Tag Archives: caliburn

Tuesday 12th August 2014 – YET ANOTHER TOW JOB

This time, we used the A frame.

For a change, I was up early and went down to Pionsat to pick up Simon. Then we set off for Riom. I dunno if anyone else has had issues at the Ford garage there but they aren’t half miserable. They weren’t able to fix Simon’s Transit and instead of being embarrassed about it, I found them to be nothing but surly and uncooperative. I struck them off my list of local garages ages ago, and I reckon that Simon has done now.

It took ages for me to work out how to use the A frame – it’s been something like 15 years since I last used it, and of course Simon’s Transit is a big, heavy vehicle – right on the legal limit of 2.5 tonnes on the A frame.

Anyway, eventually we sorted it out and off we set for Montlucon. I would have been much happier with the trailer or even the towing dolly but Simon’s van is far to heavy for both of them and well over the gross weight for Caliburn.

It was quite an interesting drive to Montlucon. It’s all up mountain and down gorge and along canyon, not like anywhere normal, and of course Caliburn only has a small engine so we didn’t get up to anything faster than 70kph, and then not very often at all.

With the weight, going up the steep hill was a struggle but coming downhill was even more exciting, with Simon’s Transit threatening to overrun Caliburn in places.

Not only that, it’s a busy main road and we had to pull over every couple of miles to let everyone past. So it took hours to do the journey.

But anyway, we made it safely (after a fashion) to Montlucon, to find that Barratts, the Ford main agent, was closed for lunch. Luckily, they had left the gate open to the yrd so we could get in there and drop off the van. I had to reverse the whole train right across the carpark so as to put Simon’s van into a parking space, and much to my surprise, it went straight in. That was astonishing, considering that with the A frame pivoting in all directions and no driver in Simon’s van of course, it usually goes off anywhere excpet where you need it to go when you are reversing it all.

Simon bought lunch, for which I was grateful, and then we went back to the garage to negotiate. I know the service manager there and we soon sorted things out, and then we went back to Pionsat.

Simon made a coffee and then I came home and made tea – another aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit.

I’m glad that it all went okay – I was having all kinds of ideas running aeound my head about the million and one ways that this could all go pear-shaped. Still, it’s all in a day’s work, isn’t it?

Tuesday 8th July 2014 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

And I had a restless night too. I can’t remember where I was or what I was doing but it was certainly something quite active and I was quite worn out when I woke up.

So after breakfast I cracked on with the website until about midday, with an interruption from my solicitor in Belgium.

Downstairs I stripped down the water filters as nothing is getting through to the water tank. As I expected, the filters are all blocked up and so I cleaned them all out, fluhed them through and refitted them. Now they are working fine – I can tell you that because we’ve been having further rainstorms today.

I keep saying that I ought to adopt a regular programme of cleaning the filters – every four months or something – and that way they won’t block up. However I keep on forgetting to do it.

Next task was to reorganise the car parking. I’ve moved the Kubota and the Sankey Trailer over so that I can put Caliburn on the concrete. This is why I’ve done the concreting and it certainly does look better.

Talking of the concreting and parking the cars, this is something that I bought on my travels. I’ve been looking for an old-type portable air compressor for ages. In the old days farmers used to have air compressors with detachable air tanks so they can charge up the tanks and take them off down the fields to blow up tractor tyres and the like.

I’ve never found one, but in Belfort I found this. It has just an 8-litre tank and runs off a 270-watt motor which, as you know, is perfect for my low-wattage electrical system. It’s light enough to carry around as well.

I changed over the plug to a British plug (I use British plugs and sockets here as the plugs are fused) and gave it a try. It charged the tank in seconds and inflated the wheelbarrow tyre in an instant. I’m well-impressed with this if it keeps this up.

I also changed the plug on the 500-watt vacuum cleaner that I bought the other week and tried that out. That works fine too.

I’ve been tidying up in the barn too, and then I set to to pull down the ivay and rip out the weeds and brambles and so on from the back of the house so that I can fit the scaffolding and get up there to do the guttering. I’m hoping to have the scaffolding up this week so that I can crack on with that.

-3

Friday 4th July 2014 – WOW

I have never seen rain quite like this. Diving into Lausanne at about 18:30 this evening the sky went the blackest that I have ever seen it. A high wind sprung up out of nowhere and the next minute we got the lot. You haven’t seen anything like this rain because I know that I haven’t.

It was impossible to see more than about 5 yards in front of your face with the rain teeming down and bouncing off the road and every time I put my foot on the brake about 50 litres of water cascaded off Caliburn’s roof down across the windscreen. At least he enjoyed it – he’s not been as clean as this for quite a long time.

The rain was so bad that it was not possible to see any hotels (if there were any at the side of the road) until I reached Geneva and the first hotel that I tried (CHF120) made me give up and I’m now in a layby at Valleiry, somewhere between Annemasse and Bourg-en-Bresse.

I’ll be sleeping in the van tonight again and this has taken some effort to arrange as across the road from my motel last night is the Zurich IKEA and there was a sale on. You’ll have to wait until I unpack before you see what I bought but I spent CHF179:00 there. That’s not including the breakfast that I had there either. For CHF3:50 I had two bread rolls, some jam, some juice and some coffee.

But a word of warning about IKEA in Zurich. You have to pay for the parking, even if you have just spent a fortune in there. That’s something of a rip-off if you ask me.

So that was my morning gone and then I headed off for the border via Luzern, Bern and Lausanne. And a torrential rainstorm. And wih a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, I might even be home tomorrow night.

-5

Tuesday 1st July 2014 – THERE’S ONE THING ABOUT MOUNTAIN AIR …

… and that I was out like a light at 22:00. Didn’t feel a thing at all. And I slept until about 06:30. And I was busy too during the night. I can’t remember where I was (it might have been Electricity Street in Crewe) but I was working for some organisation that was doing something with the public and while our office still stayed in the same place, our job of interacting with the public meant that we had to go to the local shopping precinct that was 25 minutes away on a tram.

We needed a girl to come with us and we asked one of them but she was proving to be difficult. She said that she couldn’t possibly be ready for a 09:00 start as she didn’t arrive at the office until 08:30. I explained about the 25 minute tram ride and how not only were your travelling expenses reimbursed but so was your travelling time, but she was still being difficult about it.

So wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I went down to breakfast. And on leaving I was presented with the bill for my evening meal, room and breakfast.

For my three-star hotel etc, it came to a total of €60 and so I’ll be stopping here again, that’s for sure. I don’t think that I’ve ever before slept in such comfort at such a price, and made so welcome too.

Leaving the hotel, I set out to assail the Stelvio Pass, all 2700-odd metres of it. I’ve never been up it before and so I didn’t know what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed.

From Trafoi the road zig-zagged up to the summit via a series of hairpin bends. I don’t know how many there were, but I lost count at about 47 and there were still plenty to go.

The road itself dates from just after the Napoleonic War when Austria had possession of some territory south of the Pass and needed a road to connect with it. Although there have been many improvements to the road since those days, the actual trace of the road is still the same and that’s something that is quite astonishing.

Mind you, it’s not easy to see how else they could do it.

No vehicle longer than 10 metres is permitted on the road and I can’t say that I’m surprised.

This bus here was having quite a struggle upthe hill, not just against the hairpin bends but also against the traffic coming down the hill that, for the most part, refused to give the driver the room to manoeuvre.

There was plenty of snow at the top of the pass and again, I’m not surprised by that either. We’re at 2700-odd metres of altitude here as I said before, and you may remember that it was snowing in the Tyrol the day before yesterday at half of this altitude.

As an aside, this was once the border between Italy and the Austrian Empire after the reunification of Italy in the 1860s and in World War I there was actually fighting up here at the pass.

Still, Caliburn enjoyed a good wander around in the snow.It’s been a good few weeks since he’s been in it. But who would have expected to have seen him up to his axles in snow on the 1st of July?

Down the hill from the Stelvio Pass there’s a fork in the road and turning right, I’m in Switzerland. Much to my surprise, there’s no border controls here (Switzerland isn’t, of course, in the EU). I suppose they think that if you’ve made the climb all the way up the Stelvio then you deserve the right of entry.

It’s all downhill from here until you need to climb up and over the Fluela Pass to Davos and Klosters. And so what am I doing in a train then? It looks like the Channel Tunnel train but I’m a long way from there.

The simple answer to this is that the Fluela is a pretty desperate road. It takes about 60 or so kilometres and no end of climbing and descending through a series of hairpin bends. However, there’s a 19-kilometre rail tunnel where, for a not-insignificant price, you can make the journey for about a tenth of the time.

It’s a straight road from there to Liechstenstein and the drive there was much easier than finding a hotel. The first hotel that I tried wanted CHF199 for a night and they can forget that. Then there was a whole series of hotels that were closed. Then we had one that was full (no surprise, that) and he referred me to another two – both of which were closed.

I gave up on the idea of staying for a night in Leichtenstein and headed for the Swiss border. And there, just on the Liechtenstein side of the border I found a hotel. Quite basic but B&B is only CHF70 per night.

And so I’m staying here maybe two nights and tomorrow I’ll go for a bus ride into Vaduz. There’s a bus depot right across the road from here.

Sunday 29th June 2014 – YOU CAN’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES, CAN YOU?

I thought you wouldn’t. But that is indeed snow up there in the background. Here on the 29th June, the temperature has dropped to 3.3°C and there is snow in the rain here but up in the mountain pass that I’ve just driven through, it really is snowing.

So where am I then? I’m actually in a village called Lech which is high in the Austrian Tyrol way above the Arlberg Pass between Innsbuck and Bregenz on the Swiss border. Nerina and I visited here on our honeymoon in October 1988 and made a vow that one day we would come and stay here. Of course things have moved on a great deal since those days, but here I am all the same. At least I have made it here.

And here is a guest-house that charges just €25 for bed and breakfast and while it isn’t 5-star luxury, I’ve never had value for money quite like this. I also found a decent Italian restaurant here that cooked me a special meal. I spent the evening there talking Italian to the staff there and it’s amazing how much came back.

This has made me make a decision that for all of the languages that I can speak in a marginal kind of way, I’m going to spend some time in each country at least once per year. I’m not sure how this will work for my Russian, but we’ll see.

This photo is interesting too. This is Sankt Christophe, the highest point in the Arlberg Pass. I have a photo that I took here when Nerina and I passed by. It featured the old Cortina estate that we had – OCC 883S and a hanging cloud that had chased us all the way up the pass billowing over the crest. This photo features Caliburn of course, and it would have featured Strawberry Moose too except that it was absolutely p155ing down and snowing, and His Nibs didn’t fancy getting wet.

And I can’t say I blame him either. This is what it looked like on the Motorway between Innsbruck and Bregenz. Totally dreadful as you can see and I was driving with the rear foglights on. It was the only way to be seen through the spray coming off the road. The hanging clouds wedged up against the mountains look impressive too.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take an excellent photograph? He should be proud of his skills.

This is the weather that we have been having all day. It was raining when I left bei Hanzi this morning and gradually degenerated as I drove down the B11 towards the Austrian frontier. Once in the Alps we got the lot and that was that.

So I’m going to have an early night and hope for better things tomorrow.

-3

Thursday 26th June 2014 – IN WHICH OUR HERO FINDS A BEACH

No idea where I was last night. It was a big town somewhere in the UK and it seems that Esther who formerly ran a motel near where I live had separated from her husband and she started making up to me. I was playing right along because of course my real interest lay elsewhere. Nevertheless we were becoming really close and Esther, doing the holiday rota for this shop where she worked (and which my brother had some kind of connection) put me down for the last two weeks in July – the same holiday period as hers – and that cocked up all of my plans to go to Canada as usual in September.

So here I am, awake in my spec near Dole last night and, like most of my specs at the side of the main road, by the time that I wake up at 08:30 it’s totally deserted, despite the fact that when I came here last night it was heaving with lorries.

And as for this foam-rubber chair bed thing, I’ve slept on many worse things than this, that I’ll tell you. And while I’m sitting up here typing some notes, a roach coach pulls up. It’s just like in the UK.

so back on the road and as you might expect, about 5 minutes further on from where I parked, there’s a beautiful kind of lake with a parking area around it. That would have made a lovely place to have spent the night, if only I had pressed on a little.

Half a mile further on down the road I cross over into the département of the Jura, in the region of the Franche Comté. First village that I come to is called Chemin and this is well worth a stop, and for two reasons too.

I was going to say that there were two things to see here, but you will have to look hard to see them and I wonder how many people have missed them.

If you notice the grey pole just there underneath that tree, that is in fact the pole for a speed camera, would you believe, and the camera itself is well-hidden in the trees so that you can’t actually see it.

“Never you mind” I hear you say. “There is bound to be a warning sign somewhere in the vicinity”. And there is too, but you would never have guessed it because that too is hidden in the trees as you can (or can’t) see.

Quite frankly, I reckon that this is totally dishonest. There’s no point in having them if they are going to hide them in the trees like this if you ask me.

I’ve also been eating a little humble pie too today. I stopped to do some shopping at the LeClerc at Belfort and found to my dismay that when I was going on several weeks ago about the cost of a gas bottle for my camping stove being over €50, I … errr … was clearly not quite on the ball. That’s the cost for the bottle too, and an exchange refill is just €18:00. D’ohhhh. Anyway now I have some camping gas and I can cook.

I’ve also bought a new toy. I mentioned to Rob a couple of days ago that I was looking for a portable air compressor. In the old days you could buy compressors where you could detatch the tank and take it down the fields with the air line and inflate the wheel of your tractor. I haven’t seen one for years, but here in the LeClerc at Belfort they had a portable air compressor with a 6-litre tank and it’s all portable – you can carry the lot off down the field if you need to. And it runs off just 270 watts too so I can even charge it up on the inverter in Caliburn.

It took me ages to drive through Freiburg in Germany – there were enormous queues all over the motorway and the city was covered in roadworks too. Still, I made it through the town and over the mountains. Now I’m sitting here at Meersburg on the shores of the Bodensee looking across to Switzerland.

Tomorrow I’ll make my way on to Munich.

-2

Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Ohh yes – I’m in a parking space on the side of the road near Dole, 250 or so kms from home, busily making a list of things that I have forgotten to bring with me, such as all of the fresh fruit and the soya desserts in the fridge. The soya desserts will be out of date by the time I return, but seeing as how I’ve closed all of the windows in the attic (in the middle of summer) I shudder to think of what the fresh fruit will be like by the time that I return home.

So with the customary couple of hours on the computer, after lunch I emptied a ton of cememnt out of the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brush out. He’s still not very clean inside and so I laid some sheets of OSB and plywood on the floor – at least that is clean and so should keep me clean.

I then loaded him up and I brought the gas cooker even though I have no gas – I’ll try to find some en route as I travel around. For the bed, I’ve brought a foam-rubber folding chair thing that Marianne gave me a few years ago when she was cleaning out her cellar. I’ll have to see what that is like one day, so why not now? Roxanne had one in her room for when she had friends for sleepovers and no-one ever complained. Mind you, I can’t for the life of me remember how or why I forgot about the folding bed thing that I bought ages ago.

I’ve also disconnected the dump load. The cables are still running too hot for my liking and here in Midsummer and I’m not there, better to be safer than sorry. I really ought to fix this properly one of these days.

I’ve sorted out some clothes and some food (except the fresh fruit and the soya desserts) and drink, made myself a flask of hot coffee, put the Gibson, the Roland amp, the Carlsbro amp, microphone and stand into the van and then hit the road.

I played tag with a woman in a silver-grey Peugeot 206 estate all the way from Montmarault to about 20kms short of Montceau-les-Mines, and stopped at Montceau for tea. I found a Turkish kebab place that made me a gorgeous Oriental salad and chips, with bottled water, all for a very democratic €8:00 and we spent most of our time chatting about our experiences living in a foreign country.

So back on the road in the dusk and here I am

-2

Thursday 19th June 2014 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY

I mentioned yesterday that I had to go to Montlucon today for some more grillage for the concrete that’s coming tomorrow.

As it happened, Rosemary rang up and so it came to pass that we met up this morning at the Texaco garage outside Montaigut and she came with me to Montlucon.

We didn’t spend too long in Brico Depot but I bought the grillage, some more pylons, a few other bits and pieces and so on. I now have everything that I need for tomorrow, especially as Terry has remembered to put the bolt cutters into his van.

Rosemary and I then went to the garden centre and a few more shops before lunch and then afterwards, with the weather being so nice we went for a walk around the lake at Premilhat, stopping for a cold drink half-way round.

We came back via the Gorge de la Cher and, strange as it is to say it, at the tinky village of St Therence, miles of the beaten track and far from anywhere, there was a barrage. Half a dozen gendarmes, a dog handler and a dog were stopping all of the traffic, namely about one vehicle and four cows per hour. I don’t mind these at all, especially these days as Caliburn and I are all totally legal, but it’s still totally bewildering as to why they should have a barrage in such an out-of-the-way place.

Back home, I finished off the shuttering and backfilled with soil and stones ready to lay the grillage. But what a weird place to have a barrage.

-3

Friday 13th June 2014 – WHAT A WAY TO START THE DAY.

Yes, I woke up this morning at 07:30 and peered out of the window at the top of the stairs to see what the weather was like.

Here we have a good example of one of our typical Auvergnat weather phenomena. Here’s a hanging cloud coming drifting up the valley in this direction.

And in mid-June tpp. The weather is completely bizarre right now.

After breakfast I went off to pick up Rob and we set off to Montlucon to rescue his car. It was at the Renault garage near the centre and it was quite tight to negotiate with the trailer and the narrow streets and the tight turning into the yard of the garage.

And when we had the Chrysler on the trailer I noticed that we had a tyre right down but luckily there was an airline handy so I put some air in all of them. And then we set off.

The drive back to Pionsat was uneventful and we reached our destination with no trouble and dropped the car off. But this trailer tows nicely and I’m quite pleased with it. Then I took Rob home where Julie made coffee and gave me some vegetable plants

This afternoon I caught up with some work and then went out for an hour or so in the garden, weeding the cloche planting Julie’s plants and the tomatoes that I bought the other day.

So tomorrw I’m back in Montlucon buying the cement and some more pillar blocks for the concrete.

-3

Tuesday 27th May 2014 – 43.5 MILLIMETRES …

… of rain – that’s what we had yesterday. It’s totally unbelievable and must be a new record for here. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Anyway, this morning it stopped for a while and we even had some blue sky. And so Terry rang me up. His Jeep needs to go for a Controle Technique sometime soon but the rear brakes weren’t up to much – could I go for a look at it.

That reminded me. Caliburn’s Controle Technique is up too and so I passed by the place at St Gervais to book an appointment. As it happened, he was in the middle of two retests and so that gave him 5 minutes free and as Caliburn’s check was the “odd year” emissions only check, he did it then and there. Of course, Cailburn passed and so he is all nice and legal again.

Round at Terry’s, I stripped down the rear of the Jeep and it didn’t take long to find the problem. The handbrake shoes were worn down to the rivets and a disc pad had disintegrated. All of that meant that the rear drums and discs were totally shot and so we needed to order all of it.

It was interesting to note that the brake shoe retaining clips were missing in the rear offside drum, and that the brake pads on the front were almost new. What I reckoned is that the previous owner had noticed the brake issues, fixed the front and then taken one look at the rear and given up in disgust, thrown it back together any old how and then sold it quickly.

Jeep spare parts are shockingly expensive if you don’t know where to go for the parts. To give you some idea (and I can’t remember the exact prices but it’ll give you a clue) we needed left-hand headlights for it. In the UK a set was £300. In France, they were about €350. In the USA they were 70 – not Pounds or Euros, but dollars, plus £30 postage.

Terry was also having problems with the handbrake of his van. I had a look at that too and that didn’t take 30 seconds to see the problem either. A weeping rear cylinder has soaked the nearside brake shoes. We ordered a pair of new cylinders and a pair of brake shoes for that.

That means that in another week or 10 days I’ll be round there again dealing with all of that.

So let’s see what tomorrow’s weather brings. Because if it clears up any and stays fine, Terry will be round here repaying the favour. I have a cunning plan.

-3

Tuesday 13th May 2014 – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

… "da dah, da da dah" – ed … to find myself abandoned once again by my companions of the night. And there were quite a few of us too at one time.

Mind you, I’d had plenty of companions during the night. I had to meet a friend of mine at the new airport in North-West England, called Skipton although God knows why as it’s miles away from Skipton and much closer to other places, and I didn’t know if he was coming or going, if you know what I mean, so I had to watch both terminals. I ended up talking to someone who was telling me about this most circuitous route he was having to take to go to Frankfurt and it wasn’t until after he left that I realised that he was in fact an airline pilot.

A group of us stopped off at a pub that I knew to do something and then set off back to the airport and on the way back I noticed that the whole bus was littered with frozen food all thawing. It seems that an airline stewardess coming back from Spain had been disciplined for something and so to revenge herself she had emptied all of the frozen food cabinets. I said that it was a pity that no-one had said when we were at the pub because they had a huge frozen food chamber and it could all have gone in that.

Bak at the airport I wondered if I had time to go and sit on the beach (Skipton is a wild place) before my flight and so I telephoned the hotel, that had all the details of flights, but some Australian woman answered the phone, answered me in the rudest of terms and then hung up. So I stormed off to the hotel to register a complaint.

Back in the land of the living (or, at least, the undead), I’ve been wandering around Burgundian towns and villages today – ones through which I have often hurried and never stopped.

We had St Florentin perched on its lofty bluff overlooking the valley in which the road between Auxerre and Troyes has run since long before Roman times. This has been a very rich town at one time as you might expect – on the border between the land of the Dukes of Burgundy and the Counts of Champagne and all of the tribute and tolls that must have flowed through here.

There’s evidence of a great deal of wealth in the past but today the old part of the town is semi-derelict

Pontigny is another place I visited. That is famous for its Cistercian Abbey which is remarkably intact despite the best efforts of the Wars of Religion and the Revolutionary Terror.

Its major claim to fame is that it was the refuge of Thomas A’Beckett and Stephen Langton after they fled into exile having upset the king. Another Archbishop of Canterbury, St Edmund, who served between 1233 and 1240, he is buried here after having died nearby on his way to the Vatican to see the Pope

I was disappointed with Auxerre, despite all of my hopes of the place and despite how nice it looks from across the river.

But then again, it’s probably a very bad idea to come and see anything or anywhere while Troyes is still running around inside my head. Troyes was certainly one of the most beautiful and interesting places that I have ever visited in recent times.

Auxerre does have a lot going for it of course – its river, its churches and abbeys, the vestiges of its walls and its famous clock dating from 1484, but the integration between modern and historical isn’t anything like as well-done as Troyes, and many of the narrow Medieval alleys have been swept away and for no good reason too if you ask me.

And to prove that my stories about fires ravaging the whole of Quebec are… well, not exaggerated but, shall we say, over-emphasised, Auxerre has had its share of fires too. 900, 950, 1023, 1825, to name just 4.

There are some little gems too along the road. One such is the town of Coulanges sur Yonne. This is another place that has been by-passed by the modern road so travellers don’t get to visit it but for a little place of some few hundred inhabitants, it’s gorgeous and you can imagine what many modern cities of today must have looked like 1000 years ago simply by walking around here.

A word has to be said too about its setting. Here at the foot of a steep valley alongside the River Yonne with the high hills and plateau in the background, no wonder it has been left behind in the mists of time.

But anyway, it’s late – later than I was hoping but I needed to push on or otherwise I won’t ever get here. Now I’m off to find some food – at Clamecy more likely – as I have no gas and I’m not paying … … €54:00 to fill up one of my little gas bottles – it’s cheaper to eat out for the last couple of days.

-1

Thursday 8th May 2014 – I HAD THE BEST …

… night’s sleep that I have ever had in Caliburn, to be sure. I was late dozing off – round about midnight I reckon, but I remember nothing else until the alarm went off at 07:30. Even the morning’s heavy traffic didn’t wake me up. I’ll remember this spec – down at Boisfort on the road out towards the motorway and tucked behind a hedge on the road at the side – for another time.

So once I was organised, I went to park Caliburn on the hypermarket car park and I was off on the Metro once I found the entrance to the station.

First stop was the Troc. All of Marianne’s possessions have been sold, so it seems, and her account cleared. Similar news at the Bank too – the notaire has done the necessary there.

One of the things that I needed to do was to make my annual report to Marianne and check on her grave now that her gravestone has been installed.

The gravestone contains several errors that need to be corrected and so I’ll have to get on to that pretty smart-ish. But at least an all-over stone means that no work is required to maintain her grave. That was always going to be my biggest headache.

Anyway, it’s hard to believe that a year has gone past since she went to meet her maker, and I hope that she is happy wherever she might be.

After that, I turned my attention to happier things and WHA…HEY! I’ve booked my annual journey to Canada. Leaving 28 August and returning 8th October (actually 9th October as it’s a night flight). And with booking so far in advance and not travelling at a weekend the flight works out even cheaper than my previous two flights there, which is excellent news. Just €580 including taxes (which are more than the base price of the flight, would you believe?)

That’s not the best of it either. Had I wanted to go via Air Transat it would have cost me €50 less, if that were possible, but I’m flying Air Canada – a flagship airline too at that price – direct on the outbound flight and via Brussels on the return. I’m quite pleased with that deal, as you might guess, and I’m pleased that Connections, my travel agents, came up with the goods.

I’ve booked 4 nights at that hotel at the Cote de Liesse on the edge of Montreal where I stayed last year. That gives me plenty of opportunity to continue my exploration of the city so I need to make a list of things that I would like to see. I need to focus myself much more positively this year.

I’ve booked another big Dodge too and I do hope that I get one – I’ve heard a nasty rumour that Avis are planning to change over to Fords and the Ford Flex isn’t half as versatile as a Grand Caravan. That was a good deal too, better than last year.

The plan is to explore Montreal, then do the Richelieu Valley in the reverse direction (I hope that they have good mirrors on the car) then go to the Maine State Fair and tractor pull at Clinton. From there to the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival at Fredericton and then I’ll be off to Cape Breton, Newfoundland and then back to Labrador ro complete my visit of Highway 138 and then retrace my steps along the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Such is the plan but as we all know, “the best-laid plans of mice and men” etc etc.

One final task before I leave Brussels. They’ve fitted new brake shoes at the rear of Caliburn but I clearly interrupted them when I arrived to pick him up yesterday, for they had of course slackened off the handbrake cable to remove the brake pads but in the confusion they forgot to tighten it up so I had no rear brakes and no handbrake to speak of when I left the garage.

Now we are all happy again.

Leaving Brussels in a rainstorm, with traffic queues and roadworks all the way beyond Charleroi and I’m now in a lay-by with a couple of lorries in the foothills of the Ardennes near Couvin. Still not out of Belgium, but as my adventure starts at the frontier just up the road, I don’t want to do it in the rain and the gloom of the evening. Who knows? It might brighten up in the morning.

But I won’t have the sleep that I had last night anyway – the rain is bouncing off Caliburn’s roof and it sounds like a drum in the back.

-2

Wednesday 7th May 2014 – I MUST HAVE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP …

… despie the howling gale that was blowing in around the badly-fitted double glazing units.

During the night, I was back in the UK (well, it’s not all that far from here and you don’t need a ferry for your nocturnal perambulations anyway) with the long-suffering Nerina and I couldn’t take her somewhere on the following day (a Monday) as I’d promised Maria, a Greek girl with whom I was quite friendly when I worked at the EU, that I would do something for her at some place that she had told me and which I knew, but which has now gone out of my head once I woke up.

Nerina wanted to know what it was, and I thought that it was a motorway service area and so probably I had to pick her up off a coach or something. Anyway, our phone wasn’t working properly – when people called us, the phone didn’t ring – so one of us had to stay by the phone (nothing in your dreams is logical, is it?) and I had promised to take Zero to the adventure circus on the Sunday night, so poor Nerina drew the short straw, again.

I took Zero to the circus and right at the end they opened the mudbath for the children. After a couple of minutes of vacillation, one girl leapt in fully clothed, up to her knees, and once she was in, all the others followed suit.

I was then interrupted by another friend, someone from waaayyyyyy back, asking me why I hadn’t done the shopping, to which I replied that I was booked up until Tuesday morning, and what did he need that we didn’t have? He replied “well, wine, of course” – something that brought a smile to my face.

Meanwhile I had lost sight of my charge and had to chase around looking for her and eventually I found her all cold wet and muddy, wrapped in a big fluffy white towel. I had to wash her and shower her off to get her nice, warm and clean again.

So despite all of the excitement of the night, I was once more awake before the alarm went off so I managed to have a good hour or so on the computer before breakfast. Downstairs at breakfast though, I was joined by a coach-load of British tourists and I had forgotten how much I hate the “little England” provincial attitude of the aforementioned, even if it was my bread-and-butter for 13 years in the late 70s, 80s and 90s. I’m glad I don’t have to mix with them today.

Still, never mind. The Hotel New Astoria didn’t let me down. The bed and breakfast that I had for €45 plus local taxes has to be the best deal that I have had on my travels these last few years, despite the company.

Having dealt with the issues of breakfast etc I went for a wander around. I’d seen some kind of ship working just offshore last night in the doom and gloom and lo! and behold – here she was again. Quite an old ship by the looks of things and probably a dredger too, she’s called the Pinta.

Presumably named after one of the three ships – the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and not after an old Milk Marketing Board advert. And anyway, she looked as if she was old enough to have accompanied Columbus on his travels

On my way back to the station area I found, much to my surprise, a free ferry that crosses the harbour to the other side. I’ve not noticed that before and I wonder why not because I’ve been to Oostende dozens, if not hundreds of times.

As you know with ferries because I’ve told you before, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross, especially if it’s free, and so here I am sailing, or rather, dieseling, across the harbour. No sense in missing out, is there?

The other side of the harbour is also somewhere else that I’ve never visited and, once more, I can’t think for the life of me whyever not.

It’s quite historic over here and all kinds of things are happening, or are on display, or are simply “there”. Like this old barque called, incidentally, the Oostende moored here at the foot of the lighthouse. There has to be a story about this kind of ship and I wonder what it might be.

And, more to the point, why it isn’t moored up with the Mercator, another historic survivor fro the days of sail.

You don’t need me to tell you the story about all of this, do you?

Oostende was one of the more important ports along the coast facing the UK and the Germans had something of a fragile hold here. The ports along the coast, Oostende and Zeebrugge, had been raided in force in World War I and the unsuccessful landing at Dieppe in 1942 showed that the Allies had not forgotten the importance of these ports in World War II.

The Germans thus fortified them as part of the Atlantic Wall defences that I showed you a couple of years ago, and the fortifications still remain.

From this side of the harbour I managed a closer look at Larkspur.

There was no-one around who really knew what was going on with her – I asked a couple of people and they each gave totally different answers – but there was a couple of people in industrial safety clothing on the deck and I noticed a few rubbish skips present at the scene.

From my untutored eye it looked like they were gutting the ship of anything that was of high value in preparation for sending what remains of her to Turkey or India where she will doubtless be turned into a couple of thousand baked bean tins.

What a sad end.

After a marathon hike around the docks (because it is) I made it to the station for the 14:45 train and that had me back in Brussels by 16:00. I picked up Caliburn, did a few bits of shopping, had an excellent falafel supper at that place near Marianne’s and now I’ll be settling down for the night.

I hope.

-2

Tuesday 6th May – I’M GLAD I WENT TO BED EARLY LAST NIGHT …

… because at about 02:00 the refrigeration unit of the lorry parked across from me suddenly sprung into action.

And it was rattling away for about half an hour and just when I thought tht it ould never stop and I was thinking about giving it up and moving on, it cut out as dramatically as it had started and we all managed to go back to sleep.

And no harm done either as I was awake long before the alarm went off too and I even had time to make myself a coffee. No hot water in the Gentlemen’s rest rooms so that ruled out the possibility of a good wash and shave.

There’s no ticket machine at the terminus at Berchem St Agathe and the bus driver wouldn’t change €20 so I ended up at the railway station with a 40 minute wait for a train to the Centre. Fird train that passed was the train that I used to take to go to work when I worked at Boisfort. I was debating whether to take it and do my business around Schuman first, and I wish that I had now because my train was cancelled and I ended up with over an hour to wait. It’s just like a third-world country here.

Anyway I hopped onto the next train going to Schuman and started from there, albeit an hour later than planned.

I dealt with the stuff that needed doing in the city centre and then caught the train back to Caliburn, and doesn’t the rolling stock look modern compared to the relics of the 40s and 50s that they still had here when I used to go to work?

There’s a fritkot right by the station at Berchem and the smell was overpowering. And it was lunchtime too and so I fell by the wayside.

Caliburn is now in the garage having his check-up and I set off to the station. I’m having a night out and so I’m going to the seaside – and why not? It must be all of 2 months since I’ve seen the sea, and it’s not all that expensive on the SNCB, certainly when compared to railways in the UK.

I wouldn’t have made it here to Oostende and back on the amount of diesel that the railfare would have bought me

I’ve found a cheap hotel, the Hotel New Astoria, for the night and I really did forget just how tacky these package holiday resort hotels can be, even down to the organist in the lounge at night. This brings back a few memories I can assure you.

As for value for money, no complaints here at all. I’m quite happy from that point of view.

Down the the docks to see what’s happening and first port … "ahem" – ed … of call has to be the old Larkspur, now apparently known as Lark.

Built in 1976 (so I’m surprised that they didn’t change her name to Ark), which is well past her sell-by date according to EU legislation, she was formerly pride of a couple of ferry fleets, especially the Sally Line with whom she sailed for years as Sally Sky and then Eurotraveller.

She ended her days as the flagship of Trans-European Ferries, who inherited, at several removes, the old National Belgian shipping line that ran between Oostende and Dover. Without the financial backing of the Belgian government, which struggled even so to keep the line running, no-one made a success of the line and TEF was the final fling, having worked some kind of deal with the town of Ramsgate about running into the harbour there.

Now she’s sitting here rusting away while her future is debated.

You have probably seen Larkspur’s sister. A video of her being run aground full steam ahead on a beach in Turkey to be broken was posted on the internet a few months ago and did the tour of the world in seconds flat.

But it’s sad to see her, or any ship for that matter, end her days as a rusting hulk.

She wasn’t the only ship in the harbour either. There were a couple of cruise ships moored here too.

One of them was totally inaccessible but the other one, the Delphin out of Nassau, was moored up next to Larkspur which must have been a different kind of experience for the holidaymakers.

Or maybe it isn’t, for the Delphin is even older than the Larkspur, being built in 1975 and her claim to fame is that she was refloated after sinking in Singapore harbour in 1992 and subsequently undegoing a full refit.

The Delphin was also apparently a former a car ferry – or at least, that’s the impression that I gained after learning that her refit included "welding closed the opening bow doors". She was formerly based at Odessa in the Soviet Union and owned by the Black Sea Shipping Company.

Since then she has passed through many hands, several of them ending in bankruptcy.

There was something of a crowd on the jetty opposite the Delphin and on making enquiries I was told that she was just about to depart. And even as we were speaking, a tug sidled up alongside and a line was heaved aboard.

One the line had been secured, the Delphin cast off from the quayside and with a little "slow astern" and probably some "left hand down a bit" too and "full speed ahead" from the tug, the Delphin slid away from the quayside and executed a beautiful 180° turn in the harbour.

Poetry in motion, you might say.

Now that she was pointing in the correct direction, it was "full steam ahead" and she set off into the setting sun with her full load of passengers – next port of call Ijmuiden in the Netherlands.

I set off too in search of food and ended up with the worst, and probably the most expensive, falafel supper that I have ever had the misfortune to eat. That was a real disappointment after the excellent falafel suppers that I have had in Brussels.

Anyway, that was enough excitement for me. Back to the hotel where I discovered that I had forgotten to bring with me my USB key with my collection of feature films downloaded from http://www.archive.org.

Never mind – I had an early night instead.

-1

Monday 5th May 2014 – I KNEW THAT IT WAS A MISTAKE …

… to have that final cup of coffee. Despite being nice and comfortable in my little bed – no complaints there of course – I couldn’t get off to sleep and I was watching dawn break through the windscreen at one moment. I think that the best sleep that I had was the hour or so after the alarm went off, to be honest.

Mind you, no complaints about the choice of service area either. This was quite quiet and isolated and with the “usual offices” close to hand, which is always a bonus.

The coffee was still warm in the flask as well and so that saved on brewing up too.

Once that was organised, I could hit the road, but not before laughing at some Parisian’s idea of parking. Why take up one place when you can take up four? No wonder that all of the other French people that I know don’t have a very high opinion of Parisians.

The journey to Brussels was quite uneventful but I realised that I would be too late to do what I needed to do as I wouldn’t be there before lunchtime, so I hit the shops at Waterloo. And Media Markt was having a sale so I stocked up on a pile of DVDs. There’s enough there to keep me out of mischief.

In Brussels, Caliburn’s annual check-up is fixed for Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning and so I need to find something to do for Tuesday night. And I have a cunning plan too! Just wait an see!

A visit to IKEA is always compulsory espcially as I have a few little things to buy, and I finally found a sofa that is what I want for the house, whenever that it might be that I’m ready for it. But I’m not holding my breath, as you can imagine;

However I saw the funny side of something that happened in IKEA and when I find my micro-SD card converter I’ll show you a photo of it.

After having had multi-level marketing

on an Air Transat flight last year, we now have staggered opening times for different nationalities. This must be something of a first in the Developed World, although of course it is Belgium and anything can happen here.

As indeed it did. Half an hour after typing these words I had a run-in with the Belgian police – yet again. And it wasn’t as if I was doing anything either. I was quietly parked up at the side of the road reading a book. Either Caliburn or Yours Truly is well-known to the Belgian police, I reckon. But then again I recognised one of the policemen – he was one of the two with whom I’d had a “frank exchange of views” last year, so he was probably getting his own back.

God how I hate this country.

Anyway, If that’s not enough excitement for the day, while I was parked up at the motorway service area outside the town (and outside the jurisdiction of the poilce of Bruxelles-Capitale, I ended up repairing some young guy’s car that had broken down and later I witnessed a collision between two lorries on the car park.

It really IS all happening here.

-3

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: caliburn

Tuesday 12th August 2014 – YET ANOTHER TOW JOB

Tuesday 8th July 2014 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

Friday 4th July 2014 – WOW

Tuesday 1st July 2014 – THERE’S ONE THING ABOUT MOUNTAIN AIR …

Sunday 29th June 2014 – YOU CAN’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES, CAN YOU?

Thursday 26th June 2014 – IN WHICH OUR HERO FINDS A BEACH

Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Thursday 19th June 2014 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY

Friday 13th June 2014 – WHAT A WAY TO START THE DAY.

Tuesday 27th May 2014 – 43.5 MILLIMETRES …

Tuesday 13th May 2014 – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

Thursday 8th May 2014 – I HAD THE BEST …

Wednesday 7th May 2014 – I MUST HAVE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP …

Tuesday 6th May – I’M GLAD I WENT TO BED EARLY LAST NIGHT …

Monday 5th May 2014 – I KNEW THAT IT WAS A MISTAKE …

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring