Tag Archives: rainstorm

Saturday 2nd July 2016 – SO WHAT ARE THE NEW DIGS LIKE THEN?

The first answer is “noisy”. The room that I’m in for the first 10 days is right next to the bathroom, the head of the stairs, the lounge and the kitchen. And furthermore, the outlet for the sink and the dishwasher (yes, we have a dishwasher) is behind a wall right at the head of the bed. Consequently, you can hear everything.

And there’s a rock concert on this weekend down the road at Werchter and there are quite a few people staying here who are visiting it. And when they come back the whole building knows about it.

It’s tired too, and so is the decor and furniture, and the tenants don’t do very much to help keep it clean and tidy – neither do they wash up after themselves in the main. As a result, the place might be clean at 10:00 but by 10:30 it isn’t, and it goes downhill from there.

But as for the breakfast, you just go in when you please and help yourself to as much as you want – I’m on the muesli, toast, jam, coffee and orange juice and plenty of it – and everything is topped up ready for the next day. The bathroom is clean and tidy and well-appointed, and my little sofa is really nice. While the mattress in my room here might have likewise seen better days, it’s a huge advance on the last place and once everyone had settled down for the night, I was well away and it was lovely.

And I was well-away too. I had a green car – it might have been an early Ford Cortina mark 111 estate – and my brother was thinking of painting it, helped by my father. I told them to not even imagine doing it if the masking off was anything less than perfect, but at that moment I had a huge load of concrete delivered and I needed to deal with it. First shovel stuck in it and I broke the handle in two – that led to me storming off in a sulk and that was that.

But it goes to show you what a decent bed can do.

But going back to my place, you really can’t believe this, that I’ve done it again. In North America I usually end up camping by a railway line and have sirens and hooters going off all over the place because I’ve forgotten to check the surroundings. Here in Europe, it’s churches. And there’s a church just across the road of which bells start up at 07:00 – so that was that for a lie-in.

But all in all, it’s less than €26 per night and I’m well-pleased with everything at that price.

What was even more exciting was that I had someone coming bursting into my room this morning by mistake – she’s in the same room as this but downstairs. I wouldn’t have minded so much except that I was just putting on my underpants and … errr … adjusting my dress.

After breakfast I tidied up in here and got everything shipshape as if I intend to be here a while – start as you mean to finish and that’s not like me, is it?

I Went into town (not that it’s very far) at 12:00 to buy the food for lunch for the next few days and to pick up some olives from the market. And I was halfway down the road when the heavens opened and I got the lot. To make matters worse, when I was at the olive stall, the assistant decided to shake the roof to clear off the water that was collecting on the top. And you can guess where the water went, can’t you? I got the lot.

This afternoon I’ve been on the blog again – it’s a slow procedure right now – and then went out to buy my curry. I’m not sure what I had now because I can’t remember but it had chick peas in it and it nearly blew my wig off.

Now, I’m going to have a quiet evening and then have an early night in my comfortable bed. I started to watch a film last night and fell asleep halfway through it. I’ll try to watch the rest tonight.

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Thursday 30th June 2016 – MY LAST NIGHT …

… here in my little garret under the eaves. So I intend to make the most of it by doing nothing at all. Actually, there isn’t much to do anything about, as you well know.

But while I was out buying my baguette at lunchtime (I just went to the boulangerie down the road rather than spending reckless money in the Delhaize) I went to check on my new place. It’s still there and not burnt down, and I was able to pick up all of the details about it.

During my stay (of 77 days, I have to say) I will have to change rooms twice, so I’m not complaining too much about that. I just hope that it will be more comfortable than here, and that the facilities are better. From what I saw of a room when I went to visit, it looks okay. I hope that it lives up to first impressions.

Last night’s sleep was much more reasonable. Although I was up and about a couple of times, it was 07:25 when I awoke definitively and I was downstairs eating my breakfast when my alarm went off.

I was going to have a shower today but we seem to be back on the cold water again so I’ll have to wait. See what it’s like tomorrow or else christen my new place accordingly.

Tea was vegetables for couscous with a handful of chick peas, some mushrooms, some boulghour and rice, followed by sliced spicy cake and soya yoghurt. Delicious it was too.

It was rather slow progress on the blog updating today, and I’ve reached as far as 11th September 2010. The reason for this slow progress is that half a dozen pages, just written quickly late at night at the appropriate moment, merited an enormous amount of research and subsequent expansion as well as the addition of piles of photos to improve the illustration. All of this has taken a considerable amount of time but it’s well-worth it.

And, of course, we’ve had the rain today, haven’t we?

So I’ll be off to bed in a few moments to make the most of the last night on the floor on this very tired and sad mattress. See if I can have a good sleep.

But I’ll tell you one thing – and that is that I won’t be sorry to be somewhere else. I don’t regret coming here because it served its purpose when I was practically homeless, and it was only €11 or so per night. but it has really tried my patience and I can’t wait to get into a real bed.

I hope that it lives up to it

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Wednesday 29th June 2016 – MY DOCTOR …

… at the hospital this evening came up with the best comment to date about the UK’s referendum result. he reckons that they should find all of the tugboats in Europe to tow the UK out into the middle of the Atlantic and dump it there. And I can’t say that I disagree with him either. We are both of the opinion that the UK’s method of negotiation is to send in a gunboat – tactics that might have worked 150 years ago but are quite simply laughable today. The last time that the UK fought a war on its own, it took them 3 years to defeat a handful of undisciplined and untrained Dutch farmers in South Africa.

So having put the world to rights, I had my body scan. They stuck me on a table, clamped some headphones on my ears and stuck some kind of diving helmet on my head. Claustrophobia wan’t in it. I had to undergo this scan for about half an hour and I spent all of this time in that time-travel portal with my eyes tight shut.

I left here at 19:00 and arrived back at just about 22:00, having grabbed a bag of chips on the way. And I won’t be going to that fritkot again. They weren’t so good and the service was a little chaotic.

This morning I was awake again quite early, 06:30 to be precise, having had one or two trips down the corridor. And I ended up chatting to someone on the internet which meant that I didn’t go down to breakfast until 09:15.

And despite the better day yesterday, we had a rainstorm through the night and a little bit during the day.I went off to do a little shopping at lunchtime – to the Delhaize in town where I bought my baguette, some bananas and a small bag of muesli seeing as how I’ve run out. I won’t buy a big bag until I know what the breakfast in this new place is like.

There’s a bio shop in the Vismarkt in the town centre and so I went for a recce while I was out. There’s a huge selection of vegan stuff in there, including the sliced vegan cheese of the type that I used to buy in Brussels. It’s useful to know that the stuff is quite handy in the neighbourhood.

Updating the blog, I’m now up to the 26th August 2010 – well-ahead of where I want to be. But I don’t expect that I’ll be doing much over the next couple of days while I clean up here and organise my moving to the new pad.

And on this subject, Melanie lent me a needle and thread so that I could sew my bag back together. I have a cheap green bag that I use for going shopping – a bag that I received as a free gift in the pharmacie in St Gervais d’Auvergne – and the stitching had started to come apart. Now it’s a bit more secure and I hope that it will hold out.

Now I’m off to bed to see how I sleep tonight. The long walk to the hospital and back might have done me some good in that respect and I hope that it’s tired me out enough.

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Saturday 25th June 2016 – THIS IS BECOMING MONOTONOUS

It certainly is. And for several reasons too.

  1. I had another comparatively sleepless night. Lying in bed tossing and turning throughout the night waiting to go to sleep. I know that I must have gone to sleep at some point, but not for long and I was up working on the laptop by 06:00
  2. Despîte not drinking anything (except my two cups of coffee and one glass of orange juice) I was still up and down throughout the night – and my water retention issues aren’t easing any. I’m not too bad when I’m lying down but once I’m up and about, the water appears from somewhere
  3. This weather is totally ridiculous. I want to go off and do something different and have a change of scenery but with the torrential downpour that we had for most of the day, it’s not even worth setting foot outside the house.

All of this is really depressing me. I don’t mind so much being ill if I have somewhere where I can sit and relax, like a garden in the sun but here, there’s no garden and no sun and any change of colour that I might have won’t be a suntan, it will be rust.

I put off going to the shops at lunchtime, hoping that the weather would improve, but it never did and so I ended up being soaked to the skin going out.And to my dismay, I discovered that the market from where I buy my olives and biscuits and the like is only a Saturday morning market and everyone had gone by the time that I arrived there.

Mind you, I had a good chat with Liz on the laptop and that’s always pleasant. It’s nice to talk to friends.

This evening, the weather had improved and it wasn’t too bad going out, although I’m starting to find it difficult to move about with my swollen legs. I ended up going to the cheapo Indian restaurant and having a tarkha dahl and rice with naam bread. After all, Saturday night is curry night.

The meal was pretty basic but it was filling and cheap. The place was packed too and I had to wait for ages for my meal.

Tomorrow I’m going to try for a lie-in. And I’m going to have a treat. There will be my usual muesli and soya dessert but I’ve brought some nice bread rolls and I’m going to eat them with jam and coffee. I feel like cheering myself up and a nice big breakfast will do me a world of good.

At least I hope so.

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Thursday 23rd June 2016 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT …

… that was! I don’t think that I slept very much at all, and I had to leave my stinking pit on innumerable occasions too – including one voyage all the way downstairs (and back again of course), all of which made me totally miserable and it was a horrible way to start the day.

I’d also been on my travels. It was wartime and there had been a massive requisition of paper and the like, all of which had to be put into pale yellow sacks and taken away to a collection point. And yet someone had obviously been to this point and had somehow managed to collect a dozen or so sacks that were filled with books and was bringing them back home again, presumably to sort through the piles, find some valuable ones and then sell them on again – something that we thought was rather despicable. He’d taken them into his garage to sort and someone had followed him in to see what was going on, and this second person had been killed. Another person went in and found himself being held as a kind of hostage, his back towards the person who was holding a gun and with a desk in between. The hostage dealt with the issue admirably, slowly manoeuvring the man with the gun into a certain position and then disabling him by the simple fashion of bending down and firing a gun at him from between the legs, a kind-of upside-down position. And that’s not as easy as it sounds to do that correctly or accurately.

Once again, I was up early taking advantage of the beautiful morning, but it didn’t last very long like that. In fact the day ended up being, if anything, even worse than the night for we were soon back in the rain again.

And that’s how it stayed for most of the day.

We did have a little dry spell, round about 12:30 which was just enough time for me to nip into town and the shops. And it was just so hot and clammy while all of this was going on. Up in my attic it was hot and oppressive for much of the afternoon and I wish that I had somewhere else that I could go where it was cooler, for I found it really hard to work.

But then while I was making my tea we had the most astonishing thunderstorm as this huge dark cloud slowly moved across the sky. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a storm like this.

I’ll try yet again to have a decent sleep – to see if I can manage to have one because I certainly could do with it. I could also do with a decent place to stay because sitting up here in my attic with nowhere else to go is really depressing me right now.

But still – only a week to go and then I’ll be somewhere else. With – I hope – a decent bed, a comfortable seat, a proper opening window and a nice garden to sit in.

But I’m sure that it’s not going to be as straightforward as that!

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Tuesday 21st June 2016 – YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE …

… that it’s the Summer Solstice today. It’s been a cold, miserable, grey wet day today from start to finish, just like a grim February day.

Well, that’s not quite true. The rain did ease off for an hour or so round about midday – just the right time for me to nip out and buy my baguette and a few other bits and pieces for lunch. I wasn’t back all that long before the heavens opened again and that’s how it stayed. Many people have asked why I don’t get out and about and go for much more of an exploration, but in this weather, who can blame me?

I had a bad night again. It was well after midnight before I managed to doze off, despite how tired I must have been after walking to and from the hospital. And I had the odd trip down the corridor too but I was wide-awake by 05:40. I did manage to stay in bed until about 07:00 before I made my start to the day, and I’ve had a little crash-out this afternoon.

So what have I been doing today then.

The short (and the long) answer to this is that I’ve spent most of the day working on my blog, doing a lot of the updating. I’m well into the month of May 2010 and I’m finding that the weather back then was just the same as it is right now – to wit cold and wet. We even had a snowstorm on 5th May 2010 when we were all on our way home from Clermont Ferrand.

For tea tonight I’ve been finishing off the mixture of stuff that I had left over from Friday night.It tasted just as peculiar tonight as it did then, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

The Vietnamese girl was in the kitchen too so I had a good chat to her. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to be too interested in talking about life in Vietnam and that was what I really wanted to know. People of my generation were brought up with all kinds of tales about life there either in the Communist North or the corrupt American-backed South,and the unification of the country stopped our habitual flow of news. I was keen to have an up-to-date opinion, but it looks as if it won’t be any time soon.

And so tomorrow, I’m off gallivanting again. June and her husband are passing by on their way back to Germany and I’ve invited them to the fritkot for lunch. You can’t pass by Belgium and not visit a fritkot, can you?

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Monday20th June 2016 – I SUPPOSE THAT YOU ARE ALL WONDERING …

… what the outcome of my visit to the hospital today was.

Firstly, no danger of my being late for the appointment, for I was wide-awake at 05:30 this morning and surfing the internet, for want of anything special to do. I had a leisurely breakfast and then, making an executive decision, I set off to the hospital in plenty of time without my rain jacket, seeing as how the day looked as if it might just be promising. And how I regretted that decision on the way home, when I had to brave a rainstorm to return to my tiny garret.

First person that I saw after registering was my doctor. She told me that the bone-marrow sample showed no trace of any illness having spread into there and so they too were making an executive decision – which was to definitively stop the chemotherapy. That’s good news as far as I am concerned. Instead, they are going to try another type of treatment and see what effect that has, as well as giving me a medicament that will stimulate the red blood cells.

The nurse then came and dragged me into a little cubicle where she took my blood pressure and pulse, and fitted me with a drain to my chemotherapy port. Once that had been done, she took a blood sample.

An hour or two later I was led to a little private ward where they coupled up three perfusions to me. One was the aforementioned stimulant, the second was a steroid and the third one was some kind of medication. They were all connected to me via a metering machine and I had to ring them every half hour so that they would come and increase the speed.

10 minutes later the doctor came to find me, to tell me what they were going to do to me, but she told me that she wouldn’t bother, seeing that they were already doing it. But the good news is that my blood count, a good week after the last transfusion, is at 9.3 and it’s a long time since it’s been this high. And so no blood transfusion this week.

It was round about 18:00 that I was thrown out of the hospital so I went to check on Caliburn, give him a couple of laps around the car park to warm him up, and park him in a different place so that it looks as if he’s doing something. Plenty of space on the car park at that time, so I reckon that if I decide to move him, I’ll have to keep him out all day until the evening when I can take him back.

I’m running short of socks and undies here so I fetched some more down, and I also meant to bring some more foodstuffs, but I forgot. And how I wish that I had remembered, as I have no small tins of mushrooms or vegetables to pack out the remains of Saturday’s Indian meal. I had to use plain rice and a stock cube instead.

So with my next appointment now in two weeks’ time, I can relax for a while and not worry too much. But I’ll be intrigued to see what my blood count will be when I go back.

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Saturday 18th June 2016 – WHAT A NICE EVENING …

… that was!

Tonight was the night that we had our little farewell party. The student exams are coming to a close and two of the students are leaving on Monday morning. And so they decided to have a little party, with each person contributing a course of the meal, and I was invited.

I went to the Asian fast food place and bought a biryani, and also a bottle of wine. Everyone else made something, much of which was vegan, so there was plenty to eat. We sat around the table chatting away for quite some time too and it was after midnight that I came up to my room. The people here are very nice indeed, very friendly, and I’m glad that some good has come from staying here.

But here’s a thing. I had a couple of trips down the corridor during the night but they didn’t inconvenience me too much, and went back to sleep each time. When the alarm went off, I simply turned over and dozed off again, and it was almost 08:30 when I finally awoke. That makes a pleasant change too, a little lie-in.

I was back on the Titanic public enquiry this morning, with Senator Alden Smith still stuck in this monomania that he had about the two wireless operators, Cottam and Bride, selling their stories to the Press. I can’t see an issue with it – after all, it’s their own personal story and they waited until they were on dry land before making contact with the Press, and yet to date, 12 days into the enquiry, Alden Smith has devoted about a third of the time into interviewing everyone from the Marconi company, wasting everyone’s time and even summoning Marconi himself not once but twice to a meeting in the USA to interrogate people over the issue as he thinks that it’s “improper practice”.

As I said, I don’t see an issue with it. It’s their own personal story and has nothing whatever to do with an issue involving Marconi, the White Star Line, the American public and Senator Alden Smith.

At lunchtime I braved the showers to go to do some shopping and passed by the market for some olives where I bumped into Melanie, one of the students here who was also doing some shopping. I’ve finished off my hummus so tomorrow I’ll be having cheese and tomato butties. I don’t want to buy anything perishable yet because on Monday I’m not here – in the hospital in fact, and out gallivanting on Tuesday lunchtime.

Back on the Titanic this afternoon and then off to the shops for the food for the party – and now I’m back here. I’ll have a nice lie-in tomorrow (I hope) with no alarm. High time that I had a good rest.

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Thursday 16th June 2016 – I’VE BEEN OUT GALLIVANTING …

… this evening.

Alison was coming into Leuven so we arranged to meet up and go for a meal, a coffee and a chat. And so, as indeed you might expect, when it was time for me to go off to meet up with her, it started to rain.

However, at least it did prompt me to have a shower, a shave and a change of clothes so it can’t be all bad, can it? And I must say that I needed it all too. And in another major step forward, I’ve tracked down a launderette so I can give all of my clothes a good going-over as soon as I have a bag full.

The launderette is actually on the way to the boulangerie, and seeing as how I had a full complement of everything that I needed today, I reckoned that instead of the supermarket I’d just nip to the boulangerie to see what it’s like. The baguettes cost €1:25 but they are enormous and I had something of a struggle to eat it all. And while I was in the kitchen preparing lunch I was joined by one of the students and we had quite a chat. Not only that, one of the girls is leaving on Saturday and there’s a party for her, and they have invited me to attend. Isn’t that nice of them?

I didn’t have the sleep that I wanted last night. I awoke twice with the urge to visit the porcelain horse and it’s a flaming long way down (and an even longer way back) especially in the middle of the night. But years of living in a van have taught me a trick or two and I have come well-prepared for eventualities like this. One day, I’ll explain my littie secret to you.

I’ve been on the internet for much of the day, reading the report of the American enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic. I read the British Board of Trade report years ago but the other day I came across the American one. This is very interesting because it was the first of the two enquiries and there was a huge argument recorded in its pages between the officers on one hand and the seamen of the other hand about whether the Titanic split in two before it sank. Most of the seamen who expressed an opinion were firmly of the opinion that the ship had split in two, whereas the officers disputed this idea.

The conclusion reached by the inquiry was the ship had not split in two, and at the British enquiry, the point was not pursued as firmly. Yet when the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered and filmed, they way that it was lying on the sea bed left no doubt that the ship had indeed split into two before sinking.

I met Alison at the parking of the Sint Jacobsplein and went for a walk through the rain into town. Yet another gorgeous meal at the city centre fritkot followed by a coffee around the corner, and then a slow wander back to Alison’s car, seeing as it had stopped raining by now. It’s nice to be sociable and meet up with friends.

Back here, I’m having a little late night for a change. Serve me right for drinking that coffee!

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Wednesday 15th June 2016 – I FELT SORRY …

… for my landlord. He came all the way here with a new flourescent tube for my little room, and I didn’t use it.

I was in bed listening to radio programmes on the laptop, long before it went dark. And I must have crashed out completely because I remember nothing until waking up to switch off the laptop round about midnight. And that was about that until 06:33 when I awoke. And I did feel much better after that.

But here’s the most exciting news of today, and that is that I may well have found somewhere else to stay for the 11 weeks that I need a place. I had a reply from a kind-of tourist hostel and so I went off to have a look at it. It’s right by the Sint Jacobsplein where the famous fritkot is situated, which is extremely handy and very well-situated for the hospital. It’s a big house which, admittedly, has seen better days, but nevertheless, it’s still quite acceptable.

I’m having a single room all to myself, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. Everything is provided – wi-fi, bed-linen, cleaning and so on, and there’s a breakfast included in the price – and it’s going to cost me about €26 per night. It’s more than I wanted to pay, of course, but it’s here and it’s now, and a lot less that I would have to pay in a hotel. And, of course, once I’m in, I’m in and if I need to extend my stay for any reason, I can do that from the comfort of within rather than from out in the street in some kind of desperation.

As well as that, the included breakfast will save me some money. The presence of a kitchen will help me in this respect too – I can live on tinned food and so won’t have to pay for meals out in the evening. I reckon that if I’m careful, I can keep within my means but there won’t be a lot spare.

Anyway, it’s all now reserved and I’ve paid a (substantial) deposit. Just watch the place burn down now.

Apart from that, we have the internet working. The college’s intranet runs on an underlying public access internet network and one of the students here let me have the access code for the public access part of it, which was quite nice of her. So now it’s all systems go.

We had a torrential rainstorm at lunchtime too about half an hour after I went out to the shops for my lunch stuff, and so I was rather caught out in it and was soaked to the skin. It’s a long time since I’ve been out in a rainstorm quite like that and my baguette was all soggy in places.

Tonight for tea, I finished off the kidney beans and mixed veg from last night, along with some pasta and tomato sauce. And, of course, the spicy cake and soya dessert for pudding.

Now, I’m going to have an early night and a good sleep. I’m off gallivanting tomorrow.

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Monday 13th June 2016 – IT’S NOT VERY GOOD NEWS!

No, I had the results of the two samples that were taken from me the other week.

The first bit concerns the bone marrow. Whilst it’s true to say that the lymphona hasn’t spread into my bone marrow, the fact is that the bone marrow itself is quite fragile and as a result they won’t be giving me any more chemotherapy. This is because the marrow is quite fragile and they fear that the chemotherapy may damage it.

The second thing is, if anything, even worse. And that is that my illness has spread to my kidneys and that is what is the matter with them.

I don’t know if the situation is dangerous or not – I didn’t ask. What I do know is that they are going to have a meeting on Wednesday to discuss a course of treatment and I have been summoned for next Monday to a meeting to find out what will be the plan. All that I can say is that I don’t like the sound of this at all.

I had a difficult night’s sleep again, awake quite early and having a trip or two down the corridor. When the alarm went off at 07:15 I was awake but it still took me a good few minutes to leave the comfort and safety of my nice warm bed. After breakfast I packed everything away and even found time for a shower, then paid up for my stay and hit the road.

It was pelting down with rain this morning and traffic queues everywhere. However I made an executive decision (an executive decision being, for the benefit of new readers of this rubbish, a decision that if it happens to go wrong, the person making the decision is executed) to follow the signs for the motorway once I reached Korbeek-Lo and that was a much better idea. There was heavy traffic on that road but it was all turning off to the various business parks down there and it didn’t take long to hit the motorway. And once on the motorway it took me a mere 10 minutes to reach the hospital by going right round the city and onto the campus from the rear. I was there half an hour early.

A couple of doctors, one of whom was the girl whom I normally see and the second one was the urologist – she who gave me the bad news – came to see me. That wasn’t all that she gave me either because she ordered an injection for me – one that would help purge me of excess water. And I’ll tell you what – that worked in spades and made me feel so much better.

The Social Welfare girl came to see me too. We discussed my accommodation situation and she’s going to make further enquiries for me. Mind you, although she’s given me a great deal of moral support she hasn’t really gome up with too much in the way of practical help. But then again, I don’t suppose she encounters too many people who have my kind of problems.

They gave me a blood test too, and my blood has dropped down to 7.6. That of course meant a blood transfusion and I had two pochettes of blood. What with all of that, it was nearly 19:00 when I left the hospital. I had a walk down into town and stopped off at a fritkot for a falafel butty and chips for tea – all for €5:50.

And then it was back here to my new home for my first night.

There’s no internet (there’s a student.net site but of course I don’t have a password for it) and there’s a leak around rthe edge of the roof light.

As I said yesterday, I’m glad that I’m only spending a couple of weeks here.

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Saturday 11th June 2016 – YESTERDAY AFTERNOON …

… I sat down and sent off a whole ruck of e-mails about accommodation, asking for appointments to view for this weekend. And how many replies do you think that I’ve received?

Krys guessed right (good old Krys!). She said “none”. As I have said many times before … "and you’ll say many times again" – ed … there is no such thing as a recession. There is just a whole load of people who are letting all kinds of income-generating opportunities melt away before their very eyes. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall dozens of similar occurrences – solar panel suppliers in March 2009, caravan suppliers in July 2015 – two examples that spring readily to mind.

And not forgetting two suppliers of slide-in camper units for Strider whom I visited, one in New Hampshire and the other one in Quebec – and asked them to send me quotes for the Spring so that I could order one ready for the summer. That’s an order worth over $12,500, would you believe, but it’s too much trouble for any of the sales staff to reply to me.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. I have better things to do.

Like waking up at 07:00, long before the alarm, finding out that two of my friends are on line already, and having a chat that went on to … errr … 13:00, with me missing breakfast. And then just as I was about to nip off, Liz came on-line for a chat and so I was here for another 90 minutes.

Not that I am complaining, of course. Far from it. It’s nice to see friends and chat aimlessly for ages. I’d much rather chat to a friend than eat breakfast. That’s much more important.

And so I eventually made it out to buy a baguette for lunch. Dunno if I mentioned that yesterday I finally discovered a boulangerie so I went there first. But by that time they had long-since sold out. I ended up at the Bio-Planet where I bought a lovely artisanal baguette, sampled a pile of delights and had two free cups of coffee. You have your money’s worth in the Bio-Planet.

Back here in my room it was stifling, but I’ve managed at long last to force the window so that now I can open it, and listen to the arrival of a serious rainstorm as the weather has broken.

But not before I went out to make my tea. The chick peas left over from Thursday had gone off already and so I ended up with pasta, tinned vegetables with chick-peas already mixed in, and tinned mushrooms followed by the usual pudding.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day for me as I’m taking all of my possessions to my new digs in Leuven. I hope that they are okay but for the money that I’m paying to stay there, I’m not expecting too much. It’s all a question of money’s worth, as you all know already. I’ll put up with inconvenience if I’m not paying very much – I’m on the economy package.

So i’ll clear off now and listen to the rain. It sounds lovely outside.

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Tuesday 7th June 2016 – I WAS STILL WIDE-AWAKE …

… at 02:00 this morning, having been for a walk (as I said that I would) and having been reading a book for ages too. None of this is a surprise of course, after having crashed out for so long yesterday evening.

But once I’d dropped off to sleep, then I really was away. And a long way away too. And here’s an interesting story of a young couple (neither of whom was me, for a change) of which the female of the party had been diagnosed with a major life-threatening illness. Which would cost thousands to treat and which would bankrupt them completely. Sitting on the roof of their house (they could do that by climbing out through the skylight) they were discussing various options of raising the money and a chance glance at a piece of formed metalwork drilled with holes gave them the first part of the idea – which was to go around and drill huge holes in the roofs of a couple of cars belonging to people who had annoyed them. They had an old Maxi that they could adapt for the purpose. The second part was much more interesting and they discussed it with a female friend who was sitting on the roof with them but she was totally opposed to the idea, a fact which made no difference whatever to their plans. And so off they went, each performing his or her own little bit, and all went according to plan. The roof-drilling bit worked like a charm and the female’s idea, of dressing in a really extravagant outfit of the kind that you would find in a Noel Coward performance of the 1920s or 30s and doing a striptease as she walked out of this pub and down the steps to the main road, was stunning. Of course, they were both arrested and charged with various offences, but the fines were minimal. However, the ensuing publicity caused the money to come rolling in and they managed to clear all of their debts in respect of this hospital treatment.

It’s not very often that there’s an evening’s entertainment and I don’t appear in it, is there?

The noise in here (because the place echoes like a drum) awoke me at about 07:30 this morning and I felt so much better after my sleep.

After breakfast I spent a couple of hours on the internet and then went off to look for a baguette. Having tried going east from here last time I stayed, and driving about 100 miles to find one, I decided to head west this time. And I needn’t have bothered because it was even farther to the nearest baguette in that direction. I did however encounter a patisserie but it was closed. Maybe having a day off, I dunno, so I’ll go to check it out tomorrow. But I can’t say that I’m too impressed with the (lack of a) boulangerie around here.

After lunch I started on my quest for accommodation for the next three or four months. And I have found the ideal place – a small room in the attic of a very modern house, right on the outskirts of Leuven within sight of the hospital, and with off-street parking too. It’s clean and tidy with a friendly young landlord, all mod cons (shared with two others), and another good advantage is that there is a beautiful garden with seats and the like so I can sit in the sun.

It’s a mere €325 per month and so I’m determined to take it until mid-September (when the students return) but the downside is that it’s not free until July 1st. I’m okay here until 13th June and so I need to find a place for two and a half weeks. I shall have to get on with that and look to see what are the possibilities. I have a few ideas already.

This evening, the beautiful weather that we have been having for the last two days broke – and broke with a vengeance too. I could feel it brewing this afternoon, but when it let go, it really did let go and we had a terrific thunderstorm and downpour. I was soaked going out to Caliburn to make my tea, but my tea really was nice. I had pasta, mixed veg and lentils, all mixed up with some spicy tomato sauce. And that was followed by fruit salad and slices of spiced cake with soya vanilla dessert custard. Fit for a King.

And so now I think that I’ve done enough for today so I’ll have an early night. Tomorrow I’ll get on with tracking down some more accommodation.

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Wednesday 1st June 2016 – YES, 1st OF JUNE ALREADY …

… and here I am, stuck in here still. I was going to complain about missing all of the summer but, looking out of the windows and hearing all of the news from home, then maybe I’m better off here. And so I would be too, if it weren’t for the health issues and the monotonous food (which is still, nevertheless, &0 times better than in any other hospital that I’ve visited. Heaven help me if I had still been incarcerated in Riom where the food was the worst that I have ever tried to eat).

Last night I was on my own in my room (and don’t worry – it didn’t last) and I has possibly the best night’s sleep that I have had. I didn’t go to sleep early and I had to nip off for a ride on the porcelain horse at 05:00 but apart from that, I didn’t feel a thing until a nurse awoke me at 07:40 to take my blood pressure and temperature.

I’d been on my travels too – driving around the south of England somewhere around London. Someone asked me what I was doing for lodging so I explained that I was quite comfortable with everything that I had “in the back” – implying that I was in a lorry with a sleeper cab but in reality I was, as usual,camping out in the back of Caliburn. From here, a bunch of us decided to drive back north and (shock! horror!) I let someone else drive Caliburn (which as you all know, is something that would never ever happen) while I was dozing off in the back. But I was awoken by the sound of the driver over-revving the engine and that annoyed me so I told him to take it easy. and then we turned off the A5 somewhere round about Dunstable to go to pick up something that ha had bought on eBay. Where we went to was some housing estate – all modern expensive flats in a kind of woodland-parkland surrounded by an old stone wall, a parkland that was actually the grounds of the local council offices which were in some kind of stately home. You could see where all of the 19th Century terraced houses were built and came to a dead stop at the stone wall.

I wasn’t given any breakfast this morning. Upon making enquiries I was told that nothing was allowed before my “visit”. That was apparently due at 11:30, so the doctor told me. And I made a big mistake when the doctor came round. She told me that I could go home this weekend but not being quite “with it” at that moment I told her that I had nowhere to go. Fool that I am, I should have said yes, gone anyway, done my shopping and then nipped down to Soissons to pick up my telephone. I wonder if it’s too late to change my mind.

It was 10:30 when they came to pick me up, and dressed in the new modern fashion – to wit, one surgical operating gown – off I trollied to the operating theatre, being pushed on my bed. And once down there, I had to wait for ever until someone came to deal with me. And while I was in the waiting area I could observe everyone entering and leaving the area and if I were to have a Pound for every person who thought that the exit door was automatic rather than manual, I’d be dictating this to a couple of floozies sitting on my knee, somewhere in the Bahamas.

I’m not going into detail about what happened in the operating theatre except to say that it was unspeakable and indescribable agony, but what was worse was that they strapped something like a huge stone to my back where they had made the incision, and I had to lie on it without moving for three hours. This, apparently, was to close up the incision.

And after three hours, believe me, that was even worse than the incision and I was feeling like hell, especially as seeing that I developed cramp in my left leg and couldn’t do anything at all about it. Believe me, when they finally unstrapped me, I was in paradise. At least the ecography that they gave me showed that I haven’t suffered damage due to what they did.

When I returned to my room, I found that I have a new room-mate. That’s a disappointment for sure. But still, I don’t suppose that it can be helped.

This was when I found myself in trouble too. Sitting up on the edge of my bed doing something or other, I was told that I was supposed to be lying down to give me intestines a chance to recover. No-one said anything at all about that to me.

and so I lay down – and promptly crashed out until about 22:00 when the most enormous thunderstorm awoke me. I didn’t realise that I was so tired, especially after such a good night’s sleep.

And my new room-mate snores. B@$t@rd!

And on a final note, I’ve been receiving many expressions of solidarity from well-wishers who have been reading this rubbish just recently. I’d like to thank you all for your comments – they mean quite a lot to me in this difficult time.

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Monday 23rd May 2016 – MY LIBERTY …

… didn’t last all that long, did it?

Here I am, back in the hospital, in a different ward, and here I’ll be staying, I imagine, until the cows come home. I’ve no idea.

And despite all of the money that I spent on some decent accommodation last night, I had something of a bad night. Having crashed out last night by 21:30, I was awake long before 03:00 and I don’t recall going back to sleep afterwards.

I had a visitor during the night too. A local farmer came to see me back at my place in France (it wasn’t my place in France, actually, but never mind). He complained that I’d been going too fast past his fields and he would appreciate it if I didn’t go so fast and that I didn’t take the short cut through the mountains. I didn’t recognise him so I asked him to show me which were his plots of land, and eventually he whipped out a map of the area, which turned out to be the Arran Peninsula in Scotland. After a good look, I could work out that there were parts of France marked on this map too but I was having difficulty trying to identify them. And while I was doing that, he was explaining that he was part of a committee that oversaw various rules and regulations and had the power to fine transgressors as much as three Euros for any breach thereof.

This morning it was lashing down with rain and there were traffic queues everywhere. Luckily the traffic going my way was moving steadily and I wasn’t delayed by much. In fact, I was at the hospital in the day centre by 09:15, 15 minutes before my appointment.

The place was crowded too and it took a while to be seen, but it wasn’t too long before I was stuffed into a side ward and given what looked like half a gallon of antibiotics. My blood count is down too (although this is no surprise) to 7.4 and so a transfusion is on the cards.

And what with one thing and another (and once you make a start, you’ve absolutely no idea how many other things there are) they’ve decided that rather than kick me out and call me back on Friday, they’ll be keeping me in. Still, focus on the positives – it means that I’m not having to pay any accommodation fees anywhere.

I had to wait ages, though, for a free bed and it wasn’t until 20:30 that I was wheeled upstairs. A different ward, as I said, and no-one speaks English here which is just as well for I need to stretch my Flemish.

I have a room-mate and he seems to be quite cheerful enough and, to my great delight, he doesn’t seem to snore. How I’ve longed for a room-mate like this.

So I’ll settle down for the night now and see how it goes, and I’ll give you all an update tomorrow. If ever I drop off to sleep, that is, because for some reason or other (possibly because I had something of a sleep during the afternoon) I’m not feeling in the least bit tired at the moment.

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