Tag Archives: shower

Thursday 14th February 2019 – TODAY’S BAD NEWS …

… is twofold.

Firstly, my TGV to Brussels on Sunday is cancelled. Due to a perturbation, or disturbance, so they say, but more likely it’s under-subscribed and there’s plenty of room on the ones before and after.

Secondly, I had a letter back about my taxe d’habitation. I asked for the years 2013 and 2015, but instead they sent me the ones for 2016, 2017 and 2018. Just as did the Tax Office in Montaigut-en-Combraille.

So I’ve no idea what’s going on there. I’ll have to ring them up to find out.

Last night wasn’t as early as I was expecting, and I left the bed … errr … somewhat later than the alarms. i’d been on a nocturnal ramble too, but all that I remember was going into someone else’s office to sharpen my pencil – the plot of something that I was watching on a DVD at teatime last night – to write it down.

We had breakfast and a shower and general clean-up, and then headed off to the shops. Just LIDL today of course. And the only thing that I bought was a new balaclava helmet to wear under my crash helmet. The old one that I have is ancient and filthy and so it’s high time that I replaced it.

But I was waylaid on my way to the supermarket.

Normandy Trader was in port this morning, moored up at her usual mooring place next to Marité. She was unloading what looked like piles of shellfish, and the empty crates were being loaded back on board.

There were also sacks of what looked like sand or gravel just there on the quayside, presumably waiting their turn to be loaded up on board.

Back here, I made myself a coffee and attacked the remaining carrots that needed preparation and freezing. They were peeled, diced and blached with a couple of bayleaves, and then stuck in the freezer.

That was anough for the morning. I had a little relax while I reviewed what had been going on during the morning.

No excitement as yet – that is to come later.

After lunch, I carried on with my text database and all of December is now complete. I’ve done a few more blog entries and I’ve now reached back as far as 24th December 2018. The 23rd is the day that I went to Köln to see Jackie, and there are so many photos from there that I’m working even as we speak on a web page to display them all.

later on this afternoon, I went out for my usual walk.

Around the walls in the glorious winter sunshine. It was such a beautiful day today.

And I wasn’t the only one out there enjoying the weather. There were crowds of people swarming around on the pathways and down on the beach making the most of the school holidays.

The tides and currents were interesting too, and the crowds on the beach down there at the Plat Gousset weren’t the only ones enjoying them.

There were some beautiful swirling waves coming onto the beach with the tide, making some spectacular patterns up and down the beach.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything look quite so artistic as this. Nature can do some wonderful things sometimes.

Carrying on around the walls, I looked down on the rue Paul Poirier. They have strung up a pile of decorations across the street – probably today because I don’t recall seeing them yesterday.

This year, Carnaval is the weekend of 2nd/3rd March and it looks as if they are setting their stall out already.

The Carnaval here in Granville is certainly special, and attracts crowds from hundreds of miles away.

Down in the harbour, Normandy Trader had cleared off – presumably fully loaded with whatever it was that was piled up on the quayside.

But it looks as if the sailing school was in operation today because there were a few yachts outside the harbour doing a little manouevring around in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Everyone seemed to be out there enjoying the weather today and I can’t say that I blame them.

Back here, I had a coffee and carried on working, fighting off wave after wave of fatigue. In the end, I went to bed where I stayed quite comfortably for 90 minutes, most of which was spent asleep.

I’ve gone on from an occasional 10 minutes here and there to a regular flat-out 90 minutes and it’s worrying.

For tea tonight I didn’t have my potato curry. In fact, by the time I’d been through and sorted out the bit of a leek and the mushrooms that were remaining in the vegetable rack, the rest of the stuffing from yesterday made a decent-sized proportion.

And it was delicious too.

Outside tonight for my walk in the calm, cool evening, and almost colliding with a couple of shadows making their way around in the dark, I noticed that there wasn’t anything to see in the tidal harbour.

Probably something not unconnected with the fact that the tide was too far out.

Instead I noticed that the restaurant down on the rue du Port was open and, presumably, frying tonight. I’ve taken a few photos of the street down there but I’ve never noticed the restaurant before.

This photo and the next one might not be of any interest to you, but they are to me.

Right out in the distance there was a bright light slowly moving across the horizon. And so I took two photographs of it, messing around with the exposure controls and the camera speed.

The first one (this one) is over-exposed, and the second one, below, is underexposed.

They aren’t very clear at all and you can’t see what they feature, because after all, it’s only a 50mm lens, but I can have a wild guess.

It was round about 21:15 when I took the photos, and so that tells me that the lights could well be those of the Brittany Ferries ship Pont Aven setting out on its 20:35 sailing to Portsmouth.

I really need a better camera to bring out the best in this kind of shot.

So back in the apartment again, and I’m getting ready for bed. If I can go to sleep after my repose later on this afternoon.

I need to sort myself out.

And today’s excitement?

Mrs Mayhem put her proposals yet again before Parliament. And once again, she was defeated.

But is she taking this latest humiliation seriously? Not in the least. She’ll keep on going by keeping on presenting her proposals every week, wearing everyone down with the threat that if they don’t accept her plan, they’ll have to accept a no-deal pull-out.

Something that will suit her husband – and piles of currency traders and Futures dealers – down to the ground.

She will go down in History as having laid down her country for her life.

beach sea pointe du roc place d’armes granville manche normandy france

beach tidal swimming pool plat gousset granville manche normandy france

sea tide beach waves plat gousset granville manche normandy france

waves beach tidal swimming pool plat gousset granville manche normandy france

casino sea tide beach waves plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 5th February 2019 – THE FIRST THING …

… that I did this morning, after it was light of course, was to go to the sea wall out here and look down into the harbour.

And sure enough, there was Neptune. Tied up to the quayside and judging by the noise coming from down there, they were busy loading it up.

It didn’t take them long either because she sailed out of the harbour on the afternoon tide. She’s now well on her way to Whitstable with 2000 tonnes of gravel.

Just for a change I had a decent night’s sleep. In bed before 23:30 and asleep practically right the way through. And I wasn’t in all that much of a rush to leave my bed.

After breakfast I had a shower and a clean-up, and then went down to have a look at the harbour.

As well as Neptune down there, the fishing boats were coming in on the tide.

There was quite a lot of activity at the fish dock as the unloading was taking place. It’s quite a busy place, what with one thing and another, and that’s why I’m here.

Back here, I remembered something that I had forgotten from the weekend.

I’d cooked a vegan leek-and-tofu pie on Sunday, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall. But I’d left it in the oven.

So out it came, and it looked even better than it did the other day. I’ve cut it into quarters and now it’s in the freezer ready for another day or four.

This morning’s task was to bring up-to-date the photos. And by the time that lunchtime came round, they were all done and finished. Thousands of them, and that’s going to take some organising.

After lunch, I made a start on the organising. If I don’t start, I won’t ever finish and that’s for sure.

What I’m doing for now is preparing an indexed text file, sticking the photos in month by month with the *alt* tags displayed for indexing purposes.

It’s even more important because I’ve had yet another request for a photo. That’s three or four already this year and while I won’t ever become rich, the photos won’t go anywhere if I don’t put them on line.

Outisde this afternoon, the tide was quite a way out.

There were several people out there today, including a couple of people hunting for shellfish in the rock pools, which made me think that the tide was going out.

Had the tide been out for a while, the seabirds would have had the shellfish. The roads and pavements are littered with fragments of shells where the seabirds have dropped them from a great height to break them open.

Going around the headland, the fishing boats were there, presumably waiting for the tide to come in.

One of them, the big blue and white one, was clearly fed up of waiting. it did a U-turn and started to roll out the net again. It might as well earn some money while it’s waiting. I stood and watched it for quite some time.

But you see the marker light just there. At high tide, the water is up almost to the top of the column.

Back here, I had a coffee and cake and a play on the guitar, and then attacked the photo collection again. I had a little 5 minutes … errr … relax as well.

For tea tonight, I made a stuffed pepper and spicy rice and it was delicious. It set me up nicely for my little lonely walk around the walls.

But here’s a thing.

I’ve been doing a little bit of research on something or other, and I’ve actually found someone who used to live next door (or thereabouts) to me when I was a toddler.

You’ve no idea just how small the world is these days.

Tonight, I’ll have another early night. There’s plenty of things that I need to do tomorrow.

But I’ve set a few things in motion that might bring me some surprising results. But once you take the lid of Pandora’s Box you can’t put it back on.

beach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy france

silhouette people granville manche normandy france

fishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

old military buildings pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

atlantic wall world war 2 bunker granville manche normandy france

fishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

Saturday 2nd February 2019 – WHAT AN APPALLING …

… football match this evening.

US Granville excelled themselves in cluelessness against CMS Oissel, 5 places below them in the table, at the Stade Louis Dior.

Oissel were a lively, energetic team and could easily have scored three goals in the first five minutes as they tore relentlessly into the Granville side. Only some excellent goalkeeping kept them at bay.

Granville had no answer and never really looked remotely like troubling the Oissel goalkeeper. The only surprise was that the score was only 1-0 for Oissel at half time.

It went from bad to worse on the hour mark. A Granville player put in a rather heavy challenge on a Oissel player and received a yellow card. And, for absolutely no reason that I could see or hear, while the Oissel player was on the floor receiving treatment, the referee strode over to the Granville player and showed him a straight red card. There was nothing whatever, no off-the-ball incident, no foul language, no dissent or anything that I saw that could have possibly warranted the straight red card.

Surprisingly, being a man down, Granville played their best football after this and had the Oissel defence under pressure – only to be hit by a breakaway upfield and a second Oissel goal.

There should have been a third one, for with the Granville keeper stranded, an attacker completely unmarked had a shot at the goal … and hit the post!

And even more astonishingly, a Granville player picked up the loose ball, kicked it upfield catching the Oissel defence cold and a Granville player slotted a goal back, after much binding in the marsh in the penalty area.

Granville then pushed on upfield, only to concede yet another breakaway with the last kick of the match.

But all in all, it really was a dreadful, clueless, aimless performance that was going absolutely nowhere. If you have the strength or the courage, you can see the goals here

Last night, I was in bed early. Long before 23:00 in fact. Not that it did me much good because I was awake again at 02:45. Eventually I did go back to sleep, where I remained until the alarm went off.

But during the night I was in the East End of London last night and ended up with a girl – a girl who was clearly someone of ill-repute. We were walking along the streets arm-in-arm having a laugh at a politician who had likewise met a girl of ill-repute and was walking the streets with her but pretending that they weren’t together, even though it was quite obvious that they were. This girl and I ended up in a typical East-End dosshouse right in the heart of Ripperland London round by Fashion Street and Thrawl Street off the Whitechapel Road. The house was was far, far worse than anywhere where I have ever stayed in my life. I stayed there the night and in the morning the girl disappeared off to have a shower, so as I needed the bathroom I followed her, although I lost track of her even though I could hear the water running. I was appalled at the state of the house – the toilets were nothing more than a couple of holes cut into benches, the plaster was falling off the walls and my fellow-tenants did not inspire me with any confidence whatsoever. When the girl came back she made a remark about being glad that she hadn’t bought the other shampoo because there was conditioner in it. I asked her if she didn’t use conditioner, to which she replied that she liked to use a separate conditioner.

Just for a change, I was up fairly early too. Breakfast was early and then I had a shower, even doing a machine-load of washing.

Before going out, I shredded another load of paper from the European Paper Mountain and then it all went into the paper bin outside.

Today was one of the most minimal shopping days for quite a while. LIDL had nothing special, and neither did LeClerc. In fact, I spent a mere €16:00 in there. And that includes some tofu. I remembered the vegan pains au chocolat too.

At NOZ, they had a guitar lead, a couple of nice cereal bowls and a couple of CDs. Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation and Joe Satriani’s “Super Colossal”. And at €1:99 each too.

This afternoon, having had a brief doze for 10 minutes, I made the filling for the next pie.

I fried some onion and garlic in olive oil until it was caramelised and then added sage, rosemary, parsley and the tofu. All of that was fried on a low heat for about 20 minutes, and then I added a stock cube and some water.

While all of that was marinating, I went off for the football.

Back here was tea out of a tin and then I put the tofu in the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll fry up some leeks and green flageolet beans and then add the tofu mix. That will make a beautiful pie filling.

So no alarm tomorrow. It’s Sunday and a lie-in. And I can’t say that I’ll be sorry.

I’m looking forward to a decent night’s sleep, and I have clean bedding to enjoy. So I hope that I can make the most of it.

Thursday 31st January 2019 – THE WEATHER …

… was something of a disappointment today.

During the night the skies had clouded over. The temperature had gone up slightly so there was just some surface frost here and there. No snow and no heavy icing.

For a change, I’d had a decent sleep – right out of it all until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I’d been in a submarine (which of course is extremely unlikely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) and it had been the subject of a depth-charge attack. And all of the loose deck furniture, barrels and cases and chairs and all kinds of things, break free and float to the surface. What surprised me more than anything is that the very thought of all of this makes me break out into a real sweat in real life, yet last night I was quite calm and relaxed about it.
A little later I was joining a crowd of people at the side of a swimming pool, everyone sitting on these white plastic chairs. One of the people sitting there was a girl with whom I would have been pleased to be associated. So I went to sit next to her. She said that she needed to be sitting on the end of the group so that she could go to dance, and were I to sit there I would be preventing her. So I suggested that we swap places but she found another excuse for that.
And so it went on.

The alarm went off as usual, and I was soon out of bed – but not as soon as I would have liked. And after breakfast I had a good shower and clean-up and then hit the streets.

It was cold out there and I found, rather unexpectedly, a patch of solid ice.

I’ve mentioned the fibre-optic cabling works before.

It seems that now they are digging up the pavement in the rue des Juifs ready to connect up the lower town with our bit up here.

But I had a chat with the guys there and there is still no date announced for when the fibre-optic cabling might become operational.

Down in the harbour Normandy Trader was there next to Marité.

She was loading up ready to leave. A large lorry was down there and I imagine that it had come to deliver a load or two of stuff to take back to Jersey.

One of these days I’ll go down for a chat with them on board.

At the Post Office I posted my letter from the other day and then went off to LIDL.

I’d already slipped on a patch of ice earlier, and here at LIDL there was a load of snow that presumably had fallen off a lorry or a car that had turned into the car park.

At LIDL there was nothing of any interest there so I came home and had a coffee.

And a chat on the internet with someone whom I had met on my little sea voyage in September. That was a pleasant surprise.

After lunch, I did a mega-back-up on the laptop that I’m back to using as a media centre and then started to tidy up in a big way a series of directories that had become all tangled up over the last ever so many years. That was a long and difficult job and it’s another one that will go on for a while.

As well as the session on the bass guitar, I also started the paper-shredding session. Piles of paper here in the European Paper Mountain that is of a sensitive nature, so I’ve promised myself to shred it. I’ll do a few each day until it’s all gone. At least it won’t overfill the paper bin outside.

In between all of this, I went for a walk around the headland.

Another part of the path is now closed off due to being unsafe so it’s all becoming quite confused. I’m wondering if my apartment block, over there on the right, will slide into the sea sometime soon.

It wasn’t very pleasant out there though. The wind was howling and the rain was teeming down. it was cold too so when I was walking into the wind it was stinging my face and it was very uncomfortable.

Not having crashed out at all yesterday, I was disappointed to go off with the fairies today. Twice. But only for 10 minutes each time. I suppose that that’s an improvement. Especially following my walk up to LIDL.

Tea was a slice of pie that I found in the freezer, with vegetables and gravy, followed by a rice pudding.

For the evening walk, the rain and wind had died down so it wasn’t too bad.

There was a nice ethereal view of the Place d’Armes in the distance, with part of the rue du Nord illuminated by the street light on the corner. The night and the light brings out the best in places like this.

And just for a change, I wasn’t alone tonight. There were a couple of other people out there too.

So I’ll have an early night tonight. Catch up with my beauty sleep and a relaxing day tomorrow.

Tuesday 29th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day.

There was so much that needed doing and so much that I wanted to do, but I spent the afternoon flat-out on the bed under the covers.

And I’m not just talking about a little 10-minute snooze, or even a really deep one-hour sleep. I was flat-out from about 14:30 to long after 17:00. I’d awoken at 16:50 but there was absolutely no chance whatever of me getting up.

Going back a couple of years, I can remember when I could go a whole day without dropping off. And gradually we started with the little 10-minute snoozes. And then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I started to complain about the hour-long sessions that were coming my way. And look where I have ended up now.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the beginning of the end.

It probably has something to do with the late night that I had had. Despite pushing on for all day yesterday, I still wasn’t tired at bedtime and I couldn’t go off to sleep.

Mind you, I must have done at one point because I was off on my travels. I was doing a huge load of tidying up at my old apartment in Brussels, and much to my surprise the person who was actually helping me with tidying away the paperwork was Nerina.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual although it was more like 07:00 when I actually arose from the dead. After the usual morning performance I had a shower and a good clean-up too. High time – and I do mean “high” too.

This morning I attacked some more photos and then there was a slight interruption. I have to make a file up of all of my official expenses and the like over the last … gulp … 5 years, but amongst the papers that I can’t find are two of my household charges bills – for 2013 and 2015.

I’d written to the Hotel des Impôts in Montaigut for copies and so I received copies for … 2016 and 2017. Clearly no good.

And so I had to telephone them to find out what was going on.

It turns out that they no longer keep hard-copy records. Just those for the last two complete years. Any further information for other years needs to be obtained from the Tresorerie in Riom.

And so I had to write a letter.

Another project that I had in mind was to start printing off my bass guitar lines. I have the rhythm tabs saved on the laptop but I want to print them off to take with me to places now that I have a decent printer. First off was “Bobby McGee” – the old Kris Kristofferson song.

And that took me longer than it might too, because the printing wouldn’t align with the paper, or vice versa

We had lunch of course and then I came back in here to carry on. “In here” refers of course to my bedroom, because the long wall in here has been transformed into a rather comfortable office.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t last long. And I missed my afternoon walk, my guitar session, my afternoon coffee, my slice of Christmas cake, all of that too.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then biting the bullet, I went for my evening walk.

When I had awoken this afternoon, there was a howling gale outside and a torrential rainstorm going on. This evening though we still had the hurricane but the rain had gone. At least, for half of my journey. For the second part of my walk I got the lot and was like a drowned rat by the time that I returned.

Another day when I haven’t spoken to anyone at all. And I’m not tired after my afternoon sleep. It’s all becoming some kind of circular performance and I can’t break out of it.

Friday 25th January 2019 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… the early night that I was expecting.

I’m not quite sure what happened but it was certainly later than midnight when I went to bed. And even later when I went to sleep.

What was even more surprising was that I was up and about reasonably early too, not too long after the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too. Back on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I’m not now sure why. Although it has been in my thoughts just recently and on my live ship navigation feed, I noticed before going to bed that she’s currently in the Antarctic moored to an ice-floe about 300 yards offshore.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a change of clothes and a general clean-up. I need to look my best for I have things to do. These included tracking down Brigitte my neighbour. And I was extremely lucky in that I caught her just as she was on the point of going out.

Nevertheless she devoted 15 minutes to countersigning my passport application. It’s quite handy having a former Civil Servant in the building who can actually remember me from the past. As I have said before … “and you will say again” – ed … it’s a small world, and it’s getting smaller all the time.

I collected up all of the papers and headed off into town. I posted off the form to declare that I had lost my original, and then went into the Post Office to send off the application registered post, recorded delivery with receipt – all of that. I’ve no idea how long it might take to replace my passport but the way things are as they are, I imagine that this 6-week time limit is going to be considerably under pressure.

Picking up a baguette I headed for home, only to bump into Brigitte again. Every labour deserves its reward so I invited her for a coffee. This was at about 11:30. We had a chat too and much to my surprise it was 13:47 by the time we moved off. I’ll have to take my bed with me next time.

After a rather late lunch I started to catch up with the paperwork, with a brief interruption for a walk around the headland in the rain.

Back here I started to carry on but by 17:15 I was flat out on the bed and asleep. And I would probably still be there now had I not had another severe attack of cramp. But I wasn’t in the mood for any tea, but made a quick plate of pasta and veg.

The rain had gone this evening but the wind was blowing quite strongly.

With the tide being in, the waves were crashing up over the promenade again at the Plat Gousset. It was altogether quite an impressive sight.

And on the way back I nearly collided with a young girl walking the other way who loomed up out of the darkness around the corner.

Back round in the rue Notre Dame I met up with Minette the black cat who seems to have forgiven me for whatever I did to her because she let me stroke her.

Shopping tomorrow so I might have an early night. No football in the evening either except on the internet where the biggest match this century will take place. Bangor City and Caernarfon Town are separated by about 13 miles and so hate each other with a passion. Caernarfon have always been the underdogs but were promoted to the Welsh Premier League last season finally to meet Bangor, only to find that Bangor were expelled for financial irregularities. They meet up in the Welsh Cup tomorrow at Bangor and Caernarfon’s allocation of 1300 tickets was sold out ages ago.

This is going to be a corker.

night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

… “and on many occasions too” – ed … the big problem about going to bed early is that there is a tendency to awaken early.

But waking up at 03:50 is a bit on the ridiculous side.

And waking up with a thirst that you could photograph too, without very much in the way of drink to assuage my thirst either. Half a litre of drink and I could quite easily have polished that off.

But regardless of that, I couldn’t get back to sleep and just lay awake, reminiscing on the nocturnal ramble that I was having and which has now gone completely out of my mind, until 06:00 when the alarm went off.

I heard the other two alarms too, but the next thing that I remember was someone banging a door in the building – at 07:18. I’d gone right back to sleep again. I’d been on a nocturnal ramble too – pushing a shopping trolley around a supermarket in Stoke on Trent stocking up with food and toilet paper – things like that-until the trolley was overloaded. People were looking at me and so I said that I was stocking up now before prices went through the roof, and the strange thing about that, as I even recognised at the time which is surprising, was that I said it in French. In Stoke on Trent they struggle to even speak intelligible English.

Having had a bad day yesterday, I wasn’t feeling much better today. For two pins I would have turned over and gone back to sleep.

But I went through the morning ritual and then hit the streets. Glorious sunshine and a temperature of minus 4°C. Not the day for loitering.

But loiter I did for at least part of the journey.

In the daylight I stopped to take a photo of the drainage work that I had seen in the Tiensestraat last night. They were all out there, the workmen, working on it. I hadn’t noticed the pipes last night so they may have been anly just delivered

A little further on down the Tiensestraat I was distracted yet again.

Fire engines and ambulances and barriers in the Herbert Hooverplein told us the story. There had been what I assumed to be a fire in one of the blocks of flats just there as you can see, and the emergency services had been called out.

They didn’t look to be in all that much of a hurry so I imagine that there wasn’t anything serious going on and that the crisis had passed.

My perambulations took me down the hill into the Brusselsestraat where there was more of interest going on.

There’s a huge plan to knock down the big modern hospital that is now surplus to requirements and also to refurbish a couple of the derelict 19th Century buildings in the vicinity.

They are water-washing the brickwork of one of these buildings, so that have shrouded it all off to avoid inconveniencing the passers-by.

I was early at the hospital and it was just as well because the reception area was heaving. It must have taken 15 minutes to be seen. And it was even worse downstairs. My appointment was for 09:50 and it wasn’t until 10:35 that I was taken off by a nurse to be fitted out.

She didn’t speak English so we had my insertion interview in Flemish. Things are definitely improving from that point of view.

There wasn’t a comfy seat for me either so I had to make do with a normal one. It definitely wasn’t my day.

But there s some good news. The protein loss has stabilised and the blood count has increased. And I’ll tell you for nothing that it certainly doesn’t feel like it

And that’s not all either. You never know what you are entitled to until you ask, and I asked a speculative question. The answer was quite surprising and it’s opened up a whole new vista of opportunities that I thought might have been closed.

It was long after 16:00 by the time that I was kicked out. And then I had the rounds of the chemists to do. There seems to be issues of supply of certain of my medications. I had to try three chemists before I could find what I needed – and then a lot of it was substitutes.

The Delhaize was next, to buy the food for the next couple of days. And as well as vegan sorbets and vegan margarine, I picked up some Vegan wienerschnitzels which I hadn’t seen before and … “SHOCK” … “HORROR” … some vegan cheese, which seems now to be on sale there. I forgot to buy some drink though, so I had to call up at the big SPAR near my accommodation.

Back here, I had a shower and washed my clothes. There’s a curtain rail right over the heater here so they won’t take long to dry. And that was the cue for a coffee.

The vegan schnitzels were delicious, with potatoes and frozen peas and carrots. and followed down by raspberry sorbet.

But having had a day where I wasn’t able to have a good sleep, I decided on an early night. I didn’t even do the washing up. Tomorrow is a Day of Rest while I gather up my resources and gird up my loins ready for the journey back home.

21 January 2019 fire herbert hooverplein leuven belgie

building work brusselsestraat leuven belgie

Thursday 17th January 2019 – WHAT DO I DO …

… now that I can’t find my passport anywhere?

This is really going to throw a spanner in the works, this is.

Last time that I physically remember having it, I had to produce it to a German ticket inspector on the train from Köln to Aachen to prove my entitlement to a reduced fare.

I must have had it here though because a form that I had to fill in last week, I had to enter my passport number on it.

It might have been at the bank when I was there on Thursday last week, but I phoned them to ask and they don’t have it.

It seems that these days I’m taking one step forward and two steps back.

The alarms went off as usual this morning, but I simply turned over and went back to sleep again. It was 08:10 when I finally crawled out of bed.

I’d been on my travels too although I don’t remember too much about them. There were two young girls, aged about 12 or so, in a café and one was carrying a very large baby doll. She went up to the counter, pretending that the doll that she was carrying was a real baby, and asked piteously if the café would buy her a cup of coffee because she was a single mother with no money. The waiter served her a coffee, and I was interested to see how she would share this out with her friend.

There was a quick morning routine followed by a quick shower and a whirl of the washing machine (I’m running low on clothes) and then off up town in the rain showers.

First port of call was the Post Office where I posted off the letter that I wrote yesterday. I wonder how long it will be before I receive a reply. And I hope that it’s positive news. As Ludicrus said in Up Pompeii , It’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Second stop was LIDL. I didn’t buy all that much but it was still an expensive do. There were a couple of really decent notebooks that I need for a project. But there was also a clip-on LED lamp that works as a nice office light. Only 2.5 watts instead of the 60 watt bulb in the ceiling, but gives twice as much light. I was talking about getting something for quite a while.

Back home, I had a coffee, unpacked the shopping and installed the LED light. It works quite nicely and I’m quite pleased with it.

This afternoon after lunch I finished off the photos from December and then made a start on those from January.

But I was sidetracked. I received a Press Release from the French Government outlining the French plans for British nationals in the event of a Hard Brexit. It’s quite a comprehensive document with some useful information so I reckoned that it would be a good idea to print it out and keep it with my passport.

And now we started the circus.

Tea was a potato and lentil curry dating from January last year. And delicious it was too.

It was quite windy outside. There were a few people walking around the headland after lunch.

And the mystery of what they were doing with that area of paving on the car park by the lighthouse is revealed. They were erecting a tourist information sign there.

There has been some talk about opening up the old bunkers of the Atlantic Wall so that tourists might visit. But they went through a great deal of effort and expended an enormous amount of manpower in putting up that simple sign.

But once again, not a soul – not even a cat – out there this evening. But I did notice that they are digging up the roads in the Medieval town just down the road.

There are signs all over the old town saying that the Fibre-Optic cabling is “ongoing”, and it looks as if it might be here any day now.

But when we are actually hooked up, that’s anyone’s guess.

And as I expected, I lost the internet connection half a dozen times today. So I might end up having to connect it with a cable after all.

Tuesday 15th January 2019 – CHAOS, TURMOIL AND MAYHEM!

Yes, the promises of Liam Fox and his “easiest deal in History” came thoroughly unstuck today as Mrs Mayhem suffered the worst ever defeat of any Government in the whole history of Parliament.

The whole set of wheels has come off and the UK has been plunged into total chaos. The ship is drifting helplessly with no-one at the helm and in a couple of months time it will drop off the edge of the World and into the abyss and who knows what will happen.

I don’t know how many tens of millions of lives will be affected by the failure of the UK Government to ask 65 million people a proper question and receive a proper answer. But it’s the illiterate uneducated Etonites who are responsible for all of this. All they ever learnt at Public School was sodomy, and they must have spent a lot of time at it judging by the way that they have completely buggered up the UK.

With having had an early night I had a little fit of tossing and turning during the night but managed to stay asleep until the alarm went off. And I managed to haul myself out of bed at something that resembled a reasonably early time.

First job though was to make some muesli. I’d run out yesterday and forgot to do some. And fresh muesli really is delicious.

After breakfast I started to download another pile of programs for the new computer.

But not straight away.

The computer decided that it wanted to do an upgrade of the operating system and that took a while. But since then the computer hasn’t dropped the internet connection.

Of course, I’m preparing for the worst, especially as I have tempted fate, but we shall see.

It’s nice though, nevertheless, to be able to connect up all of my external drives, a couple of portable drives, a couple of memory sticks and a memory card reader all at once and swap files around.

By the end of the morning all of the programs that I think that I need are loaded on, including the printer files and the Nikon software, so I could go to lunch in a happy state.

Lunch was butties of course, with some home-made hummus out of the freezer. And delicious it was too.

Talking of memory cards, I realised (too late) that the new computer doesn’t have an SD card slot and that was expected to cramp my style somewhat seeing as the big Nikon takes full-size cards.

But then I remembered – the card in there is a micro-SD card in an adaptor, and I do have a micro-SD card reader. So now, I’ve finally managed to load up all of the photos – almost 400 of them – that have been building up since the other laptop died. And I made a start on editing them too.

I might even be finished before the end of the month. However, I was interrupted by a brief 20 minutes asleep on my chair.

But then I was able to go off and wander around the headland for a walk in the wind.

But just offshore at the Pointe du Roc there’s something weird bobbing up and down.

I’ve not noticed this before so I was wondering what it might be. it could be a ball of some kind that’s been washed off a beach, or a cable buoy that has come adrift from its mooring in the tidal port, or even a fishing float.

Talking of fishing, there was some kind of movement out to sea near the Ile de Chausey.

Coupling up the 70-300mm zoom lens I could see that it’s the yellow and blue trawler from Granville on its way back to the harbour with today’s catch from the English Channel.

Frying tonight, obviously. But I wonder what kind of fish it has in the hold.

And talking of the harbour, we have one of our regular visitors in here this afternoon. Thora has come in from St Helier on one of her regular freight runs.

One of these days I’ll have to go down there and have a look round her. A while back I was given a guided tour of her elder sister Grima, so I’m intrigued to see what Thora is like.

It should be quite interesting, and if this stupid Brexit gets out of hand, I might find myself having to sign on as a ship’s cook so I’ll need to know my way around.

Back here with a coffee and some cake, I looked at the post. And I now have not only my duplicate telephone bills but also … wait for it … my certificate from the Tax Office. Still a few things that I need but we’re well on the way.

The new spare ink for the printer arrived today as well, and it’s just as well because I’ve started to print out the documents that I need. This is going to be a long – and expensive – job.

Another thing that I managed to accomplish was to have a shower and a haircut. My hair was getting a little out of control so a good trim with my sheep-shearer was appropriate.

For tea, I had home-made pie with baked beans and some oven chips that I found in the bottom of the freezer that had been there since last winter.

And followed that by a walk around the walls.

They are progressing with the Fibre-Optic cable work. They’ve now dug a hole on the corner where one of the little alleys joins the rue Notre Dame – presumably to drop an inspection chamber or junction box in there.

And the new little kitten was waiting for me again. he or she had another little stroke.

So now while the politicians are busy hitting the fan, I’m going to bed. I wonder what kind of news tomorrow will bring.

Thursday 10th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN A LITTLE …

… better today.

And that’s really a surprise because it was a late night to start with, and then it took me ages to get off to sleep.

But once I did, I stepped back into last night’s voyage at exactly the place where I had left it. And so it’s another evening where you’ll have to do without knowing where I was. Some of you have some delicate sensibilities.

When the alarm went off, I loitered around in bed for a while and then rose up from my stinking pit. We had the usual morning performance and then I took a shower. it’s been a few days and even I was noticing it.

So one good clean up, shave and shampoo later, I hit the streets.

First stop was the Post Office to post the letter that I had written yesterday.

Second stop was at the Bank. It’s all very well having on-line banking but if you don’t download the statements then you are in trouble. So I needed some instruction as to how to operate an internet banking service. It didn’t take long either.

Third stop was at the railway station to pick up my tickets. It seems now that my TGV tickets are only available on print-out, not from the station. So I mustn’t forget to do that.

Final stop was at LIDL.

But before I could reach there I had to pick my way through the roadworks at the roundabout at the top of the avenue LeClerc by the avenue Aristide Briand.

They are pushing on with the fibre-optic cabling but, according to the workmen here, there’s no timetable as yet for the actual connection. No-one has any idea when it might finally go on-line.

At LIDL, considering that I wasn’t intending to spend anything, I didn’t half spend a lot. As well as a new multimeter, there was a box of electrical accessories, some PTFE tape for plumbing and a pair of working gloves. Not necessarily for working but they are thin and very well-insulated and I can even work the camera with them – and that’s the point of buying them.

I walked back home, stopping half way up the rue des Juifs to see what was happening at the port.

There’s a huge pile of gravel now piled up on the quayside where the gravel boats dock. That must mean that we should be expecting a visit from Neptune or one of her sisters very soon.

Back here I bumped into someone delivering leaflets and was complaining about the cold. And it was all of 5°C too. I told him that he was lucky he didn’t live in the Auvergne.

In the apartment I had a coffee and then attacked the bank’s website. And much to my dismay there are only 6 months-worth of statements still held. That’s not enough but it’s the best that I can do. I printed them out anyway and added them to my file.

After lunch I filed everything away, checked off things on my checklist and then set to work to download my telephone statements. The bad news here is that they only go back 12 months but I’ve been on paperless accounts since March 2015. So I have all of the earlier ones (much to my surprise) and I’ve downloaded all of the later ones, but I’m short of the period 04/15 – 12/07.

So on the telephone to Orange. And what with waiting time it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes and having to tell my story to 3 different people. But eventually someone answered me with the news that they will pas my message onto the Accounts department who will send them to me.

And I hope that they do.

My afternoon walk was thus an early-evening walk after all of that.

There was a wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off, and went for tea. Burger on a bun with potatoes and veg.

Back out around the Pointe du Roc for my evening walk. it was a cold, windy evening (but not that cold). Quite pleasant to be out.

And away on the horizon near St Malo in the centre of the photo to the left of the trawler, I noticed a couple of moving lights

Based on no evidence at all except pure speculation, the only thing that came into my mind was that it could well have been the huge ferry, Pont Aven, setting off for Portsmouth. There is occasionally a Brittany Ferries departure from St Malo round about 20:30 or so.

I’m glad that I was out there though because the sky was really quite clear and beautiful.

You could see for miles tonight and the street lights across the bay at Cancale were quite prominent. And in the background the clouds in the sky over there were glowing orange with the reflection of the street lights from St Malo.

I really am going to have to treat myself to a better camera with a much wider ISO range.

You’ll remember the trawler that we saw in a previous photograph just now.

I’d taken so long in sorting myself out with the other photos and the 70-300mm zoom lens that the trawler had beaten me into the harbour.

Here she was, just tying up at the quayside ready to unload today’s catch. There’a a van down there ready to take it all away.

So now I’ve printed out my tickets (and I’m glad that I bought a new printer) I might even try for an early night again. i’m out tomorrow afternoon. And I’m not the only one who is out and about. i’ve had a message to say that my new computer is on the road too, heading this way.

trawler night port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Wednesday 2nd January 2019 – IT DIDN’T …

… work out like it ought to have done last night.

I was so engrossed with what I was doing, as well as chatting to a friend in North America, that it was well after 02:00 when I realised the time. So much for my early night.

Nevertheless, despite any kind of temptation, I still had the alarms set for 06:00 etc and I was there or thereabouts when they went off. But as for rising from my stinking pit, well, I wasn’t quite so prompt.

We had the usual morning procedure of course and then after a brief relax with a few things that I intended to do, I set to work.

By the time that lunchtime had come round, I’d written a huge pile of letters, which involved a great deal of research, and printed them out. I’m glad that I had bought my new printer because it was simplicity itself and the printer did well.

But I’ve put the kiss of death upon it because I’ve ordered some spare ink off the internet. That’s enough to kill off any printer.

In fact, I’ve ordered a pile of stuff from the internet just now. A new computer screen as I mentioned, together with a powered USB hub and a keyboard for the new computer. As well as that, I’ve ordered a new 60-litre rucksack for my trips to Leuven and a power converter for the Roland bass cube so that I can restart the bass-playing.

And much to my surprise, by the end of the evening I noticed that some of the stuff was on its way.

After lunch I had a shower and a clean-up, seeing that even I was beginning to notice that I was here. And then I hit the streets – down to the Post Office to post the huge pile of letters that I had written. And it wasn’t easy in the Post Office either as the automatic machine wouldn’t read my bank card.

There was still some coffee left from this morning so I drank that when I returned, along with a slice of my Christmas present from Liz and Terry.

With having had a late night and an early start, I couldn’t keep going and by 18:00 I was stretched out on the bed under the covers. And there I stayed until about 19:30. Definitely feeling the strain, I am.

As a result, tea was rather late. The rest of the falafel from the other day, seeing as it had been hanging around for a few weeks, with pasta, veg and tomato sauce.

Later on this evening, I went out for my evening walk.

The weather outside was really beautiful this evening, even if it was cold out there tonight.

The air was clear though and I could see for miles, all the way down past St Malo and along the Brittany coast.

So how about an early night tonight? This afternoon I made a start on another project and that is going to take a lot of work. But there’s a time limit involved and it’s quite important. Some of the letters that I wrote are in connection with this, but the Lord helps those who help themselves and years of bitter experience have told me that I can’t ever rely on anyone else to do things for me.

And so I need my sleep.

night st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

very blurred night brehal sur mer granville manche normandy france

night donville sur mer granville manche normandy france

Saturday 29th December 2018 – SO MUCH …

… for my early night. It doesn’t do any good if you end up lying in bed tossing and turning for as long as I did last night. And then awakening at about 04:30 and not being able to go back to sleep for ages doesn’t help much either.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave my bed and it took me a while to come to my senses, which seeing how few senses I have these days, is rather astonishing.

We had the medication and then we had breakfast, followed a little later by a shower. And then I hit the streets, having set the washing machine off on a cycle. Quite clever, my washing machine.

LIDL didn’t come up with much, except a new pair of slippers. My old ones are starting to fall apart and they had some cheap ones in at just €4:99. And they had some cheap sheets on offer too. I don’t have really enough of those and I would have bought another one, but all of the blue ones had been sold. White is no good for me.

NOZ was pretty good and I would have spent a lot of money in there had I had the space and the inclination. But some orange-flavoured digestive biscuits, an Arsène Lupin DVD, a baking tray for mince pies and the like and three glass dessert coupes were amongst the things that I bought.

LeClerc didn’t have anything special on offer, although I did have a surprise. There on the shelves in the Industrial Bakery section was a pack of 6 pains au chocolate – the type that kids like to eat for breakfast. And the packet was clearly marked “VEGAN – 100% VEGETAL”.

I’ve been complaining about the lack of vegan products here in France – how they are 50 years behind the times – so this was an impressive find.

People making vegan products on an industrial scale need as much encouragement as they can receive, so I bought a packet of solidarity and support. It’ll be good to vary my breakfast habits here and there.

Back here, I had a coffee and then slowly unpacked the purchases. It took me a while and it’s still not done yet. I’m definitely slowing up these days.

After lunch I didn’t do too much at all – downloading a pile of stuff that I had tracked down on the internet and then organising a few directories so that everything is stored correctly. I want to have this computer organised ready for whenever the new one might come.

I was also following the football on the internet. And just for a change, the clubs that I follow all managed to win today. That’s not likely at all. Usually they all fall apart.

As for tea, I didn’t bother tonight. I’ve eaten rather a lot just recently and going without a meal for once won’t hurt me. I had a nibble on some Bombay Mix that I had left over from my trip to Leuven.

It was gone 22:30 when I went out for my evening walk. There was no-one around at all at that time of night except for the kids on the car park.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s Sunday so a lie-in is appropriate. But whether I would ever get one remains to be seen. I’m not doing too well right now what with one thing or another.

Tuesday 25th December 2018 – A MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers. And I’ll refuse to make any comment about Crewe Bus Station toilets, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I make the same remark almost every year.

While you admire a photo of the buildings of the Hogeschoolplein, taken during my evening stroll tonight, let me tell you about my Christmas Day.

Or, rather, starting off with yesterday night’s affairs.

t wasn’t that much of an early night – being in bed at something like 01:00. But I had no intention whatsoever of leaving my bed when I awoke at 04:30. Nor at 07:00 either.

While you admire the Town Hall, or Stadhuis, last night I was on a crowded railway station waiting for a train called the something-or-other express. At the time it was due to arrive, a train pulled in, but this was called by a different name, so I didn’t go for it. And neither did a few other people. Our train didn’t appear so after a while I went to find someone to ask about it. They told me that the train that I had mentioned – that was our train but it was now known by a different name. Eventually I tracked down one of the station supervisors and told him of what had happened. There was a similar train due in in three hours time so I asked him to make sure that the other name of the train would be called too so that there would be no confusion. He replied that he couldn’t arrange for an unexpected train to stop in the station regardless of the circumstances – and was then called away to attend to someone else. I eventually caught up with him and explained that he had misunderstood the situation. The train wasn’t unexpected at all – it was simply a question of the name. Anyway, the train did stop, the name was called and we all climbed aboard. It was a double-decker so I went upstairs, and we set off. By now our train had transformed into a bus coming from Southwest London near where I lived once upon a time in Wandsworth. We went around a square something like Trafalgar Square and the bus was swaying dramatically about and everyone was gasping. It turned out that there had been a heavy snowfall, the ploughs had shifted the snow into banks at the side of the road and our bus was driving up and down over these snowbanks.

09:00 was a much more realistic time to come to my senses (such as they are these days) and from then on the rest of the day was spent in gentle leisure. I didn’t do anything.

Lunch was nibbling on bits and pieces here and there, and straight after lunch I started to make tea.

I fried some onions and garlic, added the tempeh cubes that I had bought, and when they were fried, put them in some water with a stock cube and some frozen veg. They were then left to simmer for an hour.

I had a shower too and washed my clothes to date. I need to keep up-to-date with my clothes.

Following that, in accordance with usual procedures just recently, I ended up having a crash out on the bed.

Later on, the lazy day continued, with a pause for tea (and there’s plenty left for tomorrow) followed by half of the Christmas pudding in a creamy soya sauce.

Round about 22:30 I went for an evening walk into town.

To admire the Christmas lights, see if there was anything going on and to stretch my legs. There were a few more people around than yesterday but still not the crowds that you might expect.

By midnight I was back here loitering around again and by 01:00 I was in bed. One of the quietest Christmas Days that I’ve had.

But I don’t care. It does me good to relax every now and again.

night town hall stadhuis christmas lights grote markt leuven louvain belgium

night christmas lights bondgenotenlaan leuven louvain belgium

night monseigneur ladeuzeplein library leuven louvain belgium

night town hall stadhuis christmas lights leuven louvain belgium

night christmas lights mechelsestraat leuven louvain belgium

night hogeschoolplein leuven louvain belgium

night quo vadis muntstraat leuven louvain belgium

Saturday 22nd December 2018 – IT’S ALL VERY WELL …

… going to bed really early at something like 21:00 or whenever it was, but it counts for nothing at all if you are wide-awake again at about 23:20.

After that, it took me an absolute age to go back to sleep. And when I finally did manage to drop off, I wasn’t out for long. By 04:30 I was awake again and by 05:00 I was up and about.

None of the aforementioned stopped me going for a little nocturnal ramble though. And wherever I was during the night, I was somewhere that bore a resemblance to the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence. And I don’t remember what vehicle I was in either. But there I was in some kind of small town with some kind of rural business park out there but with buildings so well hidden that they would take some tracking down. There was an ice-cream parlour there somewhere and I was on my way. I had to negotiate a few barriers and ended up in a field that was being used as a car park, but then I couldn’t even see the sign for the ice-cream place, never mind find the buildings. And so I found myself back on the road, heading to the end where there was a huge car ferry that would press onwards. The road to the ferry terminal turned a sharp left right by a series of small lakes and ponds. By now I was accompanied by a young girl who was going to an interview. This was taking place at a modern building near the turning. When we arrived there we met someone who was going to take us thereand we noticed a couple wading across the pond to meet us. I remarked that I wouldn’t like to do that in winter, to which the guy replied that in winter they walked on the ice. Even so, just before the ice formed it would still be far too cold for me. This girl went off with these two people and I was obliged to wait for her. I was shown around the ground floor of this building and while this was happening I saw my ferry steaming… “dieseling” – ed … out of the harbour down the road. Something had to be taken to the theatre, which was upstairs, so I volunteered.This place was much bigger than the ground floor, quite modern, clean and tidy. The bar was in a strange place, down at the end, and there was a woman there. She thanked me for what I had brought and invited me to watch the next production. I explained that by then, I would probably be a very long way away from here.

First thing that I did after I joined the Land of the Living (and believe me, this was at a moment not exactly adjacent to 05:00) was to have a shower. There were clothes ti wash, of course, but I wasn’t up to dealing with those right now. They can wait until the next time.

Second thing that needed doing was to write up my notes for yesterday. Going to bed at 21:00 meant that I hadn’t even thought about that last night. What with an interruption for coffee and a couple of others too for various purposes (including a little relax), it took me quite a while to deal with it.

By now it was 10:00 and I have things to do, so I hit the streets.

It wasn’t very cold at all outside – rather disappointing in fact, because I was hoping for some kind of Arctic weather for Christmas.

And so instead I went for a wander for a good view of the Pope Leo XIII Seminary, nicely framed by the new student accommodation blocks off the Tiensestraat.

And the Christmas Market wasn’t open either. They were still setting it up. Instead, I went to FNAC but there was nothing there that caught my eye.

Moving on, I went on to the Delhaize to buy what I couldn’t carry home yesterday.

My route took me through the Grote Markt where I walked past all of the strange Christmas cabins that they have erected here. They certainly go to town when they tart up the place.

Delhaize came up with what I need, and I now have almost everything that I need, especially as on the market outside was a stall selling Brussels sprouts.

No Christmas meal of any description is complete without Brussels Sprouts.

And so with nothing else to do and nothing else going on, I headed home for lunch.

But not before I took a little diversion onto a car park in the Windmolenstraat to admire a vehicle parked in one of the spaces. I shall leave Strawberry Moose to sum up the situation perfectly.

By the time that I returned it was almost midday so I had a mince pie with my coffee. That’s the official declaration that the Festive season has arrived. Although I don’t really feel festive at all, with a hospital appointment on Christmas Eve.

And being away from home doesn’t help. I do like Leuven, make no mistake, and if I had to be anywhere away from home them Leuven would receive my vote any time. But all the same, it’s not my home.

After lunch, I headed back out again.

This time, the Christmas market was open and I had a good stroll around. But there was nothing that interested me. In fact, it didn’t seem to be anything like as good as last year’s when there was an ice rink and all of that.

First stop was to Kruidvat for some of their gluten-free and gelatine-free sweets. And that place was heaving

Next stop was the Sports Shop. I went in for a look around and saw that they had the trousers that I like on special offer again. As one of my pairs was torn and I seemto have left another behind in Canada, I bought two pairs.

But here’s a shock! Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I went to Africa earlier this year. And I had it in my mind to go to the Travel Agent’s – just across the road – to see if there was anything else coming up in the near future that would be exciting.

But SHOCK! HORROR! It’s closed down! That’s no good to me at all and it’s very disappointing.

Another thing that was very disappointing was that the supply of vegan food in the Loving Hut has dwindled almost to nothing. None of my favourite cheese, none of the spray-on vegan cream. Stocks have been running down in there for quite a while and it doesn’t look as if there’s much more to go.

Instead I wandered off to the Bio shop – the Origin’O – across town in the Vismarkt and they did the business. Well, sort-of. They had pouring cream, not spray-on, but they did have some decent cheese and also a slice of vegan walnut-cake. That’ll do me for Christmas Day.

On the way back, walking up the Muntstraat, I came across a restaurant that I hadn’t noticed before. It was advertising vegetarian and allergy-free meals so I stuck my head in to enqure about vegan and gluten-free. And much to my delight, they could indeed cater for us. So I’ll invite Alison there next time I see her.

Back in my little room, and another mince pie, with vegan cream this time. What they call “pushing the boat out”.

Another little relax, and then 18:15 saw me back on the road again.

Idly scanning through Livescore, I noticed that there was a Belgian Premier League match on in St Truiden this eveninf. STVV v KV Kortrijk. I’d seen STVV play in Oostende earlier this year but I’d never been to St Truiden. It’s only three stops down the line from Leuven and the kick-off time corresponded nicely with the trains.

So there I was, at 18:44 leaping aboard the train to Genk.

At 19:15 I was leaping off it in St truiden and decanted myself into the fritkot right outside the station. Being in Belgium, fritjes are always on the menu and eating them while walking down the road to a football match is always a good plan and typically Belgian.

It really WAS a good plan too, because these were some of the most delicious fritjes that I have ever eaten. And they were quite generous too. It took me all the way to Het Staaien to eat them.

But as for the football though … What can I say?

I’ve seen some rubbish in my time but I would have to search deep and long into my memory to see anything quite like this. Apart from the fact that both teams were too slow to move the ball about and wasted numerous chances by taking one touch too many – something that seems to be a modern trait – the quality was dire.

I don’t know what was up with the STVV keeper but he couldn’t kick to save his life and his antics, especially in the first 10 minutes but here and there throughout the match – as he received back-passes from his team was like watching in slow motion an accident waiting to happen.

Both sets of attackers must have suffered from vertigo or have had lead weights in their boots because I only counted two high balls into the penalty area in the whole match. So clueless were they that from one short corner, the player taking the kick somehow managed to kick it out for a throw-in.

We had dozens of misplaced passes, dozens of players falling over the ball and, even worse, dozens of shots from excellent positions blazed hopelessly over the bar.

STVV were roundly booed off the field at the end of the game (and no surprise either) and had there been more than 100 or so fans from Kortrijk, their team would have been booed off the pitch too. 0-0 was how it finished and you aren’t ever going to win a match playing like these two teams did this evening.

I had to wait for a while for the train back – the last train from Genk as it happened. And it was a little rowdy too with a few Kortrijk supporters who had clearly been just a little too close to the barmaid’s apron.

It was quite late by the time I arrived back, so I wasn’t going to hang around. I had some pineapple and ice cream for pudding and then I went to bed. Although it’s a Sunday there’s an alarm set for 06:00. i’m off out early and I’ll be gone all day.

load of boels schepenenstraat leuven louvain belgium

pope leo 13 seminary chapel leuven louvain belgium

wilfried craps leuven louvain belgium

christmas market herbert hooverplein leuven louvain belgium

christmas market monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven louvain belgium

het stayen st truiden stvv kv kortrijk football belgium

Thursday 20th December 2018 – TOMORROW …

… I’m off to Leuven. So I’ve spent today packing (of a sort) and tidying up (of another sort).

I was out of bed surprisingly early this morning – but that’s what comes of being wide awake at 05:40. And it’s been a while since I was awake that early, hasn’t it?

And after breakfast, I had a little relax before getting myself going.

This time I’m taking the medium-sized suitcase, with a basic foodstuff supply in it. After all, I’m going to be gone for about 6 days and that’s a lot of shopping that I need to organise. As well as that, it’s Christmas and so I’m taking some specialty stuff with me too.

Talking of Christmas, I erected the little mini-Christmas tree that I had bought the other week at Noz for €3:99 – the tree with its electric lights and baubles. It’s not too bad either. i’m pleasantly surprised.

Lunch was as normal, and I had two walks today. one was, as usual, around the Pointe du Roc.

And in the harbour I saw Neptune manoeuvring her way out of the harbour. She must have come in on the early morning tide and loaded up pretty quickly because I didn’t see her arrive during the evening.

I’ve not seen her turn round as quickly as this. She must be in quite a hurry today

But later on in the early evening when it was dark, I went into town.

To Super-U for some fruit seeing as I have run out, and to the boulangerie for one of the baguettes that I like, for my lunchtime butties.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to go around the Cours Jonville and photograph the Christmas decorations. They aren’t so good this year as I remember the and it’s rather disappointing.

Tea was a slice of my pie from the other week, with veg and mushroom gravy.

So now I’m going to have a shower and then go to bed. I’m having an early morning tomorrow, ready to hit the road. It’s a long way to go.

storm sea wall port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france