Tag Archives: belgium

Monday 2nd January 2012 – I’M BACK …

… on the road again. My stay with Marianne in Brussels is over.

I’m presently holed up in a concealed fold in the ground in a parking space I know somewhere between Rethel and Chalons-sur-Marne, or Chalons en Champagne, or whatever they call the place these days. We’ve stayed here before as you know.

The plan was that I was going to have a slow amble back over a few days, looking at all of the places that I’ve driven past and never visited during all of the time that I’ve been travelling up and down the road, but the weather put paid to that.

It’s broken at last as you might expect, and we had a howling hurricane and pitch darkness all the way down to here. And so I pressed on rather than hanging around, and took shelter here.

I’m not anticipating it being any better tomorrow, so I’ll be going home instead.

As for today, a few more hours on the book and then after lunch we nipped out. Today is the start of the January sales so our first port of call was the sales at IKEA.

But of course Brain of Britain strikes again, doesn’t he? They don’t start until the Tuesday.

We had a bit of a laugh too at her apartment.

One of her best friends is a strange woman who belongs to one of these weird sects, and the idea that anyone should put temptation of sin in their way by being in the close proximity of a person of the opposite sex is a devastating one, from her point of view.

Consequently, I’ve been having to keep a low profile, but the aforementioned friend called round today. The machinations that we had to go through in order not to offend this woman were … errr … quite amusing, I’ll tell you.

But it’s all good fun, isn’t it?

So two poems in French (and several more, I notice, as I glance further ahead) translated into English (straightforward), then rendered as poems (nothing like as easy) with certain crucial words remaining in the same place (almost impossible).

I ended up spending all my time thinking in rhyme, in order to try to get into the swing of it.

And translating several anagrams into English to the satisfaction of Marianne and keeping to the gist of the story – it’s been hard work.

But it was worth it in the end.

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Sunday 1st January 2012 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… to all of my readers, but seeing as how we’ve already done the “Crewe Bus Station” story, I’ll not mention it again.

Except to say that limbo dancing was invented by a Scotsman trying to get into the toilets there without paying.

So having had a little Sunday lie-in, and a quick breakfast, our first stop was the church at the Abbaye de la Cambre again. Marianne is a practising Catholic so I keep on telling her that if she keeps on practising like this, one day she will be perfect.

She certainly deserves a sainthood or whatever it is that they give to heroes in the church, seeing as how she’s brave enough to risk all kinds of thunderbolts to drag me along. Organised religion is not my thing as you know, but when in Rome and all of that.

We had a nice walk in the Bois de la Cambre this afternoon and ended up going for a coffee. But I’ve also done another couple of hours on this book. With all of the practising that I’ve been doing on it, I ought to be perfect now too.

Later this evening, we went out.

There’s an Egyptian restaurant (I had actually thought that it was a Lebanese one) in the neighbourhood that does vegan food so I had booked a table there. No point last night because of what Marianne wanted to see on the TV of course.

That made quite a pleasant change – we had a very pleasant time and it does us good to break our routine up like this.

So tomorrow is my final day. A long way from being finished but I suppose that much of the time has been spent socialising.I don’t see enough of people as you know, and you lot are always telling me that I should get out more often.

I like Marianne very much but living here in Brussels and working this 09:00 – 18:00 routine is definitely not for me.

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Saturday 31st December 2011 – HAPPY NEW YEAR …

… or, at least, it will be in a bit.

This morning I was attacking Marianne’s book yet again. I’ve unearthed several more poems, at least two of which need certain crucial words placed in the right position
and poetry’s not my strong point
I’ll be glad to leave this joint.
Cos poetry is real hard work
And I can’t do it
What a berk!
so how I’m going to do all of that – I am as yet … errr … undecided.

Another anagram has reared its ugly head too (and I think that there are a couple more) with certain words put into a precise order and harry hid is vest.

So you can see – no chance of doing this by Monday evening.

I went out to lunch. It’s been a while since I met Mike – one of my cohorts from the OUSA – Open University Students Association – days here in Brussels. We had a very good chat for a couple of hours and raised a glass to absent friends, Liz Ayers especially. Nearly three years since she left us.

Mike is looking quite well and I wished him all the best. But I couldn’t hang around because Marianne and I had shopping to do. I keep forgetting that these days I’m having to think about the routines of others rather than just my own.

We’ve had tea and Marianne is settling down to watch the Pope and the religious services for the New Year. Me, I’m sitting here idly reading a book (not about poetry) on the internet.

I wish you all well – see you next year.

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Friday 30th December 2011 – I STILL HAVEN’T …

… solved this anagram issue yet, despite having given the matter considerable thought.

But I’ve moved on, leaving that behind me to reflect upon at a later date, and I’ve now run aground elsewhere.

Another recurring theme in this book is a poem, and this requires me not only to translate, but to translate in rhyme. And that’s not easy either because
I’m not a poet
And don’t I know it!

But I’m struggling on all the same. Never let it said that I’m going to be defeated.

marianne orban strawberry mooseAnd while I was busy working, others were of course relaxing and I notice that once again His Nibs has taken advantage of my preoccupation to arrange a photo shoot

There’s really no stopping him when there’s a camera and a floozie floating about in the vicinity, is there?

I don’t know what I pay him for half of the time, I really don’t.

We’ve done the usual domestic stuff here today but we are taking a break tomorrow for a few hours. There’s shopping to be done for the weekend of course and I have an appointment in town to see someone – catch up with old friends and chat about old times.

So having had tea we’re going to settle down now and watch a film. And I can’t even remember which film it is that we’ve decided to watch.

It’s getting to me, all of this.

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Thursday 29th December 2011 – MARIANNE AND I …

… have had a disagreement.

But it’s not anything to do with our personal life at all – it’s to do with this book. And the only reason really that I mention it is to illustrate the difficulties under which this translation is proceeding.

And it’s no wonder that no commercial translator would undertake the job. Having this done for the weekend is impossible and I realised that a while ago.

Part of the plot hinges around an anagram, and without this anagram the story can’t proceed.

And it’s all very well doing a translation, but to keep the translation down some kind of narrow pathway to represent the author’s literary channels and literary thought is complicated enough, but when there’s a key anagram to be thrown in at a crucial point, it’s snot, aye.

So after much binding in the marsh, I came up with an absolutely belting anagram for the English translation of my phrase, but unfortunately it doesn’t quite correspond with the literary sense that Marianne is trying to convey.

I’ve spent all morning trying to find an appropriate phrase (which is required to be used in a considerable part of this book) just so that its anagram would be a powerful one. But it’s not suitable, and that’s that.

So it’s back to the drawing board, Cecil.

Yes, I hadn’t realised what I was letting myself in for when I volunteered for this task. It’s certainly … errr … challenging.

And I suppose that it’s that in itself that is doing me good.

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Wednesday 28th December 2011 – DAY THREE …

… of our megathon continues apace.

And we had some excitement today.

The plan this evening was for us to be sitting down in the lounge after tea to watch La Grande Vadrouille, another de Funes film in which he stars with Terry-Thomas and Bourvil.

It’s another one of my favourites and Marianne had bought that for me as well. I’d been a lucky boy this Christmas

And as I was getting the film ready in the DVD player to watch, Marianne was idly surfing through the channels and what should be on the TV but La Grande Vadrouille

Coincidence or what?

Apart from that, it’s been the usual routine today – breakfast, work, coffee, work, lunch, and then the cycle continuing in the afternoon.

I thought that I had left the 09:00 – 18:00 cycle behind, yet here I am deep in it again. I’m not used to this kind of routine and I don’t think that I ever will be.

And sleeping here in the city with all of the noise doesn’t help.

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Tuesday 27th December 2011 – DAY TWO …

… of my mega-workathon, and Marianne is a hard taskmaster. She makes sure that I’m always hard at it, as well as working overtime on her book.

I’ve stopped for the occasional coffee, and stopped for lunch too, but I’ve put in a good crack at this book. And I think that having it finished in a week or so is being optimistic, to say the least, despite all of the preparation that I did at home before I came away.

After tea, we went for a walk in the park down the road for a breath of fresh air and that did us good. It was a fairly reasonable day for the time of year as it happens.

And then we settled down to watch another film that Marianne had bought me for Christmas. Le Petit Baigneur, another film of Louis de Funès.

It’s another one of those films that I can watch time and time again, and with a couple of scenes – the “church” scene and the running gag of the “launching of the Incrèvable (‘Unbreakable’)” scenes, I won’t ever tire of seeing those.

So now it’s bed time and an early night (if the noise in the street will let me). I need to be on top form if I’m going to do this work.

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Monday 26th December 2011 – BOXING DAY …

… and despite, for me, it being a traditional Day of Rest, no such luck unfortunately. I have plenty of work to do.

I’m not sure if you know why I’m here, but basically my friend Marianne has written a book. It’s called Les Secrets du Moine, a mystery thriller involving buried treasure and an Abbey.

It’s written in French of course, and she would like it translated. But it isn’t easy because there’s such a lot in there that can’t be translated literally or it will lose the sense. And there are all kinds of stuff in there that needs a lot of careful thought.

When I had been here in July Marianne had given me a copy to read on the ‘plane over to Canada. And on my return she asked me what I had thought of it.

I told her that I enjoyed it tremendously (which is true) and so she asked me if I would like to translate it.

And so I had done some research on what it was that I was expected to know, and here I am – ready to set to work.

And this will be my task for the next week or so – to thrash out a whole plan with Marianne and to discuss the technical issues involving the plot of the book (I don’t pretend to understand it all).

So I’d better stop blogging and get working, hadn’t I?

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Sunday 25th December 2011 – A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers.

I didn’t get that line from a Christmas Cracker or from an Annual, but from off the back of the door of the Public Lavatory on Crewe Bus Station. That was a good source of reading material for a spotty young teenager and I certainly learned a good deal about anatomy there.

In fact, I reckon that it was thanks to there that I passed my Biology ‘O’ Level with the best result I ever had.

This morning we had a lie-in and so it was about 10:00 when we finally struggled into the kitchen. Breakfast was flapjacks made with flour, soya milk and a little sugar, and then we went to the church at the Abbaye de la Cambre.

I have issues with churches, though.

Someone once tried to drown me in a church, and the next time I went there someone stuck this woman in my hand. I swore that they next time anyone of my acquaintance went to a church it would be over my dead body.

All in all, I’m surprised that I wasn’t struck down by a thunderbolt

I made Christmas dinner as well. We had seitan slices in onions and gravy, boiled and roast potatoes, sprouts (well, we ARE in Brussels) and mixed vegetables, followed by Christmas pudding and custard.

And even though I say it myself, it all tasted very nice.

This afternoon though, we listened to our Christmas Radio Programme on Radio Arverne, watched “Dr No” and that was that really – just chilled out.

But tomorrow we are starting work in earnest. after all, that’s why I’m here.

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Saturday 24th December 2011 – I DIDN’T FEEL …

… much like getting up this morning.

I can’t sleep in Brussels and it’s pretty pointless trying, if you ask me. And so when the alarm went off at 08:30 I was already alive and kicking.

Having fallen off the end of the bed three times during the night doesn’t help much either and so I turned the bed round in the middle of the night. And so tonight it will be my feet that will fall out.

This morning we went shopping at the Shanti – the health food supermarket over the road in the Avenue Adolphe Buyl. Start as we mean to go on, I suppose.

After that I made a start on the work that we had to do. I’m not here merely to pass the time of day or to sit and put my feet up – I have plenty of work to do.

Another shopping trip, this time to the Carrefour at Waterloo (or, rather, Mont St Jean) for the stuff we couldn’t find at the health food shop was on the cards for later and after a coffee, we went to Chi Chi’s, the Tex-Mex restaurant down the road from there, for a Christmas Eve meal.

We arrived much earlier than anticipated for our booking, but there was a table free and so we didn’t have to wait around.

Back here later, we watched the Chronicles of Narnia II – Prince Caspian, which isn’t a patch on the first one unfortunately, and that was Christmas Eve.

And now I’m off to bed. I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what Santa has bought me.

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Friday 23rd December 2011 – I HATE BRUSSELS

Especially when I am trying to sleep and there are trams clanging past, police cars racing by, doors slamming, people shouting.

And here is me, having once complained about being awoken by an owl screeching. I can’t wait to return home and I promise that I won’t ever complain again.

And so this morning Marianne and I went shopping. I was a-hunting for a pair of boots seeing as the ones that I bought in Canada in 2010 have split right across the sole.

But having seen the prices in Brussels, I’ll limp around with soggy feet for the rest of my life. Extortionate isn’t the word.

Better news at IKEA though where I bought one of my “plank-trolley” specials – a trolley loaded up with odds and ends of doors.

This one has a set of bed laths (which was what I wanted), 2 other sets, a baby’s cot, a load of wood that will do for shelving, some heat-treated glass shelves, all kinds of useful and exciting things – and all for €10 too. That was money well-spent as well.

The interesting bit was trying to manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … the trolley around the other piles of trolleys in the way while several members of staff stood and watched, the idle ghits, and manoeuvring … "PERSONoeuvring" – ed … Caliburn into the loading bay (waiting permitted for 5 minutes only) between the van containing the guy surfing the internet on his laptop and the other van with the guy eating his sandwiches.

Yes, waiting only for 5 minutes, while the staff stood and watched. I hate Belgian shop assistants. Totally unhelpful and thick as slurry.

This evening we went to see “The Untouchables” – I’ve seen worse films than this to be sure but to be honest it’s nothing more than “The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain“, but with Attitude.

Anyway tomorrow promises to be a little more exciting, and so I’m off to bed. Although whether or not I’ll have sweet dreams is another thing entirely.

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Thursday 22nd December 2011 – NOW HERE’S A THING!

And this isn’t something that happens every day, is it? And it was so astonishing that it deserves to be reported.

As Caliburn and I roared up the steep winding hills around Clamecy in the early morning mist and rain, a French lorry actually pulled over into a lay-by to let us fly past. That has never happened before and it won’t ever happen again

I was right about the night though. It was most uncomfortable and I tossed and turned for practically all of it. I don’t think that I had much in the way of sleep at all.

It was probably well that I made an early start because I wasn’t going to be doing much else. And the coffee in the flask from yesterday was barely warm. That kind of thing won’t put me in the best of humours either.

On we shot to Brussels, and apart from our lorry-driver friend, the trip was fairly uneventful – that is, until I reached Charleroi.

I’m now in Brussels with a hiccupy Caliburn because, having been distracted for a few moments, I ended up putting a few litres of petrol into him by mistake in Charleroi before I realised.

It’s the ethanol-based fuel that has the yellow handle, not the diesel fuel in Belgium so I hope he won’t have too many ill effects.

Arriving at Marianne’s, I had a steaming mug of coffee thrust into my freezing cold mitt and that made me feel a lot better.

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Wednesday 21st December 2011 – I DIDN’T GET …

… my rice pudding for tea.

In fact, I was far too busy.

We had 25.5mm of rain throughout the day and during that time I was refitting the temporary roof back on the lean-to. I had intended to start to fit the new roof – the next project around here – but with no let-up in the rain, it was a case of doing what I could before I was soaked to the skin.

That took until about 14:00 when the waterproof overall became waterlogged that I couldn’t move in it (and me with a streaming head cold too). And so that was it – I called it a day.

There’s only so much you can do in weather like that if you don’t want to die of pleurisy.

The rest of the stuff from the UK was emptied out of Caliburn and then he was loaded up with the stuff I was taking to Brussels. As you know, I’ve been invited to spend this Christmas away from home and I need to take some stuff with me.

And having organised all of that, to the best of my ability, I came in here, dried off and warmed up in front of the nice hot wood stove until it was time to go.

Luckily I’d fuelled up at the Carrefour in Riom yesterday because I had no intention of leaving Caliburn’s cab in this kind of weather. The rain streamed down all the way without a break.

I made it as far as Varzy where I flaked out at the side of the road. I have a feeling that this is going to be a very uncomfortable night.

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Monday 8th August 2011 – I’ve finished …

… my Halifax pages. You can read them here and find out why I think that Halifax is the most beautiful and interesting city in the whole of North America. You can always add your comments on this blog and let me know your opinion of the place. I’d go and live there if I had the chance.

Anyway, that took most of the day, but I wanted to get it all finished. And that’s not all I did either. I spent a while on the phone sorting out Terry’s windscreen (although we are no further forward) and then getting my French SIM card unblocked. Apparently you can’t use it outside the EU (that’s why I was having so many issues lst year in Canada) unless you tell them and ask them to unblock it.

eric hall renewable energy business signs new brunswick canadaMy Canadian phone number, that one I’ve had all of the issues with, is now up and working, and so I’ve ordered some signs from Vistaprint. They are magnetic and they will fit nicely on the hire car that I will be having.

No harm in a bit of publicity and after all, I’m going there to work. It’s not a holiday.

I couldn’t get yellow and black, would you believe? That’s sad. But I like this layout and even if they are small, they will still stand out, and that’s what it’s all about after all.

I’ve also had notification that my money has been paid into my UK bank account for the sale of Expo – my big apartment in Brussels – and so I’ve had to send a string of letters (snail mail too) to tell people what to do with it. With the stock market in freefall now is the time to invest before it starts to climb back up.

I also managed a couple of hours tidying in the barn, sorting a few things out and putting more stuff on the shelves that I built the other day.

Tomorrow I’m going to bring the radio blog up-to-date and copy all of my music onto my 8GB memory stick to take with me. I’ve done it all on to CDs but I reckon that with battery issues with laptops, some non-moving media will be better.

And then I’m going to do some more work on the guttering

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Friday 29th July 2011 – AFTER THE EXERTIONS OF YESTERDAY …

… it will come as no surprise for you to learn that this morning I was up at … errr … 06:48.

However, that was to go for a gypsy’s. No way I was staying up at that time of the morning. 09:30 was a much more realistic time to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

After breakfast I was back on the computer with the website – to see how far I can get with that today.

Later I was outside working on the wiring in the barn – there were a few things I needed to do like install some crocodile clips for charging spare batteries and the like. And once I had accomplished that, I set too and emptied, cleaned and tidied Caliburn.

After that, I came up here for an early finish and watched a film. And I’m annoyed with myself now!

That’s because when I was emptying out the apartment in Brussels earlier this year I threw away a huge pile of videotapes with loads of good stuff on them, on the grounds that they were recorded in Long Play.

But remember that 12-volt TV/video player that I bought at that brocante a while back? I’ve just discovered this evening that it plays Long Play tapes.

Hardly any surprise that I’m upset!

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