Yes, Expo has gone. All signed, sealed and delivered.
At 14:30 I walked into the lawyer’s office and at 15:00 I walked out again minus one apartment.
Well, almost – the new owners asked me to accompany them back to the premises to show them where everything was and how it all worked and so I duly obliged.
But already the money is melting a hole in my pocket. This morning I went to my travel agent and she booked me a flight to Canada on 31st August, with a return on 25th September. Not only that, she does a good deal on airport hotels – much cheaper than I can get them, and so I have a hotel reserved at each end of my journey – Paris the night before I go and Paris the night I get back. That is just as well.
I’ve also reserved a car for when I’m over there – well, not quite a car. What with accommodation issues and you can’t really expect anyone to do this kind of thing for you as they are never sure what it is that you actually want, so what I’ve done is to hire a minivan – a 7-seater MPV thing. Most of the seats fold flat in those and with half an hour’s work I can make a neat little caravanette.
I know it’s not a motel or a B&B but it worked out at just about $27 per night extra over the basic car hire, and you can’t get a motel for anything like that. While I’m there I’ll try to sort out a caravan or something. That’s the usual trick.
I’ve also spent quite a packet in IKEA. They were having a sale and there was quite a bit of cheap stuff that would go nicely to improve the comforts of my little room. Cheap stiff indeed but by the time you add it all up, it’s not so cheap then. But all the same, it will improve things quite a bit up there.
And I’ve had my chips too!. Along with a large plate of falafel and now I’m in the back of Caliburn on the lorry park with the unsecured internet connection. Tomorrow I’ll be helping Marianne and then I’ll be heading for home tomorrow night.
But on my way back to the lorry park where I spent the night, I found myself going round the Schuman roundabout at the top pf the rue de la Loi.
You’ll recall that we were there the other day too and I remember saying how struck I was by how beautiful it was all looking with its new streetlights and all f the traffic passing by. So much so that I couldn’t resist parking Caliburn up and spending another half an hour there taking different photos.
And it’s a good job that I did because while I was gazing up the hill past the roundabout at the Parc de la Cinquantenaire and how nicely illuminated that was in the distance, I intercepted a Danish car that was heading the wrong way down the street.
Looking for a hotel, they were apparently, but they weren’t looking at the one-way signs in the street. Anyway so after a brief discussion I packed them off to the Marriott and I leapt into Caliburn and went on my weary way to the lorry park for the night.
, was the subject of some … errr … criticism and adverse remarks despite the way that she phrased her remarks. Had I written the book I would have expressed things differently.
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by Fairport Convention. It’s the best folk-rock album ever, and I bought it to replace an old worn-out tape recording. That’s another album that has not been off my playlist for 35 years, and the “additional track” of Sandy Denny singing “Sir Patrick Spens” has to be worth the price of the album alone.
by Deep Purple is another outstanding album. It’s one that impressed me back in the mid 70s when it first came out but the thing that got me was why I never ever owned a copy of it. It’s hard to imagine that it’s taken me 35 years to get my hands on a copy of it. That’s a long time.
for sale on the internet at a reasonable price and so I took the plunge. And I’m astonished! I can’t believe just how good this album is. It’s a proper jazz/blues album featuring jazz/blues played just how it ought to be played – nice long jamming tracks which – just for a change – are tuneful and meaningful and contribute to the whole. Chris Farlowe’s singing still grates on me but it actually fits in with the music, and his life performance and stage ad-libbing are just superb. “Take me Back to Lost Angeles” has taken my breath away. I can’t believe that I’ve waited so long to get to grips with this group and this album. 
book, Liz about to start work on the Memoirs of 
. I’m going the shortest, most direct route home and if I’m going to be fleeced on the péage, that’s rather a shame. Towing a trailer, I have to pay the same as an artic.
and I wouldn’t care if I had to stay here for another 5 years until I finish reading it – as long as it keeps warm.
