Tag Archives: Expo

Wednesday 9th February 2011 – We had a bit of good luck today …

…which is just as well, because regular readers of my rubbish will know that it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

At the maison communale, there was just one person in front of me so I was in and out in a matter of minutes. After that of course I attended to the matter of getting myself deregistered and that didn’t take long either. we even had a friendly and helpful fonctionnaire, and that’s a first in Brussels, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Terry got on with grouting the floor of the bathroom and while he was finishing it off. Liz and I took all of the rubble downstairs and put it in the trailer, having first removed everything that everyone else has put in it. And I reckoned that we took out more than we put in.

Once that lot was emptied it was off to IKEA for lunch and a quick shopping expedition. We bought a housing to fit the dishwasher into the kitchen, a toilet seat (we are going for all kinds of luxury here, you know) and a few other bits and bobs. Next door at Brico we acquired a shower screen to fit at the side of the bath, and a new shower head with hose

From there it was back into the city and to this electrical shop that I had discovered the other day. A two-gang box and a handful of circuit-breakers and he asked for €109. Having been asked for €145 just for the box at Brico, I expected him to then ask for the money for the circuit breakers too but no – that was his all-in price and he even threw in a pile of cable connectors. This was a good deal by any standards.

At the tile shop, we picked up a few sacks of tile cement to do the terrace here, and Liz’s beady eyes spotted some tiles that were exactly the same colour as the basic colour scheme of the toilet. Of course it’s a shame to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar and so that’s something else we’ll be having to do. Not that I’m complaining – I want this place to be a credit to us all when it comes to be sold.

In other news, there’s a bookshop in Scottsdale Arizona that wants to pick a fight with me. And as you all know, I’m never one to fail to rise to a challenge and it’s been a while since I’ve mixed it in a good old argy-bargy. It’s also been a long time (8.5 years in fact) since I’ve been to Arizona and I’m itching to go for another holiday.

So watch this space..

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Tuesday 8th February 2011 – Well that was a waste of a couple of hours.

Apparently an identity card is INDISPENSIBLE (in capital letters) when asking for forms relating to property. So with my Belgian ID card having expired in March last year, and me still being on the demographics list for Jette (because I didn’t realise that you needed to do that – d’oh!) a piece of identity would not suffice.

Tomorrow I need to go to the Maison Communale to get myself taken off the list and instead, obtain an attestation that I own the property. Ahh well.

And while I was out, Terry cut all the tiles for the bathroom floor and Liz set to out on the balconies, moving all of the rubbish that has accummulated these last ever-so-many years and uprooted the trees that were growing.

This afternoon Terry tiled the floor in the bathroom and it’s looking excellent in there. Those tiles that I bought for the bathroom years ago, they are a perfect match for the ones we bought the other day and set it off beautifully Tomorrow he’s hoping to grout it.

Liz and I completely emptied the terraces and then we ripped up all of the tiles on half of the front balcony. It didn’t take much doing, that I can tell you, but shovelling up the sand that the gerry-builders had laid down instead of concrete took quite some time.

For a little treat I pushed the boat out and took Liz and Terry for a slap-up nosh at the … errrr … Simonis fritkot. Huge portions of food at … errr … economic prices. Still, they both deserved it and quite right too. we are working hard in this apartment.

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Monday 7th February 2011 – I’m still here

I haven’t been struck down by a thunderbolt for working on the Sabbath, and I haven’t been a victim of Extraordinary Rendition during the night for daring to criticise the Septics either. Mind you, I had a really uncomfortable night and didn’t sleep too well – my guilty conscience obviously – and I’m going to bed as soon as I press “send”.

This afternoon though, I had to pop out to see my notaire about getting the apartment paperwork together. And she sent me off to get a tax clearance certificate, but of course the tax office is closed in the afternoons so that didn’t work out as planned and I need to do that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have the makings of a beautiful bathroom now – not quite finished but the walls are all grouted, there’s a sink, there are new taps on the bath and on the sink, and there is central heating again. Tomorrow it will have a new floor, some wallpaper, and be painted if we are lucky, and then we can move the washing machine in there.

I also have a bedroom that is painted now, and there’s a radiator fitted too. And I may well have time to start on the flooring tomorrow as well. But fitting the radiator was exciting – the connector broke as we were coupling it up, so we fitted a spare valve but that meant a trip to Brico for an adapter, and then another trip to Brico for a longer connector for the valve.

It was after 20:00 when we finished, and we are all exhausted. And not surprising too. It was a hard day’s work. I just hope that I can manage to press “send” before I ……

…. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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Sunday 6th February 2011 – Sunday is a day of rest …

 … as I have said many times before. And so with no alarm clock and no nothing at all I managed to stay in bed until as late as 09:15 which is something of a record.

With a leisurely morning, I carried on working on my website and in particular the pages on the Trans-Labrador Highway. And I’ve now managed to reach Mount Sterling, which is about 20 miles from Goose Bay. That means I’m almost half-way around on my travels. It’s quite a long road, you know.

After lunch, Liz and I decided to change my habits of a lifetime and work in the afternoon. After all, the quicker you start, the quicker you finish. And so now the bedroom door and ceiling are finished. Tomorrow we can put the first coat of paint on the walls.

Tonight though has been something of a major disappointment. It’s the Superbowl and the Packers, who I have followed faithfully for the last 20 years, have made it. But the US Government has gone berserk and every internet channel that I have found that might be carrying the game has either been suspended, usurped by, of all people, the Department of Homeland Security, or absorbed by the NFL.

But its the usurpation by the DHS that is the most frightening. Big business has all the legal guns at its disposal everywhere in the world, but as well as that, in Great Satan it can summon up the Government to do its dirty work for it at the taxpayers’ expense. Even websites in other countries have had their domain names taken over and closed down, with ICANN meekly folding up at the merest suggestion of US Government pressure. It seems that no-one is safe from the domination of Great Satan, no matter where they are. Free speech is an illusion these days.

I did manage to catch 5 minutes of the warm up, where they were interviewing a member of Great Satan’s Armed Farces. He said that they were in Afghanistan “to keep our country (that is – Great Satan) free”.  He’s living under an illusion as well.

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Saturday 5th February 2011 – This gale is still howling away

It’s been going almost non-stop for over 48 hours and shows little sign of abating.And here we are trying to cut tiles and paint window frames and we’ve ended up with dust and paint everywhere.

Mind you, I have the making of a magnificent bathroom thanks to Liz’s artistic eyes and Terry’s workmanship. It’s certainly something. It might even be finished by Monday night and that will be real progress.

In the bedroom all of the woodwork is painted, we have wallpapered and there’s a couple of coats of paint on the ceiling, although there will be others as the ceiling is quite thirsty.

This afternoon I took Liz and Terry to the battlefield at Waterloo but there was far too much wind to make it possible to climb to the top of the Butte du Lion. And at the huge Carrefour at Mont-St Jean we did a week’s worth of shopping and spent a fortune. But it was worth is for I even found a supply of vegan cheese. And that doesn’t happen every day.

Then off to the big Brico where we spent another small fortune, but now we have all the wallpaper and paint that we need for here. I needed an operation for the removal of my wallet, and was given oxygen afterwards.

A major disappointment was that Chi-Chi’s, the really good Tex-Mex restaurant in Overijse, had closed down. Terry suggested a pizza, Liz fancied a fritkot, but once I had Tex-Mex on my mind that was that and we fought our way into Brussels city centre for the other Chi-Chi’s. Terry was suitably impressed with the roads in the city, of course. He reckons that they wouldn’t be out of place in Ougadougou or Dar-es-Salaam.

And what a good night it was in Chi-Chi’s – excellent service (none of the staff is Belgian), really good food, and a couple of South Americans entertaining the diners. It’s been a long time since I had such an enjoyable evening. Liz enjoyed her Mexican coffee and Terry loved his deep-fried ice-cream.

And so that was our day. And a good day it was too, with a good time being had by all. Tomorrow is a day of rest of course, and then back to the grindstone on Monday.

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Friday 4th February 2011 – We are making some good progress right now

Terry has spent all day tiling in the bathroom and he’s making some splendid progress. It’s looking a world different that it did this time last week and I’m really impressed.

Liz and I spent all day in the third bedroom. We started off by putting the second coat of paint on the woodwork, and then carried on with the wallpapering. Liz kept on encouraging me when I was starting to flag, and we managed in the end to do all of it, even the fiddly bits that take all the time. It’s much better when you have someone to help to motivate you.

So not much to write about, but a great deal of work done. We are all thoroughly exhausted and I’m off to bed in a minute. But I don’t imagine I’ll get much sleep. There’s been a howling gale blowing here all day and some of the gusts are shaking the windows, making quite a noise. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a wind quite like this.

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Thursday 3rd February 2011 – So how did we do today then?

We made buckets of progress today.

This morning I had to go shopping to pick up the tiles that were now in stock. We also needed some tile cement (and lots of it), a new tiling trowel for Terry, some more white gloss paint and a couple of other things. While I was away, Liz put a coat of paint on the bedroom ceiling and Terry made a start on the tiling in the bathroom.

Once I returned, Terry launched himself into the tiling and kept at it all day. Liz and I painted all of the woodwork in the bedroom with the white gloss. Yes – me – painting things white. Whatever next?

Towards the end of the afternoon Liz started on a second coat on the ceiling and I began the wallpapering. I’m using that fibreglass wallpaper as I can do that – it doesn’t take much effort – and it hides all of the defects. I’ve put three drops onto the wall before the light went so I’ll finish it off tomorrow. And when it’s all done, the plan is then to paint it with emulsion. Once that’s done we can refit the radiator and do the floor and that will be that room finished. We can then move the living room into there and then do the living room.

Terry kept going until 18:45 and he’s done an impressive job in there. The wall is about half-done, so I gave him the rest of the day off and we finished by demolishing a pile of Liz’s lentil-burgers..

Tomorrow we’ll all be back at it.

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Wednesday 2nd February 2011 – You will hardly recognise this place now

Liz and Terry decided that we ought to empty some more stuff out of the apartment here today and so we had another mega-packing and sorting session. First thing that we did was to empty all of the stuff in the garage where the 2000E estate lives, check what I ought to be keeping, and then bin the rest. That was quite exciting as I discovered all kinds of stuff that I had carried about with me in my company car and which I had had to empty out when I handed back the car when I retired.

So with a comparatively empty garage (I say comparatively because you know that my idea of empty is different than everyone else’s), we had room to start moving more stuff downstairs. So while Terry was moving stuff downstairs and Liz was sorting, I was dismantling furniture and so on. Then we had a mega-bagging session of all kinds of bits and pieces and all of that has ended up in the garage too, and another pile of stuff has ended up in the trailer ready to go to the tip. You can actually move around here now, which is definitely progress from how it was 10 days ago.

We had a break at lunchtime for food, and as what with one thing and another we didn’t have time to send anyone for bread so it was to Carrefour at Berchtem St Agathe and the restaurant there. Just for a change there were nice, friendly and helpful staff – something I’m not used to in Belgium.

Brico couldn’t come up with a new lock for the other garage, which was a disappointment. No sense in breaking off the lock if we can’t replace it. But we did another load of shopping in Delhaize ready for the rest of the week.

And back home again we carried on with the sorting.

Tomorrow we may be starting on the third bedroom, and Terry will be attacking the bathroom, if the plastering that he did yesterday is dry.

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Tuesday 1st February 2011 – The one big advantage …

 of having a hand-picked team is that it’s amazing just how quickly you can progress.

Terry has finished all of the grouting in the kitchen now and has done the wiring in the third bedroom and made good around the sockets. And when that was complete Liz washed down the ceiling and the walls while I sanded down all of the woodwork and patched some of the plastering that needed doing.

Meantime, back in the bathroom Terry has taken the radiator and the sink off the wall, removed the rest of the tiles that I couldn’t reach, and plastered the walls where the tiles used to be. And that bit wasn’t easy either. Whoever did the tiling in here when the place was new didn’t make it easy for anyone to follow.

But after all of that no wonder we are all exhausted. It’s flaming hard work all of this.

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Monday 31st January 2011 – For some unknown reason …

… that I haven’t quite worked out, I’m totally whacked this evening. And after our day of rest too. Mind you, day of rest, when we went off on a route march all across the parks of Jette (and there are a fair few of those) in a temperature of about minus 5 or something.

Today was better, a mere minus 2, and I had the morning off to go and be rude to an insurance company here in Brussels who are trying to charge me 3 months insurance for failing to renew Caliburn’s 2009 insurance. And a profitable morning it was as I managed to overturn a €390 or something demand into a mere €72.06.

While I was away Terry grouted the kitchen wall tiles (and what a good job he made of that – I have a beautiful kitchen here now) and Liz put the first coat of paint on the bathroom ceiling. This afternoon Terry and I disconnected the water (and that was an exciting project) so that Terry could finish off the de-tiling in the bathroom, and Liz and I worked in the third bedroom – me sanding down the window frame and the door and Liz trying her best to wash the ceiling and walls (and understanding now why I put polystyrene tiles on the ceiling and fibreglass wallpaper on the walls).

If Terry can finish the electrics in the third bedroom Liz and I can make a good start in there tomorrow. There’s a lot of work to be done in there.

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Sunday 30th January 2011 – Sunday is a day of rest of course.

No question of any alarm clock. And so at 09:53 (which is early for me on a Sunday as you know) I heaved myself out of my stinking pit. A leisurely breakfast was followed by a shower and just some general mooching about – and why not? After all, we’ve been working hard just now.

After lunch we went for a walk in the park around here. It is in fact an enormous series of parks that are all linked up to make a good walk. We started off just 200 yards from here where you can disappear into the woods that were formerly part of the domain of the Abbey of Dieleghem. Here there is a shrine that is supposed to have been the subject of  a miracle and there are always a few people around there (except today of course – it was too flaming cold). We saw some parrots too there. Not too far away a small zoo was bombed during the war and the birds escaped. They have now established themselves in the wild just around here and it’s quite impressive to see them fly about.

We then walked along the bed of running sand that stretches for a few kilometres from the north to the sout of the city. We took the north direction and ended up at the Chateau de Laarbeck, which is now a cafe.

And that was that. We came home and thawed out because it really was a freezing cold day. But it was still nice to be out and about. Tomorrow we are back at work.

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Saturday 29th January 2011 – We went to the seaside this afternoon

I say this afternoon, because this morning we were busy. Terry finished off the electricity in the bathroom and fitted the tiles in the kitchen (the grouting needs to be done), Liz painted the ceiling in the toilet and rubbed down the one in the bathroom, and I emptied more junk out of the third bedroom and plastered the wall behind where the radiator will be.

But you can’t make a DiY-type noise in these apartment blocks after 14:00 on a Saturday, it was a gorgeous (but freezing cold) day, and I had promised that I would take Liz to the seaside some time while we were here, and so this afternoon was a good bet.

And it was freezing too and there was a bitterly cold wind blowing, but we still had a walk along the prom and round the harbour at Oostende, as well as coffee and waffles in a cafe. And as pure luck would have it, as I was trying to show Liz and Terry around the huge church there (but there was Confession going on there so we couldn’t go round) we noticed a huge old-clothes repository. And so back to Caliburn and we deposited the sacks of no-longer-needed clothing there, and that was that.

grote markt grand place brugge bruges belgiumOf course you can’t be in that neck of the woods without going to see Brugge and so we went for a wander around in the evening. Places always look so much better at night, all lit up, and Brugge is no exception. We wandered around the main square there and soaked up all the atmosphere, went for a meal and I bought a restaurant. At least, I imagine that that was the significance of the amount on the bill, unless I was paying for everyone else in the restaurant.

So scintillating is my company that Liz and Terry fell asleep on the way home, and we finally arived back here at 23:00. Not bad at all for just an afternoon out at the coast, was it?

Tomorrow is a day of rest and if Esi remembers to contact me, we will also be eating out tomorrow.

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Friday 28th January 2011 – We finally made it to the shops today …

… after many vicissitudes.

The first issue was going to the tip to dump the rubbish. Much to everyone’s surprise the tip was open today but the guy took one look at the stuff that we had and told us that we couldn’t tip it there. He sent us on somewhere else instead – not too far away, and that was a commercial dumping facility where we had to pay a … errr … significant amount to use their facilities. even more depressing, it was open from 06:00 until 17:30 and so had we been told about it yesterday we could have done it then and there without messing around this morning.

Next port of call was to my solicitor’s where I gave him the deeds to this apartment so that I won’t lose or mislay them – after all, anything is possible around here – and then I needed to go to the bank for a new bank card – regular followers of this drivel will recall the cash machine in Labrador City swallowing the old one back in October.

Hunting for tiles was the next major issue and that didn’t work out. The big place where they have all the ends of range tiles had nothing suitable at a price that we could afford to pay and we ran out of time to go anywhere else. And so to IKEA where we lunched and did some shopping.

Brico turned up a nice floor for the third bedroom but Terry and Liz didn’t take much notice. They are still recovering from the shock of seeing a tub of Dulux ceiling paint on sale for €115. I did warn them about the cost of living in Brussels but that kind of price is verging on the ludicrous, never mind the ridiculous.

On the way home, picking our way through the traffic and travelling down the back streets we came across a Moroccan tile warehouse with a very amiable proprietor who had plenty of time to spare for us, which makes a pleasant change here in Brussels. We only really went in to shelter from the rush-hour traffic and yet we came away with all of the tiles for the bathroom and the balcony, and at a most reasonable price to boot (although at this stage we haven’t yet examined them closely so our opinion might change yet about this). And so tomorrow we’ll carry on working and see how far we can progress.

Sunday is of course a day of rest.

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Thursday 27th January 2011 – We didn’t quite manage the shops today.

And if we had woken up at a respectable time, we still wouldn’t have made it.

The fact is that we had run out of space to put things, and if we had bought more stuff there would have been even less space for the. As a result, we decided on having a packing day. Tons of stuff made it into the trailer for taking down to the dump, and even more stuff made it into the pile for Oxfam. Whatever was I doing with all those clothes? Worse than a woman, I can tell you. And there were even a few things that made it into the pile to take home, much to everyone’s surprise.

When we had a van-load of rubbish for the tip we took it along. We arrived there at 15:46 only to find that the tip closed at 15:45 and they refused to take the stuff. That was rather sad.

Anyway the place looks a lot different now – you can actually move around in here after a fashion. Tomorrow is going to be a day of taking things to the dump and if we aren’t careful we might even manage the shops.

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Wednesday 26th January 2011 – So what did we do today then?

Another not-so-early morning and breakfast, and then Terry did some plastering underneath the kitchen window where the old tiles had been. I had to go to the bank and so I took Liz and showed her where the shops are. We also met one of my neighbours and her daughter and stopped for a good chat. She is thinking about having some tiling done sometime soon and so she’ll be coming round to weigh up Terry’s attributes.

Liz has carried on with painting the WC and I’ve been tidying up the 3rd bedroom, emptying the cupboard under the stairs and taking the tiles off the wall in the bathroom. I’ve been able to take of quite a few in one piece and these I will be using in the Auvergne in what will be my washroom. Waste not, want not.

We hit a little snag though. In the kitchen some of the wiring to the bathroom needs to be buried underneath the tiling and it’s not connected up. And furthermore, it’s not so easy to see how it should be connected up. So that used up a few hours of work, trying to sort that lot out.

Tomorrow it’s shopping again. We need to find some tiles for the bathroom and for the balcony, and I have a couple more bills to pay.

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