Tag Archives: eric hall

Tuesday 12th November 2013 – GOD, IT WAS HARD …

… getting out of bed this morning. It took me a good half-hour to finally show a leg; And although the sky had clouded over during the night, it was still pretty cold.

Anyway after breakfast, it was time to restart work for the first time for ages, and it was the turn of the lean-to outside to receive my attention – but not before I’d hooked up the crocodile-clip wire across the terminals of the charge controller in the barn so that the battery there will receive some charge.

By lunchtime I’d finished cleaning out the front part of the lean-to and making it look something-like in there, and I’d also collected some wood that was lying around, ready for the fire if I light one tonight.

However, a major issue at lunchtime was that the boulangère didn’t call with the bread, and wasn’t answering her ‘phone either. That meant a quick nip into Pionsat for a load of bread before I could have a butty, and then much to my surprise I crashd out for an hour afterwards.

Once I’d gathered up my wits (doesn’t take long – I don’t have many) I went outside and started to attack the garden. I’ve fought my way down to where the old cars are, and then I made a start on weeding the pathway down to the bottom of the garden and I was well on my way with that when the light disappeared. 18:00 hours or so, and so I did a few little jobs and then came up here to watch a film.

Of course, I can’t sleep now so I dunno what will happen next, but tomorrow’s plan is to clear some space in the barn by the battery box, and then to continue the weeding of the pathways.

We shall see.

-7

Monday 11th November 2013 – IT’S REMEMBRANCE DAY TODAY …

… which is a Bank Holiday here in France, and so I remembered to switch off the alarm and have another lie-in. It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper Bank Holiday day off.

It dropped below freezing point last night outside too, the first time at this end of the year, and I’m not surprised because it was a glorious day today – not a cloud in the sky. There was 134 amp-hours of surplus solar energy too and so the home-made electric 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load was in action again.

I had a nice leisurely morning tidying up a load of files on the computer and then carried out what is probably the most disagreeable task that happens round here, and that is to empty the composting toilet. Down at the composting bin, the first time for probably 6 months or something, I was well-impressed. What had been a horrible soggy mass of I don’t quite know what (well I do, but this is a family website) I was greeted by a nice dark brown earthy, crumbly soil mixture. So that is clearly working.

I’m also having charging issues in the barn, and have been for quite some time. The Charge Controller seems to have given up the ghost and no charge has been passing through it for quite some time, and consequently the batteries there are somewhat empty. But it was a shame to miss out on all of this lovely solar energy that we were having and so I made up a cable with a crocodile clip at each end and for a couple of hours I by-passed the charge controller by using this cable, and that put a little life into the batteries and we actually had some light in the barn this evening.

I’ll have to remember to do that more often, in order to give the batteries a chance to build themselves back up again. But that’s the second Charge Controller that’s failed in there. Something isn’t quite right, I reckon. I’ll need to check and see what it is.

-6

Sunday 10th November 2013 – THERE’S ONE THING …

… about owning a bright yellow van, and that is that everyone knows who you are. So at about 12:15 when I was on my way to Villosanges, a red saloon car suddenly sat on my tail and started desperately flashing his lights.

It turned out to be Fabien from the football club. It seeemed that the heavy rain over the last few days has caused the river at Villosanges to burst its banks and seeing as how the footy ground is right at the side of the river, the ground is now under three feet of water. So that was that.

Mind you, listening to the weather this morning, I didn’t feel much like going out. In fact I didn’t feel much like getting out of bed either, but then again it’s Sunday and Day of Rest so there’s no problem with that.

I had a late breakfast and did some desultory cleaning up here – the typical Sunday stuff – and then I went off for the footy. The bakery in Pionsat is open on Sunday mornings and so I went in to pay my respects and restart the bread round that I cancelled when I went off to Brussels. No point in me going every day or every other day to buy my bread when I can have it delivered for less than the cost of the fuel to go and fetch it. And it was shortly after this that I was turned back.

Back here, I made some butties and did a little job of work. I’ve been buying loads of CDs just recently and keen readers of this rubbish will recall that a good while ago I had bought some CDracks from IKEA. I’d put up four of them but now the collection has overflowed, so I installed a fifth one. Just one more left, so I might make a little trip to IKEA in due course to buy a couple more.

After eating my butties I went off to Terjat. I’d heard that the 2nd XI were playing Premilhat at 15:00 and as you know I try to get out and see Turgid whenever there isn’t any local football here.

This was a match that had everything. Torrential rain, sleet, hailstorms, as well as bright sunlight. But the howling wind was pretty much a constant and made play from east to west rather a tricky proposition.

It also had a few other features as well, including a right hook that would have put Joe Frazier to shame and which put the Terjat right-back into the dressing room iwthout any help from any of his colleagues. This led to controversy, as you might expect, for at this level (the basement of football as far as I’m concerned) there are no bookings and no sendings-off. The offending player was taken off by his captain, but a substitute ws sent out and this threatened to bring the game to an unceremonious end.

However, wiser councils prevailed. The referee blew for half-time a minute or so later, and at the start of the second half, it was clear that Premilhat had returned to the field with just 10 men.

Playing with the wind in their favour but with 11 against 11, Terjat were only trailing by 3-0 at half-time. But playing against the wind and against one man less, they were completely overwhelmed and let in another 4 goals, to lose by 0-7.

The fact that the score was 0-7 is laregly due to the Terjat goalkeeper who was effectively playing on his own against 5 or 6 Premilhat forwards and made probably 7 or 8 high-quality saves that would not have been out of place at Conference North level, and also due to the Premilhat attackers who missed a penalty, who hit the woodwork four times and who missed a load of sitters. If Premilhat had scored a dozen, no-one from Terjat could have complained.

Worse, though, is that Valentin, one of the heroes of Pionsat 2nd and 3rd XI’s valiant struggles, is now playing for Terjat, in his usual role out on the wing. He was an excellent player for Pionsat’s lesser sides but here he had a match that he would rather, I’m sure, forget completely. Not through any fault of his own, but simply that his colleagues were totally incapable of getting the ball forward to him.

I said to him after the game “what on earth are you doing with a team like this?”, for there’s no doubt that Terjat are the worst team that I have ever seen so far. And here I was – it was less than 8 days ago that i’d been watching a team that is playing in the Europa League.

Back here I lit the fire and made myself a pizza in the oven, and then watched some gridiron before going to bed. Tomorrow is a bank holiday so I’m going to have another lie-in.

-7

Saturday 9th November 2013 – DUNNO IF YOU REMEMBER …

… a couple of years ago and I posted a photo of the local village shop in Ronnet which had caught fire and burnt out.

The owners moved to other premises in the village with their shop and opened a little café-restaurant there too. But that’s not lasted too long, because this was what I discovered when I went through Ronnet at midday today.

We’ve had another fire and all of this seems to have gone for a Burton too. Even more importantly, when the first place caught fire they had a tarpaulin up and over it almost as soon as the flames were extinguished. Here though after the fire at their second premises, they seem to have abandoned everything to its fate and that seems to be that.

Yes, I was in Ronnet today, on my way to Commentry for shopping, and rather later than intended too. I’d heard the alarm go off but I decided that, seeing as how I’m still recovering from my exertions, I was going to have another morning of rest.

But what a beautiful morning it was though, not a cloud in the sky and the batteries were fully-charged by 10:45. I emptied some more stuff out of Caliburn and tidied up some more in here, slinging some filled rubbish bags into the van and then went off to Commentry, via Ronnet.

Christmas isn’t too far off and so I’ve started buying Christmas nibbles today. And nothing else of note or excitement, except that at Centrakor I picked up a couple of small pepper mills on special offer, to use for grinding my cardamon seeds and so on, and also some waxed table cloth. That was what I wanted, because I don’t want to ruin this new table when I use it as my kitchen worktop up here.

As the weather deteriorated, clouded over and started to rain, Neris was next, and the swimming baths. Ages since I’ve been there and it was freezing in the building. About 25 of us poor souls braving the extremes, but at least I’m clean for once.

So now that I’m back home I can return to my usual haunts and habits, FC Pionsat St Hilaire being one of them, and tonight the Ist XI were taking on Chatelguyon.

I had to get dressed for it too as it was freezing outside, although the rain had stopped. And it’s as well that I did for nothing that happened on the pitch served to warm me up at all.

PIonsat started the stronger and were peppering the Chatelguyon goalmouth and it was no surprise that they took the lead. A beautiful cross across the goalmouth from Nico and Pavel, this new Polish striker, volleying in a superb shot at the far post.

In that opening spell wre had shots kicked off the line, shots pounded into the woodwork and shots put wide when it would have been easier to score and I can’t think how it was that they missed. Pionsat were threatening to run riot.

They were however living dangerously at the back and it was no surprise to anyone that Chatelguyon equalised – with just a few minutes to go before half-time.

A break down the left wing saw a Chatelguyon forward clean on with the ball and although Michael managed to get down and stop the shot he couldn’t hold on and as the ball ran free from his grasp, another Chatelguyon forward following up had a pretty simple tap-in and that, dear readers, was that.

The second half started just like the first half. Pionsat came out of the trap like a rocket and for the first five minutes had Chatelguyon pegged right back in their own half and under something of the cosh.

We had the Pionsat missed chances, the woodwork peppered with shots, the Chatelguyon keeper making some excellent saves, and then the unbelievable happened.

Well, it isn’t unbelievable if you have been following what I was writing about the matches three and four years ago. Back in those days Pionsat were struggling because they had a defence that had a tendency to switch off and gp to sleep at important moments, and this was exactly what we had here.

And it didn’t happen just once or even twice, but FOUR TIMES, would you believe, and what looked like a comfortable Pionsat victory turned into something of an absolute rout as they went on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I felt sorry for Michael in the Pionsat goal. He’s not a goalkeeper but with injuries to everyone else he’s in there keeping goal and doing his best.

No one could fault him for any of the five goals that he conceded, but with two Pionsat centre-backs standing too far apart so that an attacker can go straight down though the middle for a one-on-one with him, what is he expected to do?

We had two of those, one after the other, and that was followed up by two balls over the top of the defence when the Pionsat defence was pushing too far forward and not quick enough to get back. For the fifth goal we had Michael on his own against three Chatelguyon attackers and no-one can do much about that.

Back home, I was skyped by an old friend of mine, telling me that he’s moved house. He has, but his wife hasn’t, meaning of course that their marriage of some considerable number of years has come to an end. That’s really sad news as between them they made quite an impressive couple with many qualities. But I suppose that it’s none of my business except to dole out the sympathy.

-5

Friday 8th November 2013 – GUESS WHO …

… spilt his mushroom and lentil curry all over the floor of the verandah this evening? And that was a shame because it was even nicer than on the two previous nights. Ahh well.

Anyway, this morning I had another one of these lie-ins – I’m taking it easy until Monday when I’ll be starting work in Earnest – and after breakfast I carried on with the tidying up. Another two sacks of rubbish have been filled and I’ve also been sorting out a huge pile of papers that have now been filed away correctly and I’ve collected together a pile of stuff that needs to be taken outside into the barn.

I’ve made a few useful finds too, not the least of which being the business card for the car wash that I used in Montreal in 2012 and was trying desperately to find a few weeks ago when I was there. I’ve added the address to the list in the Canadian notebook

Strangely enough though, despite all of the work, you can’t see much difference – in fact, the place looks even more untidy than it did before. Even worse, places that were comparatively tidy, such as the what will be the bedroom, are now starting to look cluttered. I’m not quite sure how that is possible but then again anything is possible when I am trying to tidy up.

This afternoon it was far too wet to go to work outside and so in a rare departure from normality I started to tidy up a few boxes on the ground floor. They had been in the way for over 2 years. Curiously (or maybe not), a lot of the stuff went straight into the bin. I can’t think what possessed me to bring it back here from Brussels when I sold Expo. Pressure of time, I suppose. But now I can actually move around much easier on the ground floor and if I spend another hour down there sometime, I might even have free passage all around the place. You never know.

I’ve also tidied up around the stairs and the landing so there’s even a free run up to my attic without stepping on anything. It’s all looking terribly impressive around here now, except of course in the attic 🙁

-4

Thursday 7th November 2013 – I’VE BEEN A BUSY BOY TODAY

Yes, high time I started work again around here. And even though I had something of a late-ish morning I still managed to do a good session before lunch.

First off, I repaired the woodshed. The corrugated iron sheets blew off while I wasn’t here and all of the wood is soaking wet. But I’ve rescued the sheets, nailed them down this time and used some bracing struts, and then covered it all over with an old tarp that was lying around not doing very much. That might hold it for a while until I can build the new one across the yard.

While I was outside I did some tidying up too and also a pile of weeding outside the house. It now looks as if someone is actually living here.

But that’s not all. The kitchen in the verandah was in a desperate condition and so I’ve tidied up in there and given it something of a superficial clean. At least the sink is empty now and unblocked which is a great improvement. Next task was the chest of drawers up here. There’s a screw retainer missing from one of the sides and so the drawers were dropping out of the runners. I emptied that, turned it upside-down to see what was needed and then fixed that.

After lunch, I emptied a couple of boxes out of Caliburn and dealt with those and seeing as I was in a good mood and having done a good day’s work I treated myself to a film. The Cannonball Run is 90 minutes of mindless mayhem but it’s a film that I can sit and watch time and time again, simply for the fact that it’s clear to see that the actors involved, and good actors too, are thoroughly enjoying themselves making it. As well as that, though, I keep a little database of film quotes and this film has contributed more one-liners to my database than any other film that I’ve ever seen. Who can forget immortal phrases such as “You wouldn’t last five minutes in a New York subway” or “It takes brilliance and years of hard work, and you wouldn’t understand any of that”.

Anyway, it’s beddie byes time now. See you all tomorrow

-4

Wednesday 6th November 2013 – AFTER SOMETHING OF A LEISURELY MORNING …

… in which it was something like 10:00 when I crawled out out my stinking pit, I started to work. But I do have to say that it was nice to wake up at home in my own bed with all of my own things around me. You have no idea just how much I’ve missed all of that over this last 10 months or so.

So what have I been doing? The answer to that is that being fed up of living in a tip, I’ve grasped the bull by the horns and there are now 5 sacks full of waste paper from up here as well as 2 sacks full of ordinary rubbish. And I can even see the top of the coffee table, which is very good news indeed.

I’ve also made a conscious decision that I will no longer use paper to light the fire. Having used firelighters for the last couple of times of fire-lighting, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is much less ash in the fire than there ever was before, and also the glass window of the fire isn’t tarring over as much. So that is going to be a little progress. It makes more waste paper here to be disposed of, but that will mean all the more for the recycling bins.

Another thing that I’ve done is to clear the kitchen table up here. I have the old white table that I used as a wallpaper pasting table and it’s in a pretty disreputable state. Covered with clutter of course and so I’ve sorted out a lot of that and when I finally reach it in the van, I can bring up the nice table and chairs that I liberated from Marianne’s and they will look quite nice in here. I’ll need to buy one of those oiled table cloths because I don’t want to ruin the tabletop but I can do that on Saturday at the shops if I go to Commentry.

Finally, I’ve been sorting out the web-hosting issues that I’ve been having just recently. I’ve been told that the management of the web-hosting company that I’ve been using have all left their posts, meaning that the company will eventually run down and close, with the loss of all of the data. One of the employees however, with whom I’ve had dealings with before, has accessed the company’s server and saved all of the files to his own server and so we’ve been engaged this last week or so (hence the “outage” of my organ) setting everything up. However, we did hit a snag. The guy dealing with my webhosting tells me that it seems that my domain name had expired and the credit card, which was linked to the domain name via an automatic renewal, has also expired, consequently the registrars were … errrr … proving difficult. Of course, that brought everything to a standstill until I contacted the registrars, and the following conversation ensued –
“Yes, your domain name has expired”
“When?”
“11th April 2013”
“So why didn’t you automatically renew it?”
“Well, your credit card has expired”
“When did my credit card expire?”
“Err … 30th September 2013”
“So what happened between 11th April 2013 and 30th September 2013?”
“Err … can I call you back?”
“No – I would like an answer now, especially as you have been giving my webhosts some very misleading information about my financial situation”

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that my website is now back on line and all seems to be hunky-dory, for the moment. But it really was starting to be just like the bad old days of 4 or 5 years ago when my then-webhost thought it clever to impress her new masters by using her power over my website as a weapon.

I hope that we aren’t going back to those days.

-6

Tuesday 5th November 2013 – I’M GETTING TOO OLD …

… to sleep across the front seats of Caliburn these days.

Despite the ignonimity of having to stop for a sleep on the way home, and despite having taken precautions of rescuing two small cushions, one to wedge down between the seats and the other to use as a pillow, I still had the worst night’s sleep that I have ever had. I managed to avoid the cramp from the last time I slept in Caliburn, but I had an enormous pain in the neck all night and I’m not sure why. I just couldn’t get comfortable.

Still, I had had 8 hours or so of “rest”, if you can call it that, and that totally surprised me, but anyway I took to the road in a driving rainstorm (so much for the beautifully clear evening we had had last night but I did think that “driving” was quite appropriate) and with the odd stop for roadworks and for food at the Carrefour at Montmarault, I was back at Pooh Corner by midday.

I’ve unloaded a few things … "just a few" – ed … but I’ve spent most of the day chilling out and catching up on the sleep that I’ve lost. I’ve also lit the fire – the first of the year of course, and for two reasons too. Firstly, it was cold in here – at just 11.2°C and dropping, and that’s below the threshold for the fire. Secondly, I rescued some dry wood from Marianne’s and all my wood outside is thoroughly soaking due to having been exposed to the rain for the last 6 months. Consequently I need to dry it out, and sticking a load of it over a hot stove is the easiest way to go about doing that.

And with that, I crashed out yet again, and that was that.

-2

Monday 4th November 2013 – THE DEED IS DONE

Marianne’s apartment has now been sold and her estate liquidated. And when I see just the amounts to which everyone seems to have helped himself, there isn’t much of it left. “Vultures picking over the bones of a corpse” is what immediately springs to mind, and the metaphor seems to be quite apt. “Give everything that is left to the poor” said Marianne, and that’s what I will do, but I can’t help feeling that the poor are going to be rather disillusioned with the Vultures of Belgium.

First thing this morning was to roll up the mattress and bedding and have that ready to go. Second thing was to go to the DiY shop and purchase a new rubber gasket for the sink waste pipe outlet. I’ve fitted that and now the sink drains much better. Everything else that was hanging around went into the last cardboard box and the waste bin, and I put all of that outside along with the plants while I vacuumed everywhere.

The next-to-last thing that I did was to have a shower and to clean the bathroom and to pack up the suitcase of clothes. That went outside along with the shower curtain, and the final task was to read all of the meters.

Fetching Caliburn, I loaded all of the stuff up, and there wasn’t much room for anything else after that. I’d judged it quite fine. It’s a good job I wasn’t intending to take the plants with me – they are decorating the hall of the building now for people to do what they will with them.

I found a quiet nook and settled down with a good book until the relevant moment, and that was that. And I do recall saying to my lawyer as we left the building at the end “I won’t say a definitive goodbye to you, because I said that a couple of years ago and I still ended up coming back, but maybe we shall meet agin, a long time before Philippi”

I still have a few things to do in Brussels, not the least of which being to cancel the standing order about the payments to the apartment and also some things for Marianne, but that will have to wait for another time as I’ve rather lost interest in it all for now. I was on the motorway and out of that accursed nation.

At Melun, I stopped for fuel as usual but my friendly neighbourhood kebab house was closed. That was a disaster. However Dominos Pizza place was open and I ended up with yet another pizza vegetariana. And goodbye to the vegan cheese because I forgot to nip over the road earlier and buy some more.

But back on the motorway, round about midnight I was just overwhelmed with sleep and I’ve no idea why. I can’t keep going like I used to. Nothing for it but to pull off the highway and have a kip. I’m getting old.

-4

Sunday 3rd November 2013 – AND IN A CHANGE OF PLAN …

… I’ve been working today. Or, rather, what remained of today by the time that I got up. I wasn’t in much of a rush seeing as it’s Sunday.

Today was the day that absolutely everything that remained in the apartment, with the exception of what I want tomorrow morning, can be packed up and made ready to go. And not just that either – no-one came for the video and audio cassettes so I bagged them up into rubbish sacks and stuck the video cassettes in with the rubbish downstairs. The audio cassettes I put outside on the pavement with the broken clothes drier and, true to form, they disappeared during the course of the day.

The bed I dismantled – I’ll be sleeping on the mattress on the floor tonight, and the coffee and dining room tables I dismantled and wrapped in clingfilm – I can see the uses of this stuf during furniture removals.

So with all of that done, I bought myself a pizza (I shan’t be cooking again in here) and sat down to watch some gridiron until the late evening when it all went quiet. Then I went off down the road to rescue Caliburn and started descending all of the boxes in the lift (there were 7 lift-loads in all and I was hoping for no more than 5). It was at that moment that the concierge started to wash the hallway floor – 23:00 hours. He wasn’t pleased about me blocking the hallway, just as I wasn’t pleased about him washing the hallway at that time of night. He told me to put my stuff outside. Well, like I’m really going to do that in the pouring rain so I told him in no uncertain terms what he coud do with his broom handle and this led to yet another contretemps (long-term readers of this rubbish will know only to well that this is not the first contretemps that I have had with this ignorant peasant, but I digress)

So Caliburn is now almost fully-loaded, with more stuff that I was hoping to take back but there you are, and tomorrow is the final day, but we haven’t quite finished yet. The sink in the kitchen has now totally blocked up and there was no way of emptying it. Dropping my tea into the sink twice last week hadn’t helped. Taking the drain plug out of the elbow didn’t improve matters very much and so I bit the bullet and dismantled the entire system from the sink down to the main drain. And here was the culprit. Just in the downpipe from the sink, everything was all clogged up with a sub-human mass of congealed whatever that must have been there for a hundred years and Yours Truly was there for a good half hour chiselling it out.

So having finally dealt with what was left of Quatermass’s Experiment and seeing that the water was now draining out a hundred times better, I reassembled everything only to find that I’ve torn the rubber gasket that connects the downpipe to the sink and there’s quite a leak.

Ahh well – off to the DiY shop in the morning, I suppose. I could have done without this.

-3

Saturday 2nd November 2013 – WHEN THE ALARM WENT OFF THIS MORNING …

… I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Somehow I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my comfy little bed here.

And when I finally did wake up, I decided that I would have something of an informal day of rest and not do too much. That was the cue for coffee in bed and a James Bond film, together with a good book.

That took me through until lunchtime and then I nipped out to the local shops for the baguette and the bits and pieces that I shall need for the journey home next week. Hard to think that this is effectively my final shopping expedition in Brussels, although I’ve said things like that before.

This evening, I went out again. No football in the Netherlands border area this evening, and none in the German border area either. There was however a match at the Argosstadionachterdekaserne, the home of KV Mechelen, where the home team was to entertain Zulte-Waregem.

People, including Yours Truly, do say that Belgians have no sense of humour, but you would be forgiven for thinking differently when you see the sign over the entrance gate to the stadium. You can tell that KV Mechelen aren’t doing so well in the league at the moment.

But the stadium itself, which must qualify for having one of the longest names in mainstream football, wasn’t easy to find. It was hemmed in right in the middle of an area of what would be in the UK some kind of Victorian working-class terraced housing and it did remind me of going to a football match in the UK back in the good old days of when all stadia used to be like this.

There was however some easy – and free – parking on the old railway goods yard about 500 metres away, and there were even a couple of marshalls to help everyone. Long time since I’ve seen this kind of thing.

The next thing was something of a shock though – unlike at Breda in the Netherlands last week, the stadium doesn’t accept payments by card – it’s cash only. And I wish now that I had paid with a card at the supermarket this afternoon rather than with cash. The nearest cash point was 1500 metres away, so I was told, and me with a bad foot too after my exploits with the coffee table earlier in the week. I didn’t need any of this. Mind you it was a good job that I arrived early.

So having procured a ticket, at €16:00, it was into the ground. And this was a surprise as well. A First Division game in one of Europe’s leading national leagues and the stadium had probably over 50% of its capacity as standing. When was the last time that you ever heard of this?

And as for the stadium itself, you can tell that they’ve never heard of the Taylor Report in Belgium either because this place wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes in England following the report on the condition of English football grounds after the fire at Bradford City. It really was like stepping back in time to the early 1970s in English football and you have no idea how comfortable it felt to be standing up on the terraces.

But I don’t care what anyone in authority has to say – the fans are totally correct in their opinion of all-seater stadia. With so many standees in the ground, the atmosphere really was electric for the entire 90 minutes and the Mechelen fans must be the noisiest that I have ever heard at a modern football match.

The Powers That Be want everyone to be seated at a football match as in a theatre or a cinema, and give polite applause whenever someone does anything merit-worthy and to keep quiet the rest of the game. That is total nonsense and is what has ruined the game as a spectator sport. Football is all about noise and atmosphere, 90 minutes of bedlam on the terraces, and you can’t do that sitting down. And it’s not just about the merit-worthy actions either. When Zulte-Waregem’s n°3 went down rather too easily and for far too long right under the referee’s nose and on the “popular side” after a challenge early in the game, the Mechelen fans were on his back for the rest of the match with whistles, jeers and abuse to such an extent that his captain swapped him over to the other, more sedate side of the field.

THAT is what real football is about.

People might think that that is being grossly unfair to the footballers concerned. Four or five years ago I remember Craig Bellamy being quite upset about the abuse that he was receiving from the crowd. Firstly, I don’t ever recall him complaining or being upset when the fans of his team were dishing it out to an opposing footballer, and secondly, I will gladly go and stand out in the middle of a football pitch for a whole 90 minutes and let 30,000 people hurl as much abuse as they like about me and my family for only 25% of the money that he is on.

As for the football however, we had a torrential rainstorm and a 2-2 draw, the result being a fair reflection of the balance of the play. And the best player on the field was the Zulte-Waregem centre-forward who scored both his team’s goals. A different class of player than the others on the field.

I’d seen a Turkish Fritkot on my way into town and so I stopped off there and, sure enough, they conjured up a plate of falafel and fritjes. I enjoyed them too, especially as I felt that I had earned them. I’ll miss all of that when I leave. But I’ll have to come back ina couple of weeks though – there’s a book sale in the car park and I must add to my collection a copy of “Honkie and Ponkie On The Moon”.

I’m depressed though about how much Vlaams I’ve forgotten, I really am. I must do something about this.

-5

Friday 1st November 2013 – IT’S A BANK HOLIDAY HERE TODAY.

But not for me – I have work to do.

Now that the cleaner has finished, I can review the packing situation, especially as, on my travels yesterday to buy my bread, I liberated a pile of wooden boxes.

Everything was unpacked from the cardboard boxes and repacked in the wooden or plastic ones. There are two types of boxes – those that are wanted as soon as I get home, and those that can wait for whenever. The idea is that the least urgent stuff will be crammed right down at the far end of Caliburn and the more urgent stuff put closer to the doors. That way it will all be to hand.

You’ve no idea how long it took to do all of this – much longer than I thought – and then of course I had to dismantle the empty cardboard boxes. But at least now there’s plenty of space available in the apartment and it looks more like a furniture removal job.

For tea I had the last of the aubergine casserole that I had made earlier. Then, having washed the pot and the plates, they all went into a box. Tomorrow I’m out and Sunday I’ll have a pizza that I can eat out of a box with my fingers. I’ve officially finished cooking.

-5

Thursday 31st October 2013 – THE CLEANER …

… came round this morning right on time and was here for about 4 hours. I did what I could to help, but that wasn’t all that much and it was clear that I was in the way and so I skulked off to my little room and stayed there, just occasionally giving advice and assisitance.

I can’t say that I’m too impressed with what she did, to be honest. I was expecting a much more thorough job that this, but she did more in four hours than I would have been able to do in four years and so I can’t complain too much.

The purchaser turned up with a workman later. He wants to have the parquet floor sanded and polished, and needed an estimate. I didn’t have any good reason not to let them in and so in they came. It rather disrupted my plans a little, but that’s what plans are for, of course. And after they went, I cleaned a few of the more obvious places that the cleaner had missed.

There wasn’t much time left after that and so I had tea and called it a night. An early night with a good book is always a good idea every so often.

-2

Wednesday 30th October 2013 – IT WAS THE TURN OF THE TROC …

… to come around this morning. They were earlier than anticipated, something that took me very much by surprise, and I wasn’t really ready, but I wasn’t going to send them away. Of course not! Two of them, there were, and they worked quite rapidly to empty the place. It didn’t take them too long to dismantle the big wall unit either, and that soon disappeared into the back of their van.

What impressed me though was how they managed to move the wardrobe in the cellar. It was a little rickety and I was half-expecting them to dismantle it, but no – they had a huge roll of clingfilm and they wrapped it in that. You’ve no idea just how rigid that made it, and when I expressed my admiration, they gave me what remained of the roll, which was an unexpected bonus. 40 years and more I’ve been furniture-removing – I wish I had thought of this before.

After they had gone, I needed to arrange a cleaner. The estate agents had given me a phone number and in the end I was put in touch with a woman who would come at 09:00 tomorrow. Perfect timing, of course, and so I didn’t hesitate. That’s one more job crossed off the list of things to do.

Back to the cellar and that had a thorough going-over. I can forget about that from now on. I went back upstairs and took down all the curtains. The cleaner will need to be able to get to the windows.

But the apartment is now fairly empty, and when I talk out loud to myself I can hear an echo echo echo.

-6

Tuesday 29th October 2013 – ST VINCENT DE PAUL …

… came around today. Not the Saint in person, but some members of his charitable association. They took away the stuff that the Troc didn’t want and which hadn’t sold on the internet. They were quite pleased with what they had won, which made me quite happy because I was quite pleased to let them have it. I did ask them what Vincent’s sister Lynsey was up to these days but that went clean over their heads. No sense of humour, these Belgians.

It had taken me all morning to sort out the stuff for them and make sure that it was properly packed and boxed – we don’t want all of the stuff falling out all over the place and down the stairs. And now at least the place is looking a little emptier now and I can start to move things around and try to sort out the cleaning. It isn’t that easy when the place is overwhelmed with all kinds of stuff.

Now that I have nowhere to sit I’ve had to make a little kind-of studio in the smallest bedroom. Sitting on the bed and a plant across a box on top of the coffee table to make a raised table. But that was not without its problems either. I didn’t realise that the coffee table had a drawer in it until I turned it on its side to pass it through the door into the bedroom.And there was I in barefeet too. I’ve done myself a serious mischief now – toenail all broken and the big toe all various shades of red and black and I’m in agony with this.

I’ve also been down in the cellar. The wardrobe out of here needs to go and so the cellar needs to be emptied. Having seen the hoops that one has to go through in order to get the local council to come and take the stuff away I simply bought a pile of white sacks and spent a happy hour or two crusing up rubbish and filling the sacks. There’s a huge load of them and that will upset the concierge when he has to put them out for the bin men tomorrow morning, but that’s what he’s paid for, after all.

But at least the only thing in the cellar that doesn’t need to be there is this wardrobe, and that will hopefully be going tomorrow.

-4

EPIC HALL

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