Tag Archives: belgium

Friday 25th November 2016 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… and about this afternoon. But only for a short while because CS Sedan-Ardennes are playing away tonight at Boulogne. And if I had thought on a little earlier, I ought to have enquired to see if there might have been a supporters’ bus going out for the match, and blagged my way on board. It would have been a good day out too.

I’ll have to look into this idea whenever I get back to Leuven, if I ever do.

Despite being tired last night, I found it really difficult to go off to sleep. I just couldn’t make myself comfortable and I’ve no idea why.

But once I was asleep, I was well away and remember nothing – not even anything about a nocturnal ramble of any type – during the night. And I didn’t feel too bad either once I awoke, which makes a change.

Second downstairs for breakfast (before the staff yet again) and first away from the table, and then I attacked my website and the pages on the Coasts of Labrador. And they are all taking shape now.

They have had some serious editing too in places because they were starting to become rather untidy. I must have them being not only interesting, but in logical order too and not have them wandering around too much.

Once I’d organised that, I came down here and carried on with researching some more stuff. I ended up back on the ferries and found, to my surprise, that the MV Apollo, all 46 years of her, isn’t the oldest ferry in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. There’s a ferry, the MV Sound of Islay is even older, being launched in 1968. And she’s been sailing since the earliest 80s on some of the roughest crossings in the world, despite never having been built for ice conditions.

After lunch and a little relax, I nipped out for an hour or so.

The aim was to go across into France and the small town of St Menges for some bread. But I didn’t get very far.

I drove through the mountains and the woods to St Menges and just a couple of hundred metres across the frontier into France I came across this building – badly-damaged and fenced off.

Where I am is right in the path of the Ist Panzer Division just after they crossed the River Semois at Vresse sur Semois and rushed to outflank the French positions near Sedan by crossing over the River Meuse at Glaire.

You can see how much this building – a border post with pillbox in the basement – has been knocked about by shell fire.

And not just by shell fire either. The building is thoroughly riddled with rifle and machine gun bullets too.

It was defended heroically by its staff of five soldiers, with whatever arms they had at their disposal, and held up the advance for several hours. But in the end they became the first fatal casualties of the German attack to fall on French soil.

They aren’t the only fatal casualties in the vicinity either.

The Royal Air Force had several hundred Fairey Battle light bombers – totally under-powered and totally overloaded and they were sent in to try to destroy the river bridges in the face of the German advance in order to slow them down.

Of course, they didn’t stand a chance. They were sitting ducks to the German fighters and anti-aircraft guns and of all of the hundreds of Battles sent in to the attack, only a few survived.

All over Western Belgium and North-Eastern France, there are graveyards with a little corner transformed into a Commonwealth War Cemetery with three graves in it – pilot, navigator, rear gunner.

And in the forest just a couple of hundred metres from where I’m standing, Fairey Battle L-5581 from 88 Squadron RAF crashed into the trees and Sergeant FE Beames (observer), Sergeant WG Ross (pilot) and LAC JHK Gegg (wireless operator/air gunner) were killed.

I shall try tomorrow to find their graves.

I continued on over the brow of the hill and had a good look at Sedan down in the valley of the Meuse. Somewhere on that plateau in front of us, the Battle of Sedan was fought in 1870.

This was when a badly-led French Army was overwhelmed by the Prussian forces, a defeat that led to the collapse of the French Empire and the formation of the German Empire, with fatal consequences for Europe on a couple of subsequent occasions.

There’s a new boulangerie opened in St Menges and that had caught my attention. I went in there and bought some bread – they had a beautiful brown whole-grain bread and it was so delicious (I was given a sample) that I bought two (the loaves weren’t all that big), having been assured that it will keep for four or five days.

They also had some small fruit buns, €2:00 for 5 and so I bought a batch of those too for a treat this weekend.

We had some confusion about the price, but that was quickly resolved, and then I came back here. No point going on to Sedan.

Now, I’m off to try the bread and then have an early night yet again.

And hope that I can sleep properly tonight.

Thursday 24th November 2016 – YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN …

… the stuff about Bouillon that I put on line this morning.

You won’t have seen this photograph though.

It’s really something special, isn’t it? It’s the kind of thing that could only happen in Belgium, or maybe in Ireland or in Quebec. No restaurant anywhere else in the world would advertise “non-stop cooking” and then go on to inform us that it is closed on Tuesdays.

It was Wednesday too when I was there, remember, and it looked pretty closed to me then.

despite being whacked last night, it took me quite a good while to drop off to sleep last night. But when I was asleep I really was asleep and remember nothing at all.

I do however remember being on my travels though – I was making a film about something or other starring a girl. And while the content might have been inappropriate for audiences in the USA, there was nothing at all that would prevent it from being broadcast in Europe and most other places in the world. However I was having a great deal of trouble convincing the Americans to let me continue with the project.

When the alarm went off I had a huge struggle to leave the bed. But I was second down to breakfast and before the breakfast room was open too.

Later, back in my room, I had a little … errr … relax and then cracked on with Bouillon. Once that was on line, I cracked on with whatever I was doing about Labrador. I went outside for the bread that I bought yesterday and that was about that.

And I’ve made a remarkable discovery – a large document listing all of the ferry operations on the St Lawrence River and the Gulf of St Lawrence for the last 75 years or so. This is a magnificent find to be sure. I can get lost … "we wish you would" – ed … for years in this.

As well as this, I’ve also finally found a downloadable version of the diaries of George Cartwright – the man who opened up Sandwich Bay in Labrador during the period 1770-1785 and who named most of the geographical features in the area.

All in all, a good day.

Mind you, I have crashed out for an hour or so this afternoon after my butties and it was hard to recover from that. Yesterday’s exertions and the difficult night really got to me.

So now, having done some more research, I’m off to bed to catch up with my sleep.

But I’m beginning to have a major quandary.

The web pages that I’m working on were originally meant to be about my return to the Trans-Labrador Highway in 2014 and in 2015 with a little research to give some background information to where I’ve been.

What’s happening now is that I’m unearthing all kinds of gems that have been lost to history for ages and deliberately “overlooked” by modern politicians and commentators. I’m even amazed to discover that one of my pet “ideas” is far from new, having been proposed as far back as 1966 and deftly swept under the carpet on the grounds of cost, only to be trundled out 50 years later as a “new, revolutionary idea”.

And things like an established ferry company that was refused a licence to operate a boat because of a 25-year time limit (its ferry was 27 years old), and replaced by a new company whose ship was … err … 30 years old and is still going now, aged 46.

There’s tons of stuff like this.

Yes, looks like I’m going to be heading towards yet another major controversy with these pages, and this time on an international stage too.

Still, it keeps me out of mischief.

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 continued – BOUILLON

Rather than amend what I had written last night before going to bed, I reckoned that I would break with tradition and just quickly dash off a new page about Bouillon, for your entertainment and education.

You won’t see much in the photos because it was rather dark when I arrived and went darker still before I’d finished. But never mind.

Bouillon has a major claim to fame in that there is a huge castle, dating from the 10th Century with subsequent improvements, here in the town, up there behind those houses.

And I was so dismayed to see that the castle wasn’t illuminated. I would have expected to see it all brightly lit up, given its fame, especially as they have managed to illuminate those houses, But no such luck.

The castle is perched on a tall, prominent rock situated in a very tight meander of the River Semois and to reach it is quite a climb. It’s not for the faint-hearted and was an ideal defensive spot.

No-one is sure when the rock was first fortified, but a castle is definitely referred to in a letter in 988AD. It was slighted by Henry 111, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1045 but rebuilt shortly afterwards.

In 1082 it was inherited by its most famous owner, Godefroi de Bouillon.

However he sold it to the Prince-Bishops of Liège in 1095 for a sum believed to be 3 marks of gold and 1300 marks of silver in order that he would have funds to go off on the First Crusade.

And as we all know, went on to be the first ruler of the newly-conquered Jerusalem.

The castle, and the town which had grown up at its foot changed hands from then on, on occasions too numerous to list.

Its strategic position at the “entrance to the Ardennes” and “the gateway to France” had made it a key position on the ever-changing frontier in north-west Europe and it was never left in peace as marauding armies swarmed all over it.

It even fell into the hands of the La Tour d’Auvergne family from my neck of the woods on several occasions, but was almost always eventually restored to the Price-Bishops of Liège until their lands were definitely extinguished in 1795.

It was then absorbed by France, handed to the Netherlands by the Treaty of Paris of 1815 that ended the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and became part of Belgium in the partition of 1830.

Its most famous modern inhabitant would be Leon Degrelle, a prominent and unrepentant Nazi collaborator who led a large body of Wallon Nazi collaborators and front-line SS troops during World War II and fled to Spain after the War.

It’s another one of these places that must have been absolutely magnificent 50 years ago, but cheap foreign travel has killed off much of the town like many other places in Northern Europe. There are several empty, abandoned hotels, shops and restaurants, and the good times have definitely gone.

But there’s still some kind of wealth here in the town with a few expensive hotels and restaurants that are way out of my reach.

But it did have a fritkot or three, one of which served falafel, so I was ok.

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 – PHEW! I’M WHACKED!

Yes, today was the day that I had to go to the hospital at Leuven.

And how difficult was it to haul myself out of bed at 07:00 to hit the road? You have no idea.

No breakfast of course, but what with having to wash and make myself pretty, it was 07:30 when I finally hit the road. Through the fog, the hanging cloud, the darkness and the drizzle to the motorway and then an uneventful drive all the way to Leuven. uneventful, of course, except for the tractor-trap in the suburbs of the city that slowed everyone up. It took me less than 2 hours all told.

Caliburn went into his hidey-hole and I walked up to the hospital to organise some breakfast. All done and dusted, checked in and in the waiting room long before the due time of 10:50.

I was out by 14:30 too. The highlight, or actually the lowlight of the day was the fact that they have stopped serving bread with the soup. That’s no good.

But apart from that, my blood has gone back up to 10.6 all on its own (although it doesn’t feel like it) and while my water retention has eased, my protein loss has accelerated. So – back in a week.

And as the professor is only there in the morning next week, it means that I have to postpone my eye test too.It’s a good job that I’m going back to stay in the hostel.

The drive back was even more uneventful.

There’s a Carrefour in Leuven as you know so I called there for bread and stuff but I was having a “fruit” moment so I bought a “reduced” fresh fruit salad thingy and a litre of 100% pineapple juice, and scoffed the lot on the car park. And there are grapes for tomorrow.

My route brought me back to Bouillon, which is a soup-er … "ohh, well-done" – ed … place and stopped to take a pile of photos in the dark, falling over the edge of the pavement and badly cutting my right knee.

There’s a falafel place in Bouillon so I had a decent tea as well.

And now I’m back here and seeing how tired I am, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the photos of Bouillon.

I’m doing nothing more!

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 – NOW HERE’S A THING

I’m trying to think (which I know is difficult) whether I’ve been out today.

And actually, I have. Twice. Once to Caliburn to fetch some cheese for lunch and again to forget a bag of trail mix that I had forgotten.

And that’s my lot.

Last night It took me ages to drop off to sleep and I don’t know why, because I was fairly tired. But once I was asleep I stayed asleep and didn’t move at all until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night – off to Labrador where I’d been fishing and generally living off the land, and looking after a couple of young boys although I don’t know why that was either.

It was something of a struggle to wake up this morning and although I was alone in the breakfast room, someone had already been and gone by the looks of things.

Back upstairs, I tidied up all of my notes for the Paradise River in Labrador that we visited in September 2014 and then came down here for the comfortable settee where I attacked the web page that I’m writing about it, seeing that the internet has been behaving itself (but not so the noxious brat).

We’re up to a mere 4,157 words – a meagre 38 kilobytes of data (that’s without the embedded files) and it’s not possible to shorten it either and keep the story of the tragedy of the settlement that nature and Joey Smallwood managed to see off.

But it will be on line soon, and you’ll get to read it in all its gory … "and you don’t mean “glory” either" – ed … detail.

So now I’m off to have a shower, make my evening butty and then go for an early night. I have an early start and a long way to drive tomorrow. So I need all the sleep that I can get.

Monday 21st November 2016 – TODAY IS THE DAY …

… that I celebrate – if that is the correct word to use – the first anniversary of my last night at home.

And what a tumultuous year it has been too. I’ve spent nights sleeping at friends, in hotels in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, in hostels, on floors, in hospitals, in student houses, but never again at home and how I am depressed as the seriousness of my position dawns on me.

Am I destined to spend the last years of my life living out of a suitcase and ambling aimlessly around around North-West Europe? What a horrible thought.

But one thing that I have learnt as I’ve been travelling around is that there’s no place like home. I have accordingly for the next three months and maybe even more, negotiated a good place in the hostel back at Leuven. It might not be much, and nothing like what I was hoping to have, but it’s the nearest place to home that I have right now. I have negotiated a good price with the option of a renewal, and in exchange I’ll be expected to do a little work, but I’m as happy as I could be with that.

I had a really late night last night and as a result was in no fit state at all when the alarm went off. It was a struggle to go down to breakfast (I was third, and yet there before the staff was) and then I crashed out again afterwards for a while.

The internet was, well, working something-like and so I found another pile of stuff about Labrador. And that took me ages too. For lunch, I finished off the bread that I had bought in Sedan at the LeClerc on Friday, so after lunch I nipped into Alle to the boulanger for a big loaf and across the road to the Spar for a lettuce.

On the way back, I took a diversion and climbed high into the Ardennes to visit Orchimont.

I don’t know whether to call it a town or a hamlet or what because these days it’s been absorbed into the commune of Vresse sur Semois, and ohhhh! What a come-down that must be for the place because 800 years or so ago it was by far the biggest town in the area.

Perched up here in its steep escarpment, it was at one time the capital of this region and had a fortified castle and city walls to defend itself and the region.

All of tha changed in 1635 when Louis XIII of France laid siege to the town, which was part of the Spanish Netherlands at that time.

He brought 35,000 soldiers with him apparently, and no town can withstand that kind of siege for long. It fell on 11th May of that year and was burnt, with all of the fortifications destroyed.

When the road was brought here in 1878, it went straight through whatever remained of the remains of the fortifications. All that is left is this, and I’m not even sure if these are original.

But you can see what a stunning defensive site the place occupies. This is the road in from the south.

The roads from the west and east are equally impressive – in fact the road in from the north – which you might have noticed in the first photograph, is the only one that is reasonably accessible.

The spur of the rock overlooking the road that we can see just here was crying out for a castle to be built on it, if you ask me. Any Medieval lord bent on increasing his power in the region, and some of these medieval lords were as bent as they come, would have been proud to have had his castle here.

There’s a church here too, and I asked a local yokel who was taking a most extraordinary interest in me, to whom it was dedicated.

But he wasn’t much of a vocal local yokel and told me to go and enquire in Vresse sur Semois. Miserable ghit!

But seeing as how everything at Orchimont is St Martin this, St Martin that, I shall have a wild guess.

What I do know is that it’s far from being the original church. It dates from 1863 apparently, although I imagine that there has been a church here for 1500 years before that.

One thing that I have noticed since I’ve been out here has been an endless stream of farm tractors with trailers fully-laden with Christmas trees disappearing into the mists.

What I hadn’t realised is that Orchimont is the Christmas Tree capital of Belgium and North-East France. There must be 5,000 here all parcelled up ready for shipping.

That’ll keep them out of mischief.

With the laptop being a bit flaky just now, I’ve done a major back-up this evening just in case, and now having done some more research I’m off to bed.

I’ve had nothing to eat tonight so I’ll make a butty quickly and that will be that. I’m not up to much else.

Sunday 20th November 2016 – I’VE HAD …

… a better day today.

Mind you, having been deep in the depths of despair yesterday, almost anything would have been a better day.

What helped matters greatly was that I had a really good sleep. In bed early and straight to sleep too. With a brief awakening to switch off the radio, I slept right through until 06:30 without a single interruption at all.

I managed a shower of sorts too, getting half of the water all over the floor as you might expect, and I washed some undies too. Don’t want to run out of them.

Breakfast starts at 08:00 and I was down there at 07:55 . But the place was locked up and they didn’t open it until 08:05. I was first in too, and first in by a long way too. That’s not like me, is it?

I was also first out too, and I went back upstairs and cracked on with the stuff that I’m writing about Labrador.

By about 10:30 I needed to change tack and start to attack Paradise River in Labrador. I’d found tons of stuff about that before, but it all went when I had that hard drive crash in May 2015 and so I had to start again.

Luckily, the internet was working and, furthermore, it kept on going for almost all of the day. The noxious brat seemed to have been confined to quarters and most people have left too, so I was pretty quiet in the lounge. I accomplished a pile of work and found tons of interesting stuff on the internet too.

I’d seen a football ground in the village of Sugny when I’d been on my travels the other day. It is the home of RCS Sugny and looked well-maintained and up-to-date so braving the wind and the driving rain I went out this afternoon to see if there was a match on.

If there’s any football played, it would be played this afternoon, I reckoned. But the ground was closed up and there was no-one about which was a shame, so I turned round and came back the pretty way.

With no-one else about, I carried on working on my Paradise River stuff and that kept me out of mischief.

With having some vegan cheese left, I went off into Vresse sur Semois and organised a pizza at the hotel down there. And quite good it was too. The staff there was very friendly and the customers were quite sociable too. I had quite a good evening down there.

And now back here, and the internet has gone again. Or, rather, it’s there, but there’s a “hidden network” that keeps on appearing, and when that appears, it keeps on pinching all of the limited bandwidth.

That’s a shame, because I was much more like it today and I’ve done tons of stuff quite comfortably on the big sofa in the lounge.

Fix the internet and keep the noxious brat under control and I’d be much happier here.

Saturday 19th November 2016 – AND APART FROM THE FACT …

… that I had a late night last night, I had a really good, uninterrupted sleep.I’d been on my travels too, concerning a search for two young boys, one of whom was discovered dead and the other one who was discovered alive.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I was well away. and I wasn’t much better when it went off at 07:15. The chimes of the clock outside at 08:00 galvanised me into action and I soon joined the hordes of people at the breakfast tables.

Breakfast was over quickly and I was back upstairs to finish off a few things that I’d been doing. and then I came back here.

Three hours later, I still hadn’t been able to upload my blog from yesterday onto the internet. The connection here is totally rubbish. And it’s not my laptop that’s at fault because I’ve been checking the connection with the mobile phone. And that’s having the same issues as the laptop as far as connection goes. I found out subsequently that the connection here is a simple dial-up connection shared between 70-odd residents. Broadband hasn’t yet arrived here and the idea of installing a satellite system has totally gone over the head of the proprietor.

That isn’t the only argument that I’ve had here either. The brat finally touched the raw part of the nerves and I roared at its mother “I’m here to relax, not to play babysitter to your noisy brat” and she carted him off for a short while as I stormed off up to my room to eat my butty and to crash out.

This evening I went into Vresse sur Semois for a bag of chips, and discovered that there’s an internet connection in the cafe. I can see me going there again for a coffee and a use of their connection because this place really is now eating me up.

I came down here at 20:00 to check the news and upload today’s blog. It’s now 22:00 and I’ve not even read half of the news, never mind written my blog.

I am so fed up, but I can’t afford to go anywhere else.

Friday 18th November 2016 – I REALLY AM THE KISS OF DEATH

I was in Sedan yesterday evening, with the intention of going for a wander round, and then I saw an advert from the local football club, CS Sedan-Ardennes, talking about matches that the club will be playing in the near future. I noticed that one of the matches would be played tonight.

Sedan had at one time fairly recently played in the French First Division, and had a nice modern stadium on the edge of the city centre. But they have fallen on hard times just recently and are busy propping up all the other clubs in the Third Division. Still, football is football.

The LeClerc supermarket was just around the corner from where I was so I nipped into the LeClerc and stocked up with another pile of tinned food, seeing as it’s so much cheaper there than in Belgium. And not only that, things like the boulghour is half-price compared to Belgium. And so now I have enough stuff to keep me going for the first month when I go back there.

Once I’d finished the shopping and fuelled up Caliburn, I headed off to the football ground and found a fritkot where the owner served me up a big bag of chips and a salad wrap, all for €6:00 which I thought was extremely democratic.

The football ground to which I was heading was just down the road from the fritkot, and when I arrived there, it was in total darkness. But not to worry. It seems that Bird-brain of Britain had confused the address and there’s a street of the same name in a suburb of Sedan and by pure coincidence there’s a football stadium in that street too.

Back into town again and I arrived at the real stadium this time, the Stade Louis Dugauguez. There was some parking in the immediate vicinity which was quite handy and I then had the “hunt the pay-booth”, which was quite exciting.

To my surprise, it cost me just €7:00 for admission to the ground. That’s a bargain at any price, and then I had another massive hike around to find the entry gate that I needed.

I took my seat behind the goals just as the match kicked off. The noisy sector was just a couple of sectors away from where I was, and I was in good company. Mind you, I could have had plenty of choice as to where I would sit. A huge modern 28,000 all-seater stadium and there were about 1500 – 1800 of us in total. No more than that, I shoudn’t think.

As for the match itself, it was rather surprising. Sedan are bottom of the Third Division and US Quevilly-Rouen Métropole, the opponents from Rouen, are third in the table and so I was expecting a walk-over. But Sedan could have won this match at a canter had they tried because they looked quite a good side.

They had by far the most possession and looked quite dangerous going forward. But it’s yet another case of a team that could play all night with no opposition on the field, still be out there right now and still not score. Hand them a stringed musical instrument and they still couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal.

We had one occasion where one of their attackers blazed the ball miles over the bar from 5 yards out of an open goal and another occasion where an attacker, in an even better position, forgot to kick the ball.

As for Quevilly, they didn’t look as good but they scored the vital goal – a free kick round the blind side of the defensive wall and the keeper not being able to hang on to the shot with a Quevilly forward the quickest to follow up.

They also hit the woodwork too with the keeper well-beaten, and missed a couple of other good chances too.

What with my late night last night, I was in bed and asleep about 2 minutes after I went to bed. I’d had the radio on and that awoke me at 00:45 with something noisy, so I turned it off, went off down the corridor,and then back to bed.

And there I stayed, flat out until the alarm went off at 07:00.I’d been a-travelling too, but heaven alone now knows where I’d been on my journey.

For most of the morning I was working on my web site for Labrador. I’m making some quite rapid progress too as far as information goes, but not as far as distance goes. It’s going to be longer than I thought before I arrive at Baie Comeau, but it’s going to be an interesting drive, as well as a controversial one, that’s for sure, because the stuff that’s come crawling out of the woodwork is quite … errr …interesting, to say the least.

After lunch, I crashed out, and for longer than I intended too. It had been a nice afternoon and I was sorry that I missed it. But it’s never too late to hit the road and so off I set for Sedan.

Once the football had finished, freezing to death, I walked back to Caliburn and drove back here. No room on the main car park due to the influx of weekenders, and the lounge was crawling with people – including the noisy brat who was still up creating a disturbance at gone midnight. That’s no way to bring up a 4 year-old.

By 00:30 I was too tired to do much so I called it a night and went to bed.

I hope that I have as good a sleep as I did last night.

Thursday 17th November 2016 – I THINK THAT I HAVE MADE A MISTAKE …

… with this hotel.

It looks really impressive from the outside, that’s for sure. But inside is a totally different story.

It’s a really bad parody of a 1960s coach-tour holiday hotel. The ground floor is crammed – and I do mean crammed – with furniture, much of which dates from the 1950s and looks as if it’s been sat on by Hattie Jacques for every day of that time.

There’s a 1970s-style radiogram complete with multi-stack record player, all covered in dust, stuck in a corner just like something out of a time-warp. And the endless tape of early-70s bubblegum music does nothing whatever to dispel the image.

And not only that, the owners have a little brat of about 4 who is the noisiest little brat that I have ever heard, and how no-one has gone out to drown him before now I really do not understand. and it’s now 22:48 as I type, and the brat is still not in bed. It’s a disgrace.

Yes, I’m still here at this time, and there’s a reason for this. There’s no internet in the bedrooms, only down in the bar. And it’s the worst internet connection that I have ever encountered. It makes mine back in the Auvergne look like lightning. I’ve been here for hours trying to do what normally takes 20 minutes to do back at home.

The room is as you would expect. It’s clean and tidy but it’s long-since passed its sell-by date. I have a bath and a shower attachment, but no shower curtain and so I’ll drown the place out before too long.

The place is also full of Dutch pensioners. all of the signs are in Dutch too, so that tells you what the place is really like.

The good side is that I’m paying just €40 per night for bed and breakfast, and I have no real complaint about the breakfast. But that’s it. I’m really disappointed by all of this.

But at least I managed yet another “sleep of the dead” last night. Out like a light and I remember absolutely nothing at all.

Except of course that I had been on my travels. It had been a “Men from the Ministry” episode where N°1 and N°2 had gone off to a meeting and I had remained behind to cook tea. I made a curry, although there wasn’t much to make it with and ended up having to use bean sprouts. Eventually n°2 came back and we waited and waited for n°1 to come back. When he finally arrived he insisted that n°2 make him some sandwiches immediately. At that I exploded, After all that I had done to make the food and after all the waiting around that we had done and there he was issuing all the orders like this and all the food that I stayed behind to cook was now heading for the bin.

Downstairs for breakfast afterwards (it doesn’t start until 08:00) and then back to my room for a few hours until the cleaners threw me out. That’s when I came down here to discover exactly how bad the internet really is.

As for the village of Vresse sur Samois, it looks very pretty from up here and quite rightly so. But there’s another story to tell about it.

The boulangerie? Closed!
The bank? Closed!
The Post Office? Closed!
The grocery shop? Closed!

There are several hotels that have closed down and are up for sale too.

There’s a hotel that does pizzas, a butchers that is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, and a fritkot that is only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

I had to drive about 8 miles until I found a boulangerie and they had next-to-nothing in the way of bread either.

One thing that the town does have going for it is Le Belge. Le Belge was a locomotive built in 1835 by Cockerill’s of Seraing for the Brussels-Mechelen railway (the first modern railway line in mainland Europe)

She was the first locomotive to be built in Belgium – all of the previous ones used in the country were built by Stephenson’s in the UK

This isn’t of course the original – that’s long-been transformed into a couple of dozen baked-bean tins. It’s not even a replica as such – that’s in the railway museum in Schaerbeek.

This is actually a clever reconstruction, built to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Belgian independence, and although you might not believe it, it’s actually made of wood.

And why it’s here in Vresse-sur-Samois? I’ve really no idea at all.

I went for a good walk around the town, and to be honest it didn’t take me all that long because neautiful though the place might be, there isn’t all that much to see here.

I did find something that looked as if at one time it might have been a ford across a tributary of the Semois. it has allof the characteristics to me. But the road on this side of the river looks as if it’s been abandoned for a century or more.

There’s a magnificent bridge across the Semois just here – a real work of art. and it looks to me as if it’s a widened modern reconstruction of a much older bridge. There are quite a few traces of a much older construxtion having been worked into it.

And there’s Caliburn just down there to the right, parked up by the water’s edge. He’s certainly enjoying his couple of weeks out and about. and who can blame him after having been cooped up in that hangar in Leuven?

I crashed out after I came back here, and then I needed to think about food. Having had butties for lunch, I’ve had butties for tea too and this is likely to be a regular occurrence. And having dealt with the major issues of the hotel and its scabby internet connection I’m off to bed.

I hope that I have as good a rest tonight as I had last night.

Wednesday 16th November 2016 – HOW STUPID …

… can you be?

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

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

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 15th November 2016 – YOU MISSED …

… all of the excitement last night.

I was just about getting ready to go to bed when my bedroom door burst open and someone came in dragging a big suitcase behind him.

It turned out that due to a transcription error he had received an e-mail telling him to go to room 1302 instead of 1202. We soon sorted that problem out, but it wasn’t half exciting while it lasted. I keep on meaning to lock the door to my room when I’m in here and one day I’ll remember to do it.

During the night I went on my travels, both down the corridor and out on my travels. I ended up on the Coasts of Labrador again but why and who with I really have no idea now.

There were the usual crowds at breakfast and I shan’t be sorry to leave here tomorrow for some peace and quiet – always assuming that I can in fact leave. I really hope that I can and they don’t want me back in a week. That’s going to be pretty impossible. Even going home for two weeks only leaves me a week or so down there to sort myself out and I need much more than that.

After breakfast, I found to my dismay that the internet it down. I don’t know why but everyone came to me to complain. They must think that I own the place or something. It seems that, according to the message that I saw on the communal computer, that the bill hadn’t been paid for a while. The landlord needs to deal with that problem pretty quickly.

It gave me a good opportunity to crack on with my web pages about the Trans Labrador Highway. As a result, I have now finished my pages about the Coasts of Labrador and now I’m starting to climb up onto the Eagle Plateau. If I keep on like this, I’ll be finished before too long, and then I’ll have to find something else to do.

I had my baguette for lunch in the company of another new arrival. He’s the first foreign person whom I’ve ever met who approves of the Brexit, but then again he was rather weird. He complained at great length that he had been expelled from Belgium and had lost absolutely everything. Now he had moved out to Occupied Palestine and was living in one of these unlawful settlements. The irony of his position had gone right over his head.

In contrast to the last couple of days I’ve been out on several occasions today. Apart from the baguette, I went down to Caliburn twice. The first time was to take down there everything that I don’t need this evening or tomorrow at the hospital. And I went through all of the clothes in Caliburn and brought back all of the dirty clothes, as well asa change of clean clothes.

And when I returned I had a really good shower and shave and a change of clothes. Once I’d organised myself properly (which takes for ever of course) I went off to the launderette and washed all of the clothes and now everything is all ready for my next voyage.

There was a very nice girl in there doing a big load of washing too. Under normal circumstances I would have engaged her in conversation to see what happens, but then again any girl who can’t afford a washing machine isn’t likely to be able to keep me in the luxury to which I would like to be accustomed.

After tea, in which I wasn’t alone yet again, I went back to Caliburn to take back the now-clean clothes and everything else that I don’t need. All that remains here now is what I’ll need for the hospital tomorrow.

So now it’s an early night for me. Whatever will tomorrow bring?

I hope that it’s good news. I need it, I reckon.

Monday 14th November 2016 – I MADE IT …

… out of doors for a bit longer today. In fact I went to the Bistro up the road to pay for my accommodation for this week, seeing as how it’s been closed for the last couple of days. And then I walked up to the Delhaize for a few bits and pieces.

That’s about it, really. I haven’t done much else.

My night was rather a disturbed one, not being helped by an early riser in the building who was up and about before I was. And I don’t even remember going anywhere – either of on a nocturnal perambulation or for a stroll down the corridor.

There are also some new people here – another group of three students. They are disturbing my usual routine, joining me for breakfast and also using the kitchen when I want to cook my tea. How dare they do that! GRRRRR!

Apart from that, I’ve been left pretty much to my own devices today – not even too many of my friends on the internet for a chat either. All in all, a pretty lonely day.

One thing that I had been doing was to work on my web pages for my last Labrador visits. It’s slow going right now because I’m continually being side-tracked by my research that is drifting me off into all kinds of alleyways off my main highway. I may be none-the-wiser, but I’m certainly better-informed these days. No arguments about that.

And as usual these days, I crashed out for a good hour or so round about 16:00. I’m clearly not up to it these days and it’s causing me some dismay. But I’ll have to become used to it I suppose. I won’t ever be any better than this.

So now I’ll go to see if the kitchen is clear, so that I can cook my tea for tonight. I hate being disturbed like this.

And tomorrow I shall have to get a move on. I’m going to do a pile of washing tomorrow and so that means a trip to Caliburn. I want to be all done and dusted and properly organised because I really am hoping that that I’ll be released for a fortnight so that I can go home for a week or so.

Sunday 13th November 2016 – I DIDN’T GO …

… very far at all today. I made it down to the boulangerie on the corner this morning for my baguette. That was a stroll of almost 150 yards there and back I suppose.

And at tea-time I went an extra 50 yards there and back to the take-away pizza place for a mushroom and onion pizza for tea.

And that was my lot, I’m afraid.

Nevertheless I did have some good luck while I was out this morning. There was another black plastic storage crate in the bin outside the supermarket – a big one this time – and so seeing as it was quite early and there was no-one about, I made sure that I liberated that. These are really nice and useful, these storage crates. Nice and lightweight and easy to carry.

And I didn’t go far during the night either. Dunno if I went on a ramble because I don’t remember anything at all. I do know that I had to leave my bed several times though, especially round about 01:00 when someone came back and made quite a racket.

I was there for breakfast at the usual time, and after the boulangerie, I had something of a repose. In fact I had something of a repose on and off throughout the day. I must really have had a bad night last night.

But I did crack on with the website somewhat, and made another good find on the internet. A kind of database that has been created to record events, happenings and documents about Labrador. And there were the sailing schedules for the “Alphabet ships” – the ships of the Newfoundland Railway that worked the coastal settlements once Labrador had been attached to Newfoundland in 1876.

And it makes poignant reading too. Never mind abandoned communities such as Battle Harbour, the “capital” of Labrador back in those days. That settlement has been abandoned as a permanent habitation for over 50 years under the Canadian Government’s controversial resettlement plans, and is now merely a summer fishing station. What is even more sad is that many of the mailboat ports haven’t simply been abandoned, they have long-since disappeared from the map and their names are no longer recorded.

Another surprise was that the owner came round to check up on the premises and we had a really good chat for a while. Who knows where our conversation will lead us,

But now, an early night again. I hope that I can have a good night’s sleep and an exciting travel.

Saturday 12th November 2016 – I HAD A NICE …

… four hours out with Alison today.

She came round at about 11:00 and we went off to the good cafe down the street for a coffee and a chat. We were there for quite some time too.

Once we’d finished we went for a walk to look at a couple of shops and then went down the road to the ALDI where Alison did some of her shopping. And then over the road to Spit, the huge Charity Shop just there. And there was tons of good stuff in there too, much of which is at a decent price. I could quite happily furnish a small apartment from there.

There’s a Troc in the vicinity too, somewhere in between Leuven and Mechelen. The prices in there though are totally ridiculous, even though the stuff looks really good quality. But here’s something that you can buy me for Christmas if you can’t think of anything better – they had a late Medieval suit of armour in there. Wouldn’t that look nice standing up in the corner of my house? But €895 was a bit ridiculous really, although nothing like as ridiculous as the €12,500 they wanted for a bronze fountain that looked like a good well.

Alison took me later to the English shop. There’s a fish and chips van that parks up there a couple of days a week but that wasn’t what excited me. They had vegan pies which will go down nicely with some new potatoes and vegetables, but the highlight was definitely the vegan mince pies. I’ll be back there a few days before Christmas, that’s for sure.

On the way back I picked up a baguette at the Carrefour by the football ground and had lunch once I returned. following that I did some more research for my web pages on Labrador. I’ve found a couple of really good sites of interest on the internet – one that lists every known community in Labrador in about 1910 and the access port where appropriate (and there’s tons of interesting stuff on there) and secondly, an interactive map that shows the location of almost every known geographical feature in Labrador. I could really lose myself in those sites.

For tea it was pasta with a tin of chick peas and vegetables and tomato sauce. and then a nice relaxing evening.

This afternoon I’d crashed out for an hour or so but that is probably something to do with the disturbed night that I’d had. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and when I finally did, I was up and down several times too.

I’d been on my travels too, out to the Coasts of Labrador where there was a very narrow strip of land in bewteen the cliffs that narrowed even more just where I had to cross over the mouth of a small river. There was a young teenage girl with me too, rather like a girl with whom I’d had a lengthy discussion once when I was out on the North Shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence in May 2012. Although what she was doing suddenly making an appearance I have no idea.

EPIC HALL

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