coffee (or two) and then adjourned across the road to the fritkot for lunch. A bag of chips each did us proud, and then Alison came forward with a proposition. She needs a new ski-suit for a trip she’s planning and did I fancy going with her to help her choose?

We hit the road and headed for Wavre and the huge Decathlon sports shop. It was crowded with people, mainly kids preparing for the classe de neige. Although there was a huge selection of clothes, there was some kind of issues about sizes. Either very small or very large and very little in between, which was a disappointment for her.

There’s another big sports shop, the Intersport, at Herent on the other side of Leuven and so we headed off there, calling at the English Shop on the way where I could buy some more Dandelion and Burdock, some more Linda McCartney pies and, at long last, some vegan sausages. We stashed the pies and sausages in the freezer in the kitchen with the left-over croquettes, and then headed out to Herent.

They had some beautiful clothes there but as you might expect, the stuff that I liked and that Alison liked was by far the most expensive, and the more affordable ski clothes were, well, of …shall we say … lesser quality. Entertainment was provided by a two-year-old boy trying on a ski-suit and trying out the toboggans.

We went for a coffee afterwards and then Alison brought me home. By now it was too late, and too cold to think about going out to the football. I warmed up instead and then went for tea.

I’d remembered to buy the pasta so I had a second lot of my kidney bean stuff and, as I predicted, it was even nicer tonight. And now I’m going to have an early night and take advantage of the fact that I’m on my own.

But it was a really nice afternoon out – all in favour of a “change of ideas” every now and again and it’s always nice to be with friends. If I had more friends, I’d do this more often.

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Friday 6th January 2017 – I HAD ENOUGH …

… pasta left over and so tonight I made myself a big tomato dish for tea, with enough left over for the next two nights too.

Onions and garlic fried together, and then added a tin of kidney beans, a tin of Macedoine vegetables, a big handful of peanuts, assorted spices and herbs and then a big dollop of tomato sauce.

And do you know what?

It was absolutely delicious. And it should be even better over the next couple of days if it follows the usual plan.

You might remember that I was planning on an early night last night. But I couldn’t drop off to sleep early and ended up doing some work on the laptop. When I noticed the time, it was 00:45 and that was the end of my early night.

I slept right through too, and awoke about 5 minutes before the alarm went off. And if I had been anywhere during the night, I don’t remember. It was like that.

Later in the morning I went out for my baguette, just down to the supermarket on the corner, and came back with a couple more plastic crates too. I have quite a collection now – so all that I need is a Plan to inspire me to pack them with stuff. But that’s not going to happen until the Spring now at least and maybe not then either.

Apart from that, I’ve spent most of the day reading up on stuff. More stuff on North-West River. It’s the worst thesis that I’ve ever read, it has to be said, but much of the gossip that’s in it, that you don’t usually find in a thesis, has helped me answer a few questions that I’ve had running around in my mind, and also solved a problem that I’ve tried to resolve in the past about the “old road” between Goose Bay and Churchill Falls.

I’ve had a crash-out too, as you might expect, and then it was tea time. And now it’s bed-time. An early night I hope, and a good sleep I hope even more.

But before I go, I’ve found a beautiful epitaph about Labrador. It was written by Judge William Malone as he took his leave from Dillon Wallace after they had been into the Labrador wilderness in 1913 to find the final camp of Leonidas Hubbard on his disastrous expedition of 1903.

“I’m leaving the country though with a feeling of profound regret. I wish I were just going in with you instead of going home. I never had that feeling before on leaving the wilderness, but this country has exerted a peculiar fascination upon me. I understand what it was now that drew you and Hubbard on and would not let you turn back. I have learned what you meant when you called it “the lure of the Labrador wild.”

And that’s certainly how I feel each time I cross the border into Quebec. And the more that I read about Labrador, the more I realise just how much I miss it and how I want to go back there.

I’m getting all nostalgic, aren’t I?

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Thursday 5th January 2017 – I HAD A …

… slightly better night last night.

In fact, I tried the usual cure for insomnia – settling down in bed to watch one of the “Bulldog Drummond” films that I had downloaded from www.archive.org and, sure enough, 10 minutes later I was definitely gone with the wind. And apart from just one awakening during the night, I was right out until 06:50. It’s been a while since I’ve beaten the alarm to awakening, isn’t it?

And I was well away during the night too. I was out last night with a boyfriend of Anne-Marie on the way to her apartment. And it had been so long that I couldn’t remember which building it was. Twice now I had seen a building that I was convinced was the one in which she was living but it was not – instead we ended up at an old cottage in a residential area of the city. I vaguely remembered her living in a disreputable, semi-derelict house in just oen room but here were maybe half a dozen or more boys of the age of her boyfriend – they had gutted the derelict parts of the house and were in the process of installing some kind of kitchen there. Where we had parked was in the street right in front of the house, blocking the street to passing traffic and I was concerned that this might cause problems for Anne-Marie with her neighbours, but then I had to try to convince myself that it wasn’t my problem – I hadn’t been driving the vehicle and it was the driver’s problem and Anne-Marie’s problem anyway, nothing to do with me.
A little later I was out with Alison. We’d been into a neighbouring town to look for an electric kettle. We’d identified a place that might sell one and so we set out to pick one up. However our way into town took us in a different direction – and it was quite confusing to arrive in this direction for a start – and so we weren’t close to this shop with the kettle so we had to look again. We ended up in a market hall, a 1920s brick-build white-emulsioned place that was in a semi-derelict condition with planks of wood shoved through the windows and dead pigeons all over the place that had been killed by poisoned corn being used. Alison mentioned a place here that might have one to sell but I wasn’t convinced that this place would have one, and that we would have to find the place that we had already identified, but how we were going to do this we had no idea.

It might sound strange about Anne-Marie making an appearance, but yesterday, someone was searching her name on the internet and they fetched up on my blog, where she’s made a couple of appearances in my past. That particularly stuck in my mind, although it clearly stuck more firmly than I imagined.

I was having breakfast when the alarm went off this morning, and then back down here I had a couple of very long missives to write. That took me right up until lunchtime, when I nipped out to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette.

After lunch, I cracked on with my website. I’ve been reading a couple University theses on life in Labrador (the Metropolitan University of Newfoundland – note the “Newfoundland”, not “Newfoundland and Labrador” – has published many of their theses on line this last couple of years) and what I’ve read has enabled me not only to find tons more stuff on North West River (the farthest northern point of Labrador that it’s possible to reach by road) but to make additions to several other pages that I have written in the past.

The trouble with all of this, as I have said in the past, is that I’m spending more time researching than writing, and what started out as being a quiet little travelog is now becoming an epic of mammoth proportions.

Not only that, I crashed out for an hour too, which is hardly a surprise seeing my early start.

For tea I finished off the other half of the can of beans, some more croquettes and the last vegan curry-burger. I’ll have to think of something else for tea tomorrow.

And now I’ll try for another early night tonight. I have just one housemate and she seems to be quite a quiet personality – she was hunched over a book eating her tea when I went upstairs to make my meal tonight.

Let’s hope that it stays like that.

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Wednesday 4th January 2017 – TEA TONIGHT …

… didn’t turn out like it should have done, and that was rather disappointing.

You may remember that I fancied chips, beans and vegan sausages. But firstly, the Carrefour had no vegan sausages. And while Alison had bought me some beans and malt vinegar, the Carrefour couldn’t produce any oven chips.

Well, it could. But in the LIDL in France you can buy a 800-gram bag for about €0:99 and that’s enough for two meals. But there’s nothing like that here. Belgium really is the land of the chip and there’s nothing less than 2kgs here and I have no way of keeping that much.

In the end, I had to settle for a 1kg bag of oven croquettes which is nothing like the same, and a couple of vegan curry burgers. This was something of a let-down, I can tell you.

Last night was another disturbed night, and for no good reason too. I don’t know why I’m having difficulty sleeping just now but it’s rather upsetting. Here we’re in almost-perfect quite with just two or three other guests of good habits, and I can’t take advantage of it.

I’ve not done too much today – in fact round about lunchtime I crashed out again for half an hour. But I did make it down to the Carrefour near the football ground for shopping. And as it happens, I forgot most of the things that I had intended to buy – and I’ve run out of pasta so that’s bad news.

But tomorrow night I have more croquettes, another burger and the rest of the beans. But no more Christmas pudding- I finished off the last of that tonight.

Now I’m going to have an early night and hope for the best. I’ve not managed to free off the mouse on the new laptop so I’ll have to continue with that tomorrow. I’m wondering if I’ve managed to get a biscuit crumb stuck under the mouse key – something silly like that.

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Tuesday 3rd January 2017 – IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG …

… to have problems with my new laptop, did it?

Last night I went to switch it off and we had the “there are 102 urgent upgrades to perform. Please don’t switch off your laptop”.

And so I didn’t – I went to bed instead. And despite being on my own I had a bit of a miserable night and it took me ages to go off to sleep. And then I was waking up on several occasions during the night. It was all very uncomfortable.

Breakfast didn’t take long, and then back down here to start up the laptop and “upgrade 89 of 102 in progress. Please don’t switch off your laptop”. And so I didn’t.

Instead, I found other things to do and eventually the new laptop finished its upgrades. And so I restarted it. Now, the mouse is doing all kinds of things except what I would like to do, and a manual cable mouse is only complicating the issue. I’ve no idea what’s happening here. But you’ve no idea just how much I’m fed up about this. It never rains but it pours, does it?

But here’s a thing – I’ve not set a single foot outside the building today.I had the remains of my loaf for lunch and so for tea I had rice, vegetables, mushrooms and onions. And that was nice too, even though I forgot to add my gravy to it.

So tomorrow I’ll have to think about sorting out this mouse problem as well as going shopping. The Carrefour beckons, and I fancy some oven chips, beans and vegan sausage. I hope that the Carrefour can sort me out.

I have new housemates tonight, and they all look quite respectable so I hope that they won’t disturb me too much. Maybe I’ll finally end up having a decent night’s sleep tonight.

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