Tag Archives: belgium

Thursday 7th July 2016 – IT WAS 06:20 ..

… when I was awoken this morning, but that’s being just a little economical with the truth as I had quite a bad night last night. I hadn’t been feeling so good for much of the day – probably a delayed reaction to my medical treatment – and last night I was having the most excruciating stomach cramps. I found it very hard to drop off to sleep, and when I did, I was awoken with a horrible stabbing pain. And that’s how I’ve been for much of the morning too, although it did ease off round about lunchtime.

Nothing however had prevented me from going on another nocturnal ramble. This time though, we’ll turn our attention back to the late 1920s. Not many people know this of course but Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret had a younger brother. However he was something like Prince John, kept out of public life because of his behaviour (although this is, I admit, being rather unkind to Prince John in real life) and young ladies, mainly of the serving classes, were sent to “entertain” him. And I was the “product” of one of these irregular unions. This gave me unrivalled power on the back stairs of Court and I was regularly being approached by The Powers That Be to handle situations that required delicacy and discretion but with which the official Royal Family did not wish to become involved. Yes, it certainly was quite exciting, that’s for sure.

I had an early breakfast – finished long before the alarm went off, and then I tried to do a few things here and there but ended up crashing out for an hour or so. I managed a walk to the shops too and stocked up with lunch items, seeing as how I’ve run right out.

This afternoon I haven’t done too much because I’m still not feeling 100% right now. Although I had a lengthy chat with Liz this afternoon, as well as crashing out yet again. But I managed a shower, a shave, clean clothes and the like as well as doing some tidying up, for I’ve been out gallivanting with Alison tonight and we put the world to rights for hours.

Now I’m back home, feeling a little better than I did last night, and I won’t be awake for long. I’m off to bed.

But in other news, the B Liar says that the World is a better place because of the Iraq War. You try telling that to the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been massacred this last few years, including the hundreds who have been killed this last couple of days. How can anyone believe anything that this monster is telling us? If he has anything to say, he should save it for his War Crimes trial, although the way the British Establishment is, he’ll never make it to the Hague.

And in yet more news, hats off to Connahs Quay Nomads of the Welsh Premier League, who beat Stabaek tonight in Norway in order to progress to the Second Round of the Europa League.

Wednesday 6th July 2016 – THAT WASN’T SO GOOD.

We’ve been having a couple of late nights just recently – and also quite a few early mornings. But it all goes wrong when you have a late night – like 01:40 and you are still sitting up – and someone comes along to use the kitchen at 05:40.

I think that I was up and about once, and I don’t remember being on any travels either. But at least, by 07:30 I’d already breakfasted and was working away on the laptop.

Most of the morning was spent doing updates to the blog, and I’d done quite a few by the time lunchtime came round. I’d been to the boulangerie just down the road for my baguette which saved me a good half-hour.

This afternoon I meant to carry on with the blog but Liz came on line and we had quite a lengthy chat. And then, I crashed out here on the sofa for a couple of hours. I must have needed it.

This evening in the beautiful sunnyweather I went for a stroll to the edge of the town by the inner ring. This is where the Stadion den Dreef, the home football ground of Oud Heverlee Leuven might be found.

Anderlecht from Brussels are in training ready for their European football matches and tonight they had arranged a friendly against OH Leuven and so I went for a wander down to see what was going on.

It’s only a small ground and it seems to be undergoing a process of renovation. On the north side of the ground there’s a new stand that looks as if it’s just been built and in the process of being kitted out.

Because I didn’t have a membership card I had to go and sit in the “away” end with the Anderlecht fans which annoyed me because they are far from being my favourite club, but at €15:00 for a ticket I can’t complain too much.

It was a pretty miserable game, the first half anyway. Anderlecht were poor but OH Leuven were thoroughly clueless.

The first 10 minutes of the game were spent in the OH Leuven penalty area laying siege to the goal. Anderlecht had one decent break through on goal, saved by the keeper’s foot, but apart from that, Anderlecht never looked as if they were seriously going to threaten the OH Leuven keeper.

We were treated at half time to the astonishing event of OH Leuven going in for the half-time cuppa in front one-nil. They had had just one shot at goal during the first half, which was well-saved onto the post by the Anderlecht keeper, but they won a rather soft penalty a couple of minutes before half-time.

The keeper nearly got to it too and had he done so, no-one could have complained. It would have been justice.

I’m not sure what the Anderlecht trainer put in the half-time cuppa but I could do with having some of it, that’s for sure. Within 10 minutes of the restart Anderlecht had scored three goals, and they went on to score a fourth near the end of the game.

It was still very much a huffing, puffing performance and they didn’t look all that impressive. Playing like this, they aren’t going to make too much of a mark in Europe. But it’s going to be a long, hard season for OH Leuven in the Second tier of the Belgian Football League.

I had a nice walk back here and picked up some chips on the way. I have clean bedding tonight and I’m going to make the most of it. I hope that I don’t have the 05:45 starters tomorrow morning.

Tuesday 5th July 2016 – I HAD ANOTHER REASONABLE NIGHT

I didn’t even have time to watch a film last night before I’d gone off into the Land of Nod. I was well-away with the fairies. Only two trips down the corridor as well, and not only that, I was on my travels too. I was driving a coach along the A51 northwards somewhere around Barbridge and I was completely exhausted. Nerina said that she was in no fit condition to drive and if I needed replacing there was someone else on the coach who could drive. But I didn’t know what this person was like and so I resolved to keep on if I could – after all there was only 10 miles to go.

Someone woke me up from the kitchen this morning at 06:44 and so the blasted bells didn’t bother me too much. And I’d breakfasted (and a good breakfast too) long before 08:00.

I had a good chat with someone on the internet for an hour or two and then went off to buy a baguette for lunch. I went to the supermarket on the corner just here seeing as how I didn’t need anything else, but I also bought a packet of garlic powder and madras curry powder. I’m here for 11 weeks so I may as well try to make my meals appetising to some degree during that time.

I’ve spent all day (or what was left of it because I had rather a long lunch break) on the blog, doing some updating. And one of the entries ended up being something of a mega-project. I’d had a day out on the 4th July 2011 and wrote all of … errr … 250 words about it and posted two photos – out of about 30 that I had taken. And so I sat down and re-wrote it completely.

I spent all afternoon doing it, including doing a pile of research, and there are now over 6 times as many photos and almost 6 times as many words and you can read all about it here. It’ll keep you all out of mischief.

Liz came on the internet too a little later and so we had a good chat. I might be having to go on a little train journey sometime soon. It’ll be good to change the scenery a bit.

And talking of a change of scenery, I might be having an evening out tomorrow. Anderlecht are warming up for their matches in European competition and they are coming here tomorrow night to play a match against OH-Leuven. Depending upon how I’m feeling, I might have a stroll down the road. I shan’t expect the local side to do very much but it’s ages since I’ve seen a good football game and I could do with an evening out.

For tea, I finished off the other half of yesterday’s meal and had to have my spicy cake with no custard seeing as how I’ve run out. I’ve run out of spicy cake now but that doesn’t really matter because I’m eating out tomorrow night if I go to the footy.

So I’ll have a nice quiet relax and then I’ll be off to bed again. And I hope that I’ll have another good night again.

But before I go – here’s a thing. We’ve all been told by the UK Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer how evil it is to borrow money and spend our way out of recession. And yet today, the Bank of England has issued instructions to the UK Banks to ease their “special capital requirements for banks, potentially freeing up £150bn for lending” and “to provide more lending to households and businesses”.

There has never ever been such a dramatic U-turn by the British Government as this, and it shows you just how much of a panic the Government is in as the British economy is melting away because of the Brexit.

Strangely enough, the National Press hasn’t picked up yet on this – presumably because the Papers don’t want to spread even more panic. But it’s totally amazing, the depths to which this Government is sinking as it tries to shore up the sinking economy.

And the Pound dropped today to its lowest level against the Dollar since 1985. The UK is on the run, big-time.

Monday 4th July 2016 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… no-one disturbed me during the night and I had a reasonable night’s sleep. I was up and about a couple of times during the night as you might expect, and I was off on my travels too. And I would tell you all about it except that you are probably eating your breakfast or something right now.

I was up before the alarm went off too – beating the blasted church bells by a couple of minutes – and I had a good breakfast. I was not alone either – I had company for fifteen minutes or so while I tucked in.

It took me a while to sort myself afterwards and then went off to the hospital. A brisk 20-minute walk (and saying that it was brisk tells you how I’m feeling right now) brought me to the hospital, and I dropped off my nice clean bed-linen in Caliburn. That’s more stuff out of the way now. However, when I returned here later in the afternoon, I bought a pile of tinned stuff with me so we are quits.

But we have had some good news in the hospital, and that is that my blood count has gone up from 9.3 to 10.0 – all on its own. And that’s after two weeks too. Mind you, we’ve had a couple of false dawns before as you know, and so I’m more interested in seeing what it will be like in two weeks time.

We discussed my water retention issues, and they sent me down for a scan to see whether there was a thrombosis. That turned out to be negative, so they could start the next lot of treatment. They are giving me Mabthera, something that is designed for the chemotherapy-intolerant of those who have relapsed. I had that last time and I didn’t notice any side-effects and that’s positive news.

And, of course, no blood transfusion and that’s always good news too.

They have given me an emergency number to ring in case I have another major swelling issue like the other weekend, so I’ll have to file that carefully. I might need it.

I was liberated late in the afternoon and walked back down here in the heat and sunshine and doesn’t that make a pleasant change?

I cooked myself a meal of chick peas and the like with rice and had a chat with Lizand Rosemary on the internet. Now, I’m having a quiet relax before bedtime.

And in other news, I’m sure that you have noticed that yet another rat has deserted the sinking ship. It seems that the Brexit “Ship of Fools” is now drifting helplessly on the storm-tossed seas with no hand on the tiller. Not one of the leaders of the “Brexit” campaign has stayed to steer the ship. That’s because they all know what is awaiting them (Standard Life is the first financial institution to close down part of its UK operations as a result of the result) and they don’t want to have the catastrophe nailed on their doors.

It’s really quite funny to watch all the Brexit leaders running away.

Sunday 3rd July 2016 – IF EVER I LAY MY HANDS …

… on whoever it was who came in at 04:20 this morning, went into the kitchen and started cooking eggs, they will spend the rest of their lived eating soup through a straw. To say that I was not very impressed with the noise that they made is an understatement to be sure.

Mind you, I’d already had a good sleep. I was in bed by 22:00 and I dunno how long I was awake but I only saw a few minutes of the film that I was watching, and that was that. And after the interruption in the middle of the night, I was off again – this time until 07:00.

And I was off too – several times down the corridor for a start, and then off on my travels. I don’t remember too much about it but it involved a bright light blue Ford Cortina saloon – either a mark IV or a mark V. But at least it was a voyage, and that tells you something about my bed. As I said the other day, I have slept in more comfortable beds than this, but not for quite a while.

Now, how do I know that it was 07:00 when I awoke this morning?

The answer is that the blasted church bells flaming well started off again, didn’t they? It’s a really good job that I’m going to bed earlier and earlier, otherwise I really would be upset. But when was the last time that I was up and about, breakfasting at 07:10 in the morning, long before the alarm, on a Sunday?

I was early down the road to the boulangerie too which was just as well as I had the last baguette – and that was before 09:00 too. I need to remember this as I don’t want to be stranded.

The bathroom received my attention too – I had a beautiful warm shower today and a good shave. And what with a change of clothes I look almost human now. This led to a visit to the launderette round the corner and for just €4:50 in the washing machine and €1:00 in the drier, I washed absolutely all of the clothes except the minimum that I could wear, and also the bedding from my stay up the road. The bedding is now ready to be taken back to Caliburn, which I can do tomorrow as I’m off to the hospital for 09:10 for my check-up.

Liz made an appearance on the airwaves too so we had a good chat while the washing was doing. Yes, there’s a free internet connection in the launderette and I’ll file that fact away for future reference.

Tea was pizza (well, it is Sunday) from the place round the corner and while I’ve had better (under-cooked pizzas seems to be a local speciality), this was the spiciest that I’ve ever had and it was really delicious from that point of view.

But lunch was a bit of a catastrophe. I had a good moan about my housemates yesterday as you remember, but today the kitchen was a disgrace. However, the cleaner told me that most people are here this weekend for the rock festival at Werchter and tomorrow almost everyone will have left the building. There will just be half-a-dozen or so people left.

So now I’m going to sit by the window and enjoy the pleasant evening – it’s not rained for at least four hours. And then an early night for my early start for the hospital.

At least the breakfasts are good in this place. There are no complaints from me from that point of view. You really win with the breakfasts.

Saturday 2nd July 2016 – SO WHAT ARE THE NEW DIGS LIKE THEN?

The first answer is “noisy”. The room that I’m in for the first 10 days is right next to the bathroom, the head of the stairs, the lounge and the kitchen. And furthermore, the outlet for the sink and the dishwasher (yes, we have a dishwasher) is behind a wall right at the head of the bed. Consequently, you can hear everything.

And there’s a rock concert on this weekend down the road at Werchter and there are quite a few people staying here who are visiting it. And when they come back the whole building knows about it.

It’s tired too, and so is the decor and furniture, and the tenants don’t do very much to help keep it clean and tidy – neither do they wash up after themselves in the main. As a result, the place might be clean at 10:00 but by 10:30 it isn’t, and it goes downhill from there.

But as for the breakfast, you just go in when you please and help yourself to as much as you want – I’m on the muesli, toast, jam, coffee and orange juice and plenty of it – and everything is topped up ready for the next day. The bathroom is clean and tidy and well-appointed, and my little sofa is really nice. While the mattress in my room here might have likewise seen better days, it’s a huge advance on the last place and once everyone had settled down for the night, I was well away and it was lovely.

And I was well-away too. I had a green car – it might have been an early Ford Cortina mark 111 estate – and my brother was thinking of painting it, helped by my father. I told them to not even imagine doing it if the masking off was anything less than perfect, but at that moment I had a huge load of concrete delivered and I needed to deal with it. First shovel stuck in it and I broke the handle in two – that led to me storming off in a sulk and that was that.

But it goes to show you what a decent bed can do.

But going back to my place, you really can’t believe this, that I’ve done it again. In North America I usually end up camping by a railway line and have sirens and hooters going off all over the place because I’ve forgotten to check the surroundings. Here in Europe, it’s churches. And there’s a church just across the road of which bells start up at 07:00 – so that was that for a lie-in.

But all in all, it’s less than €26 per night and I’m well-pleased with everything at that price.

What was even more exciting was that I had someone coming bursting into my room this morning by mistake – she’s in the same room as this but downstairs. I wouldn’t have minded so much except that I was just putting on my underpants and … errr … adjusting my dress.

After breakfast I tidied up in here and got everything shipshape as if I intend to be here a while – start as you mean to finish and that’s not like me, is it?

I Went into town (not that it’s very far) at 12:00 to buy the food for lunch for the next few days and to pick up some olives from the market. And I was halfway down the road when the heavens opened and I got the lot. To make matters worse, when I was at the olive stall, the assistant decided to shake the roof to clear off the water that was collecting on the top. And you can guess where the water went, can’t you? I got the lot.

This afternoon I’ve been on the blog again – it’s a slow procedure right now – and then went out to buy my curry. I’m not sure what I had now because I can’t remember but it had chick peas in it and it nearly blew my wig off.

Now, I’m going to have a quiet evening and then have an early night in my comfortable bed. I started to watch a film last night and fell asleep halfway through it. I’ll try to watch the rest tonight.

Friday 1st July 2016 – I’M WHACKED!

I’ve had a really busy day and I’m exhausted.

What didn’t help was that I was awake this morning at 05:30 despite having already had a couple of trips down the corridor. And I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was up early for breakfast too so that was all done and dusted by 08:30.

Check-in at my new place wasn’t until after midday so I had a little relax for a couple of hours and then I filled my backpack and suitcase with stuff to move, and all of the dirty clothes and bedding into an IKEA bag. Once I’d done that, I set off for my new digs.

The place isn’t so bad here. I’ve a big double bed plus a single couch-type of bed. As well as that, there’s a comfortable two-seater divan and small desk and chair. Not only that – there’s a TV and combined DVD/Video player. Shame that I didn’t bring any DVDs.

The kitchen is adequate, complete with dishwasher, and the bathroom that I share with a couple of other rooms is nice and clean. There’s a sitting room too and also a roof terrace. It’s closer to the hospital and the town centre and the street outside is fairly busy, but I have double glazing.

It’s tired, and seen better days, but it looks quite good value for the money that I’m spending. I could be quite comfortable here, I reckon.

Having had a rest, I went up to the hospital. I took the bedding back to Caliburn and brought some more stuff down, confirmed my appointment on Monday (it’s at 09:10) and picked up a bottle that I needed as they want to see my … err … output of Sunday.

On the way back, I picked up some chips from the fritkot and sat on the roof terrace here to eat it.

Once I’d done that, it was back up to the old place to pack up the rest of the stuff and to clean my room there and to wash the floor. That was a struggle getting up the stairs with the washing stuff and my suitcase, and coming down was even more difficult. I had to make two trips with the stuff, it was that awkward to move.

It was also a struggle coming up here with the stuff, and I was glad to sit down. I had a chat with Liz and then crashed out for three quarters of an hour. I can’t say that I was surprised. Mind you, I made sure that I had a coffee when I came round. And wasn’t that nice too?

Making tea was pretty straightforward and I do have to say that the kitchen is cleaner than back at the other place, which is good news. Having a cleaner about the place is always a good idea.

Now, I’m going to go to bed and have an early night. I have curtains at the windows, which is progress, and I’m dying to get to grips with this comfortable bed. It’s not as comfortable as some that I’ve slept on but considering how I’ve been sleeping this last 17 nights it’s going to be luxury.

And I can’t wait.

Thursday 30th June 2016 – MY LAST NIGHT …

… here in my little garret under the eaves. So I intend to make the most of it by doing nothing at all. Actually, there isn’t much to do anything about, as you well know.

But while I was out buying my baguette at lunchtime (I just went to the boulangerie down the road rather than spending reckless money in the Delhaize) I went to check on my new place. It’s still there and not burnt down, and I was able to pick up all of the details about it.

During my stay (of 77 days, I have to say) I will have to change rooms twice, so I’m not complaining too much about that. I just hope that it will be more comfortable than here, and that the facilities are better. From what I saw of a room when I went to visit, it looks okay. I hope that it lives up to first impressions.

Last night’s sleep was much more reasonable. Although I was up and about a couple of times, it was 07:25 when I awoke definitively and I was downstairs eating my breakfast when my alarm went off.

I was going to have a shower today but we seem to be back on the cold water again so I’ll have to wait. See what it’s like tomorrow or else christen my new place accordingly.

Tea was vegetables for couscous with a handful of chick peas, some mushrooms, some boulghour and rice, followed by sliced spicy cake and soya yoghurt. Delicious it was too.

It was rather slow progress on the blog updating today, and I’ve reached as far as 11th September 2010. The reason for this slow progress is that half a dozen pages, just written quickly late at night at the appropriate moment, merited an enormous amount of research and subsequent expansion as well as the addition of piles of photos to improve the illustration. All of this has taken a considerable amount of time but it’s well-worth it.

And, of course, we’ve had the rain today, haven’t we?

So I’ll be off to bed in a few moments to make the most of the last night on the floor on this very tired and sad mattress. See if I can have a good sleep.

But I’ll tell you one thing – and that is that I won’t be sorry to be somewhere else. I don’t regret coming here because it served its purpose when I was practically homeless, and it was only €11 or so per night. but it has really tried my patience and I can’t wait to get into a real bed.

I hope that it lives up to it

Wednesday 29th June 2016 – MY DOCTOR …

… at the hospital this evening came up with the best comment to date about the UK’s referendum result. he reckons that they should find all of the tugboats in Europe to tow the UK out into the middle of the Atlantic and dump it there. And I can’t say that I disagree with him either. We are both of the opinion that the UK’s method of negotiation is to send in a gunboat – tactics that might have worked 150 years ago but are quite simply laughable today. The last time that the UK fought a war on its own, it took them 3 years to defeat a handful of undisciplined and untrained Dutch farmers in South Africa.

So having put the world to rights, I had my body scan. They stuck me on a table, clamped some headphones on my ears and stuck some kind of diving helmet on my head. Claustrophobia wan’t in it. I had to undergo this scan for about half an hour and I spent all of this time in that time-travel portal with my eyes tight shut.

I left here at 19:00 and arrived back at just about 22:00, having grabbed a bag of chips on the way. And I won’t be going to that fritkot again. They weren’t so good and the service was a little chaotic.

This morning I was awake again quite early, 06:30 to be precise, having had one or two trips down the corridor. And I ended up chatting to someone on the internet which meant that I didn’t go down to breakfast until 09:15.

And despite the better day yesterday, we had a rainstorm through the night and a little bit during the day.I went off to do a little shopping at lunchtime – to the Delhaize in town where I bought my baguette, some bananas and a small bag of muesli seeing as how I’ve run out. I won’t buy a big bag until I know what the breakfast in this new place is like.

There’s a bio shop in the Vismarkt in the town centre and so I went for a recce while I was out. There’s a huge selection of vegan stuff in there, including the sliced vegan cheese of the type that I used to buy in Brussels. It’s useful to know that the stuff is quite handy in the neighbourhood.

Updating the blog, I’m now up to the 26th August 2010 – well-ahead of where I want to be. But I don’t expect that I’ll be doing much over the next couple of days while I clean up here and organise my moving to the new pad.

And on this subject, Melanie lent me a needle and thread so that I could sew my bag back together. I have a cheap green bag that I use for going shopping – a bag that I received as a free gift in the pharmacie in St Gervais d’Auvergne – and the stitching had started to come apart. Now it’s a bit more secure and I hope that it will hold out.

Now I’m off to bed to see how I sleep tonight. The long walk to the hospital and back might have done me some good in that respect and I hope that it’s tired me out enough.

Tuesday 28th June 2016 – I HAD A BETTER …

… day today, although you might not think it.

I slept better for a start and I always feel beeter when I’ve had a decent sleep. Not that this was decent by any means. I was still up and down a couple of times during the night, and up properly at 06:00, but I’m sure that I must have slept rather better than I have done in the pst couple of weeks.

The weather brightened up too, and as far as I can remember, it didn’t rain today. That’s a first. I just went out for a slow walk to a local boulangerie and bought a rather expensive baguette. But I didn’t spend anything else – and I might have been tempted had I gone to the Delhaize.

The water retention issue hasn’t improved any, but I’ll be seeing about that over the course of the next few days.

I’ve had a good day working on the updating of the blog. I’m now up to 5th August 2010 and I’m quite pleased about that. if I can keep it up, it will be totally up-to-date by the time that I’m ready to leave here, with time to spare, I hope.

Downstairs in the kitchen at teatime I had a good chat to Phoung, the Vietnamese girl. She didn’t want to talk about life in Vietnam, which was unfortunate from my point of view, but we chatted quite a lot about loads of other things.

So now I’m going to have an early night – if I can. The girl in the next room has visitors round and they are a little rowdy at the moment. I hope that it won’t go on for too long.

Monday 27th June 2016 – THERE’S NO IMPROVEMENT …

… in anything that I mentioned the other day. I still have sleep issues, I’m still plagued by this water retention issue and the weather is still absolutely miserable. I postponed my trip to the shops again today because the weather was so awful but in the end I had to go out – and was soaked for my pains – but I needed the stuff. And while I didn’t buy any olives for my butty, they had some white pickled onions on special offer – a jar at €0:39 – and so for a change I bought a bottle of those.

I suppose that in all honesty sleep was a little better. Although it took me until long after midnight and I was up and down during the night, it was 06:15 when I awoke and I did feel slightly better. I lounged around for a while and it was 09:10 when I went down for breakfast. But then again, I wasn’t in any hurry.

The water retention though – I’m not going to say too much about that. but I’m in the hospital on Wednesday so I shall make a point to mention it to someone. But this is really getting on my nerves.

During the day I’ve been hard at my blog again and I’m now in the middle of July. As I have said before, it’s not as if I have anything else to do with my time right now. And who knows? I might even finish it off sometime in the near future. Only about 450 entries to do.

I had company for tea. There were crowds of us in the kitchen. I had rice, chick peas, veg, boulghour and a vegetable stock cube. And delicious it was too. There was plenty of it and I must have worms because I’ve been nibbling away at stuff since I came back up here.

And so an early night, and probably another restless night too. I’m fed up of all of this but I dunno what else that I can do.

Sunday 26th June 2016 – I’M DISAPPOINTED …

… with that pizza place that I’ve been using. I had an under-cooked pizza a couple of weeks ago, I seem to remember, and tonight’s was even worse. What was even more depressing about it was that while a few weeks ago he might have had a valid excuse, seeing as how the place was packed out, but tonight I was the only customer in there at the time that I ordered.

And so I shan’t be going to that place again – not that it’s a big deal because there’s another pizza place just round the corner from where my new place is and I’ll give that a try. I still have plenty of my sliced vegan cheese left.

Talking of vegan cheese, I had a cheese butty today. There wasn’t enough hummus left for a decent butty, especially as with it being Sunday it was a big baguette from the boulangerie down the road. But with a good supply of vegan cheese, a big tomato and a pile of salad (and a couple of olives) it was delicious.

Mind you, I’ll have to do a big “shop” tomorrow as I’ve now run out of lunchtime stuff.

Last night was a slightly better night as far as I was concerned. I was late dropping off to sleep – long after midnight – and awake early – 05:20 in fact – despite having been up once or twice during the night. But after the 05:20 trip downstairs, I went back to bed, back to sleep and it was 08:20 when I awoke.

I’d been on my travels during the night too – with the mother of a girl who has featured a couple of times in these pages. We were in Marcillat en Combraille and I had to take her home, which involved going into the town square and back out the other side. However she told me of a shorter way through the town that missed out going round the square. It was puzzling to me how come I didn’t know this particular way.

Straight after breakfast, which did include my two bread rolls, I went down to the boulangerie. Although the bad news is that the jam had gone off. I managed to salvage some of it but the rest went into the bin. It’s already been salvaged once so it’s no big deal. I’ll have to buy some more if there’s none supplied in this new place.

Sunday was shower day too, so now I’m nice and clean. But it was touch and go because the water wasn’t very hot. I don’t know what has happened there. I had to make the most of the cool water. It wasn’t very pleasant but still …

As far as the blog goes, I’ve now finished the month of June. Tomorrow, I’ll be starting on July if I have the opportunity. I want to see how my water retention issues go because if there is no improvement I’m going to try to blag my way back into the hospital.

Not that I want to of course, but I can’t go on like this.

Saturday 25th June 2016 – THIS IS BECOMING MONOTONOUS

It certainly is. And for several reasons too.

I had another comparatively sleepless night. Lying in bed tossing and turning throughout the night waiting to go to sleep. I know that I must have gone to sleep at some point, but not for long and I was up working on the laptop by 06:00
Despîte not drinking anything (except my two cups of coffee and one glass of orange juice) I was still up and down throughout the night – and my water retention issues aren’t easing any. I’m not too bad when I’m lying down but once I’m up and about, the water appears from somewhere
This weather is totally ridiculous. I want to go off and do something different and have a change of scenery but with the torrential downpour that we had for most of the day, it’s not even worth setting foot outside the house.

All of this is really depressing me. I don’t mind so much being ill if I have somewhere where I can sit and relax, like a garden in the sun but here, there’s no garden and no sun and any change of colour that I might have won’t be a suntan, it will be rust.

I put off going to the shops at lunchtime, hoping that the weather would improve, but it never did and so I ended up being soaked to the skin going out.And to my dismay, I discovered that the market from where I buy my olives and biscuits and the like is only a Saturday morning market and everyone had gone by the time that I arrived there.

Mind you, I had a good chat with Liz on the laptop and that’s always pleasant. It’s nice to talk to friends.

This evening, the weather had improved and it wasn’t too bad going out, although I’m starting to find it difficult to move about with my swollen legs. I ended up going to the cheapo Indian restaurant and having a tarkha dahl and rice with naam bread. After all, Saturday night is curry night.

The meal was pretty basic but it was filling and cheap. The place was packed too and I had to wait for ages for my meal.

Tomorrow I’m going to try for a lie-in. And I’m going to have a treat. There will be my usual muesli and soya dessert but I’ve brought some nice bread rolls and I’m going to eat them with jam and coffee. I feel like cheering myself up and a nice big breakfast will do me a world of good.

At least I hope so.

Friday 24th June 2016 – THAT WAS A BAD NIGHT

And I’m not talking about the thunderstorm either, which was wicked and I do mean “wicked”. There’s a leak around my window as I may have said before, and there was something of a puddle on the floor when I awoke this morning.

But “awoke” is a big word to use because I don’t remember going to sleep for very long at all. I was tossing and turning right through the night and didn’t manage to settle down at all. If I did manage to find any sleep at all last night, it wouldn’t have been much.

After a few hours updating the blog (I’m well into June 2010) I went into town to do today’s shopping. My route took me as usual past the River Leie on the edge of the city centre and so I went for a butcher’s to see what the thunderstorm had done to the depth of the river.

As you can see, we really did have a pelting last night. There’s almost as much water in the river as fell into my little attic room last night.

You might not believe it, but that is actually a bridge, and underneath it you can usually paddle your own canoe or whatever you might have. But there’s not much chance of that today.

It wasn’t just the depth that was impressive but also the volume of the water. It was a raging torrent and I wouldn’t have liked to have fallen in there. The crowds of people loitering around and photographing the scene were just as impressed as I was

After lunch I carried on with the blog – rather half-heartedly admittedly as my heart isn’t in it, what with the weather and the uncomfortable surroundings.

And I’m not allowing myself anything to drink either, which is agony for me in this hot and oppressive atmosphere. I’m having serious water retention problems and I’m sitting here all day from morning to night in my shoes because if I don’t put them on first thing in the morning, I can’t put them on at all. My legs are swollen right up into the thighs. And not only that, my left arm is swelling up too. I’m really in a bad way right now.

And as for the other major news of the day, you doubtless already know it. How can a nation be so completely stupid? It seems that the Brexiters were taken completely by surprise by their victory as they started backpedalling within an hour or two of the results being declared. That doesn’t look very comforting, does it?

Even worse, the British economy has collapsed, just as everyone predicted that it would.

And it will become worse too. Just you wait and see.

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Thursday 23rd June 2016 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT …

… that was! I don’t think that I slept very much at all, and I had to leave my stinking pit on innumerable occasions too – including one voyage all the way downstairs (and back again of course), all of which made me totally miserable and it was a horrible way to start the day.

I’d also been on my travels. It was wartime and there had been a massive requisition of paper and the like, all of which had to be put into pale yellow sacks and taken away to a collection point. And yet someone had obviously been to this point and had somehow managed to collect a dozen or so sacks that were filled with books and was bringing them back home again, presumably to sort through the piles, find some valuable ones and then sell them on again – something that we thought was rather despicable. He’d taken them into his garage to sort and someone had followed him in to see what was going on, and this second person had been killed. Another person went in and found himself being held as a kind of hostage, his back towards the person who was holding a gun and with a desk in between. The hostage dealt with the issue admirably, slowly manoeuvring the man with the gun into a certain position and then disabling him by the simple fashion of bending down and firing a gun at him from between the legs, a kind-of upside-down position. And that’s not as easy as it sounds to do that correctly or accurately.

Once again, I was up early taking advantage of the beautiful morning, but it didn’t last very long like that. In fact the day ended up being, if anything, even worse than the night for we were soon back in the rain again.

And that’s how it stayed for most of the day.

We did have a little dry spell, round about 12:30 which was just enough time for me to nip into town and the shops. And it was just so hot and clammy while all of this was going on. Up in my attic it was hot and oppressive for much of the afternoon and I wish that I had somewhere else that I could go where it was cooler, for I found it really hard to work.

But then while I was making my tea we had the most astonishing thunderstorm as this huge dark cloud slowly moved across the sky. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a storm like this.

I’ll try yet again to have a decent sleep – to see if I can manage to have one because I certainly could do with it. I could also do with a decent place to stay because sitting up here in my attic with nowhere else to go is really depressing me right now.

But still – only a week to go and then I’ll be somewhere else. With – I hope – a decent bed, a comfortable seat, a proper opening window and a nice garden to sit in.

But I’m sure that it’s not going to be as straightforward as that!

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EPIC HALL

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