Tag Archives: cleaner

Friday 12th August 2016 – I MUST BE THE KISS OF DEATH.

This evening, I went out just for a change. To the Den Dreef Stadion here in Leuven as OH Leuven were at home to Union St Gilloise in the Belgian Second division tonight. I managed to find the home fans’ entrance too and had a grandstand seat right behind the goal.

OH Leuven played really well up and down the park and totally monopolised the first half. It was really good, exciting football for what it was, but it all fell apart in front of the goal. As for St Gilles, they weren’t able to leave their own half for the first 35 minutes, and then, as you might expect, in their first attack they roared up the field and scored the most unlikely of goals.

The second half started as the first half finished – with OH Leuven laying siege to the Union St Gilloise goal, and so after 5 minutes, St Gilles roared off up the other end and scored a second goal. That was their second attack.

After that, the heads of the OH Leuven players went down and even bringing on three substitutes couldn’t stimulate the team. The St Gilles players grew in stature – the two centre-halves were very impressive – and a third goal, which had been on the cards for 20 minutes, came with just 5 minutes to go.

From such a bright and energetic start, OH Leuven were a rather sorry group of players by the final whistle.

The walk out there, armed with a bag of chips from the fritkot, was very pleasant, and the walk back, in the cool evening air, was very relaxing. And I managed it all there and back at a brisk pace without any problems. I must be feeling better.

I had another bad night too. Although I was in bed reasonably early watching a film (and dozing off in the middle of it) I was wide awake again at 01:15. And I don’t remember going back to sleep after that, and it was so light by 06:15 that I went off and had breakfast.

The cleaner came round to do the room later on and that disturbed me. I went and had another coffee before going off to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette. My lunchtime butty was beautiful, and then I crashed out good and proper for about an hour and a half.

This evening I went off to watch the footy and collected a couple of phone numbers on the way. I’ll have to give them a ring this weekend to see if I can sort something out.

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Wednesday 20th April 2016 – I SAW THE END …

… of my film last night when I went to bed. The very first of the three Inspector Hornleigh films and although the character wasn’t as developed as in the later films, it’s still quite an enjoyable film.

I managed to stay awake too until the end, which is something of a surprise these days. I’m not as young as I used to be and it looks as if my days of being wide awake at 03:00 are long since gone.

I had a good night too. Apart from on trip down the corridor at about 04:00, I remember nothing at all until I awoke at 07:30. Not even if I had been anywhere during the night.

But we have a new cleaner today, and he’s already got on my wrong side. At about 08:10 he knocked on my room door to clean the room. I Staggered off for an early breakfast but when I came back, I discovered that he hadn’t been in. He finally turned up at 10:00, almost two hours after he had disturbed me.

That’s not all either. I went to make my butties at 13:00 and there he was – cleaning the kitchen. Who on this planet decides to clean a kitchen at lunchtime when everyone would be wanting to prepare their meals?

But when I was turfed out of my room, I went off and paid for the last week of my stay here. My situation will shortly start to become precarious as my 15 days will be up, but at least if I pay up promptly even before they send me a bill, then I have a good chance of being overlooked as long as there is room here for anyone else who wants to stay.

After that, I went out to shop for lunch and stocked up up hummus and salad, and there was also 1.5 litres of iced tea on offer at €0:69 so I added that to the supply.

This afternoon, I made a start on a project that I had abandoned for a couple of years. When I brought my blog in-house, the photos from the older incarnation needed updating and the meta tags needed to be added because they had somehow gone astray. I’d done some of it but then I was interrupted by other things. Anyway, this afternoon, I restarted the project and I’ll see how I get on. But one thing that it shows is that some of my motivation seems to have come back.

For tea, I went out for my pasta and tomato sauce and on the way, I found another Asian supermarket. That has an exciting stock too and I can see myself stocking up with supplies here too before I go back to France, if I ever do.

But tea was nice – I’ve been lucky with what I’ve found in the way of food up to now. And now I’ll be off for another early night. And who knows – I might even watch another film if I’m feeling up to it.

But tomorrow I’m back at the hospital. I’m not looking forward to that at all.

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Thursday 31st October 2013 – THE CLEANER …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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