Tag Archives: falafel

Wednesday 27th April 2016 – TODAY DIDN’T GO …

… according to plan.

And I suspected that from the very beginning with having gone back to the restless nights again. I didn’t have a very good sleep and I was in and out of the bathroom a couple of times too.

I vaguely remember going on a little ramble during the night too – I was in Crewe up at the junction between Nantwich Road and Gresty Road with my mother and my youngest sister – although it wasn’t her at all but Zero, she who has featured on these pages a couple of times. But what we were all doing there I have no idea at all.

The coffee this morning wasn’t as good as it usually is and so I confined myself to just one mug. And I forgot one of my pills today so I had to take it later. I hope that that’s not going to cause a problem.

And once breakfast was over, I collected my now-dry washing from the laundry room and then came back here to tidy up my room. I’ve thrown out tons of stuff and I’m now back to having stuff of more-manageable proportions.

At 13:15 I set off to the hospital for my interview with the girl at Social Services. But that didn’t go according to plan either. That’s because I found out that I’ve been summoned back to the hospital tomorrow for 14:00. They need to x-ray my chest before they fit the chemo port and as my surgery is timed for 08:30 on Friday, then it’s Thursday afternoon. I have to stay the night too, so this means that I’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning. There won’t be enough time to start searching for accommodation, so they are going to negotiate for me to come back here for two weeks.

Actually, that will fit in nicely with my plans. My friend Hans is coming to Brussels for a week at the beginning of May so I’ll be here to meet him. And it will also give me an opportunity to recover from the extremes of the treatment. And then for the remaining two weeks of the month I can go back to France and fetch a few things that I need. I’ll be struggling for clothes of course but there’s a washing machine here and I’m sure that I’ll manage.

So having walked all of the way to the hospital, I turned round and walked all the way back, stopping to buy some fruit on the way.

For tea tonight I had another one of those falafel bread things with a portion of chips. And that was rather chaotic. Just one person working in there tonight and there were about 12 people in the seating bit and 5 of us at the takeaway counter. The poor guy was running around like a headless chicken and ended up by burning the chips and having to start again. But at €5:50 for a huge tea like they serve up there, it was worth waiting for.

I also had the same pudding as last night – four slices of the ginger spicy cake thing topped with the soya cream stuff. And it was just as delicious as it was yesterday.

So tonight I’ll be having an early night. And then after breakfast I’ll have a shower and change my clothes. I need to look pretty for tomorrow at the hospital. After all, the girl at Social Services told me today how sweet and nice I was. I mustn’t disappoint her, even though she clearly doesn’t know me very well.

Friday 22nd April 2016 – AND SO DESPITE EVERYTHING …

… that I said on Wednesday about late nights, it was 01:00 in the morning this morning and I was still up and about. I could have stayed up longer too, but it was getting a little bit ridiculous to be up and about just for the sake of it, so I settled down in my bed and waited for sleep to come.

And come it did too, sooner or later. And I remember absolutely nothing about the night. I didn’t even have to leave my bed. I slept right through until the alarm went off and how I wish that I could sleep like that every day.

I’d run out of fruit juice, so I remembered this morning, and so I had to make do without any for breakfast. And talking of breakfast, we were just three in the dining room this morning (although some new people have arrived today too).

After breakfast, I had some bad news. A phone call in fact. “This is reception here. Just to remind you that your stay here ends on Monday morning. Thank you for being with us”.

That’s bad news as I was banking on something rather more long-term than this as you know. Anyway, I’ve managed to negotiate a stay until I go into hospital and then I really shall be on my own when I come out.

And my luck didn’t change much either when I was out. Just round the corner is an old building that looks as if it’s just been renovated. And there in the window was a sign “Rooms to let – €385 per month plus €65 charges”. That kind of place is well within my budget and so I made further enquiries and to my dismay, viewing is on 30th April – when I’m in hospital. That kind of place would have been ideal for me to stay.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had a quiet day today and not done much at all. But tonight I found a new eatery. I had a huge lump of bread filled with salad and falafel, together with a bag of chips and it all came to €7:50. There was enough there to keep me going for a week and it was delicious too. I’ve added it on to my list of places.

And now I really am going to go to bed. I need a good sleep because I need to have a good clean-up tomorrow morning. Alison is coming shopping in the town and so we’ve arranged to meet up for a coffee. I need to look my best, if I can, as well as to be on my best behaviour if I’m being seen in the company of others.

Monday 18th April 2016 – LAST NIGHT …

… was another one where I was wide awake quite early. 04:00 to be precise. And although I did manage to go back to sleep at some time during the night, I was awake again at 06:00. It seems that we have some new arrivals here, namely a family with young children.

I vaguely remember some kind of nocturnal ramble involving trying to load the rear of a hatchback car. And with all of the experience that I have had of loading up cars, vans and lorries, I was having an enormous amount of difficulty doing this. It was shoving the pieces of buttered toast into the back that was proving to be the most problematic, but then again, anything is possible when I’m on my travels at night.

After breakfast, I took it easy again for the rest of the morning until the cleaner threw me out. And then I went for a walk into town for my lunchtime shopping. The Delhaize was having something of a clear-out of time-expired products and what caught my eye was two huge 2-litre bottles of “Oasis” sugar-free blackberry and raspberry juice on sale at half-price. These found their way into my gander-bag along with some soya-yoghurts seeing as I’m running out of Alpro desserts which I eat at breakfast.

I enjoyed my lunch, and then watched Carry on Columbus which I found streamed on the internet. Not a classic “Carry On” film but it certainly has its moments.

Another day in which I didn’t crash out in the afternoon, and I felt ever so much better today, even down to having a healthy appetite for tea. On my travels yesterday I had found a kebab place that did falafel durums and chips for €5:00 and I really did fancy some chips today (just for a change). And my tea was gorgeous too. I could go back and eat it again, and it’s been a while since I felt like that, hasn’t it?

So tomorrow I’m seeing the Social Services officer about some accommodation for the future. I hope that they can do something for me, although I have visions about being lodged in a monastery or some such.

So I suppose that I had better go and have something like an early night. I might even watch a film tonight because there’s no doubt that I am feeling better today. This is a good sign of course, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer, as well we know.

I want to see how I feel by the weekend to be sure that I’m improving. And then I’m back on the chemotherapy on 29th April, and we’ll start all over again.

Tuesday 29th December 2015 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that last night’s voyage was something impressive, you ain’t seen nuffink yet! No wonder I’m exhausted. I can see me having another 20:45 bedtime at this rate.

Last night, after going to bed at such a ridiculously early night, I was straight out – like a light in fact. And then we were off on a nocturnal ramble that, even though I can’t remember all of it, has to be the farthest that I’ve gone for quite a while.

Last night I was talking on the internet to the wife of a friend of mine. She’d been for a walk around Nantwich and ended up going past my old Grammar School and so it goes without saying that I went out on my travels to inspect it. I spent a couple of happy hours patrolling the corridors and apart from the fact that there were many more pupils there than I remembered it, it looked completely the same as it did back then, despite all the changes that have taken place since I was there. I didn’t see anyone I that I recognised – until I saw Joanna walking down the corridor. I had quite a crush on her at one time at school and we did become friends for a short while (although nothing like as friendly as I would have liked) but anyway I digress. Back at the ranch, Joanna walked down the corridor past me and I noticed a double-take as she briefly paused, looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face, and then walked on again. I ended up outside in the school farm looking at the animals.

At this point in the evening I had to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit for the usual reasons that anyone of my age would understand, and then I was back at school again. Not my old school this time though, but a High School in the USA. A big old Gothic building too, very tall and compact. I was here, having sneaked in for a wander around and to use the showers, and that had worked out fine. Next day, I was there for much longer, having a much fuller exploration. I’d found the bathroom – full of individual bathtubs where you had to put a token or a coin into a machine to have the hot water to fill your tub, and also the refectory where I was intending to have a meal. However, while I was on the stairs, I received two messages on my phone – one from the Director of the High School asking me to report to her immediately, and the second from a friend of mine asking me to phone her and then to go to see the Director. I was wondering how come everyone had been able to obtain the number of my mobile phone. I know that it was written on the side of Caliburn, which was parked up in the school car park, but how had they been able to tie up Caliburn with me? Was it merely a speculative phone call? I’m sure that I hadn’t been recognised as an “outsider”.

I never had the chance to answer these questions because I was off again down the corridor (it makes a total nonsense of this idea of having nothing to drink in the evening and I was a long way yet from finishing). And back in the comfort and safety of my stinking pit I was off yet again, this time to Brussels (or, at least, I think that it was Brussels). Here I met a family with a girl of 7 or so (but she looked older than that) and her favourite pastime was boxing – in fact she boxed at a gym there in her spare time. I remembered that Dylan, who is the same age, also enjoyed boxing so I arranged a boxing match between the two kids. I didn’t actually see the match but I remember being there at the end of Round 1 with Dylan’s mother saying that the girl (whose name I can’t remember) would not be doing a lap of honour if she won, so Dylan replied that he would have to concentrate on his jab. And the net result was that Dylan won the match by one point, which I thought was rather unfair.

Down the corridor yet again, and then I was off somewhere else. This time it might have been back to the USA, but a completely different USA than earlier in the evening, more like the Wild West. And there were two big houses close together and the occupants of these houses were at war with each other rather like the situation in A Fistful of Dollars. The house where I was had been attacked twice by fire-raisers and we were definitely on the defensive, and when the third attack came, we found ourselves out of ammunition. The person in charge told us to hold the fort while he rode off to fetch the sheriff and a posse, but I wondered how that would work bearing in mind that we were probably just as guilty as the others, and how we could hold out in the meantime with just wooden stakes with embedded nails, and pointing empty guns and shouting “bang”. We did our best to dislodge the people who were surrounding our house but we were soon overwhelmed and with no sign of relief we came to realise that this story about “fetching the sheriff” was just a ruse for the leader of our party to make good his getaway. And so here we were, all prisoners, and it all started to become rather ugly. It was just as well that I awoke (for yet another trip down the corridor) at this point.

As I say, I wish that my real life was as exciting as all of this that goes on in the evening. I Don’t know what it is that Liz is putting in the cooking that is causing all of this – or maybe it’s something in the injections that I have to have.

Having survived the morning round of injections and having had breakfast, this was another day where I did precisely nothing. The morning was spent with Terry watching the cricket but then round about midday everyone cleared off to Montlucon and the swimming baths. I stayed behind and carried on with my 3D program and made myself some toasted cheese for lunch.

Everyone was back as it went dark. No shipwrecks and no-body drownding, in fact nothing to laugh at at all in the Centre Aqualudique although Dylan loved the big water slide. I was regaled with a blow-by-blow account of this afternoon’s activities.

We had time before tea to watch the video. Tonight’s film – or films, should I say – were the Wallace & Gromit – The Complete Collection, a particular favourite of Robyn’s.

And it goes without saying that Strawberry Moose enjoyed the film too, as did mummy and daddy.

And so that was that for today. Falafel and chips for tea followed by vegan Black Forest Gateau. There’s no more room for anything else. I’ll watch a bit of the football tonight and then I’ll be off to bed.

I wonder where I’ll end up during the night?

But here’s a thing. Do you remember a few weeks ago back at my house when one morning I discovered a trail of blood leading to the beichstuhl, and on inspecting my appendages, it seemed that I’d banged my little toe on my left foot really hard against the door frame and not noticed? This morning when I was dressing, I noticed that the nail on that toe has become detached, hanging on in there by a thread.

I must have banged it much harder than I thought – and somehow never felt a thing.

Tuesday 15th September – I WAS RIGHT …

… yesterday when I said that this first month of my stay in North America had been one of 30 disappointments. We’ve had another issue raise its ugly head today too.

There’s only one company in Canada that insures vehicles for people with non-Canada driving licences (and they make people suffer financially for that of course) but it seems that since April this year they have ceased that particular line of business. And so the motor insurance for Strider has been rejected, leaving me without insurance cover.

However, the company has said that cover can remain on a temporary basis while I apply of a driving licence in Canada and so that’s what I’ll do. Apply for a Canadian driving licence.

Of course.

How long it might take, and whether it might be granted is of course another thing completely, and then there will always be an appeal process if it’s refused. But by that time of course I’ll be back home in France and it won’t be an issue. And next year is, of course, next year.

And so tomorrow, I’ll get on the case.

But if you think logically about it, it’s all a nonsense. There is without any doubt at all at least one company that insures drivers with foreign driving licences. If there wasn’t a single one, then how would car hire work? I’ve hired dozens of cars in North America and each hire has been with my French driving licence. And I still can do so (because I’ve checked). You aren’t going to tell me that a car hire company is going to let its customers drive around in uninsured vehicles, are you?

And it’s true (or it was true – at least in the UK) that when I worked in the motor insurance business, a company or a person could insure himself against liability. But he had to deposit a bond of £50,000 (and that was in 1972 – I shudder to think what that figure would be today) per vehicle and that money is tied up. I can’t see a hire company going through all of that, having the money tied up, no tax relief, no interest payments and all of this.

No – there is a company somewhere that specialises in this business and I have to find it. I’ve always said that where there’s a will, there are relatives. It’s just one more problem to solve. Now, how do you go about setting up a car hire business in Canada?

But apart from that for the moment, I slept the sleep of the dead last night. I crashed out at 20:28 and that was that until I had to go and ride the porcelain horse. An early(-ish) start and I did a pile of work and then a copious breakfast. I really can’t believe all of this for just $59:40 (including tax).

But while I was eating my breakfast I was watching TV (something that I rarely do of course) and the disclaimers for the adverts (which are often longer than the ads themselves) are quite often funnier than any comedy programme you would care to name. This morning we had a “do not take {this product} if you are allergic to any of its ingredients”. And you can’t make that up, can you?

Back on the road Walmart came up trumps with the big tent pegs that I’m going to need if I use this tarpaulin oversheet idea for the tent, and it also produced a couple of gas canisters for my cooker (they are becoming harder and harder to find as everyone changes over to the bigger sort) and a set of stubby spanners, which cost just $4:49. Ideal for getting into tight corners. But Mardens couldn’t produce a 19mm ring spanner at any cost. Still, I have an open-ended one and a socket and I hope that that will do me if I need anything.

At the border, I was whacked for import duty on the truck cap. $90:00 or something like that, but I don’t suppose that this is excessive really. It’s worked out as 5% of the value (in Canadian dollars), including, would you believe, the sales tax that I had to pay in the USA. That’s a bit near the knuckle.

I had a race down the Trans-Canada Highway with a lorry – simply because I didn’t recognise his number plate and I wanted to see where he came from.

As it happens, he comes from Georgia (that’s Georgia USA, not the former Soviet republic) and so he was a long way away from home. It seems that the Maritime Provinces are becoming more and more popular.

Af Fredericton I picked up my parking pass for the next three days (foreign visitors can park free in the town centre for three days if they apply to the tourist office for a pass), picked up my media passes for the festival and went to have a chat with the people at Service New Brunswick who gave me a couple of useful tips.

At Value Village, it’s Pensioners Day and I profited to the maximum with a pile of books, a couple of CDs and also (at long last) the Canadian cable that I need for my laptop power pack (which saves having to hump around a pile of adapters. Walmart and Home Depot came up with nothing exciting and so I went for my traditional falafel platter in the Lebanese restaurant and then came back here – “here” being the Mactaquac Provincial Park campsite where I stay when I’m here.

But we did have a very interesting encounter this afternoon. You may remember yesterday that I was talking about big old British single-cylinder motorcycles. Anyway, wandering down the street in Fredericton I noticed a young guy sitting on, of all things, a Triumph T100. 1971 it was, and it looked it too. In original, unrestored condition looking every day as old as it was. We were chatting for hours about old British bikes and of course, AJS and Matchless motorcycles figured heavily. And it turns out that he has a friend who has a fetish about the big AJS and Matchless singles and who, at the last count, has 14 of them, plus numerous crates of bits and pieces. And so he’s taken my e-mail address and says that he’ll pass it over to this guy.

And so that was that. I buried myself in my sleeping bag ready for bed.

Now who is going to come along and spoil my day tomorrow?

Monday 17th August 2015 – LAST NIGHT …

… could have been a night just as good as the previous one, and that’s exactly how it was heading. And then it all came to a sudden halt at 01:30, for Bane of Britain here had forgotten to switch off his European alarms.

If I had had a quid for every time that I’ve done that while I’ve been in North America I would be dictating this to half a dozen secretaries draped all over my knee and thereabouts. You would think that I would have learnt by now, wouldn’t you?

To make matters worse, I was away with the fairies somewhere at the time, and by the time I’d composed myself afterwards, it had all gone.

I was still up before the alarm at 06:00 (I’m doing my best to keep to some kind of semblance of time) and after breakfast cracked on with a few things.

And here I am, on the bus heading towards the railway station. First stop is Namur and the Walmart, which comes up with a cap at $5:00, a big bottle of water, and 150 sheets of A4 paper at just $0:10 in the back to school bargain sale and you can’t say fairer than that. A useful thing to have around seeing as how I’ve forgotten my graph paper.

Back on the metro to Berri-UQAM and the long long walk to the coach station to buy my ticket for Florenceville tomorrow. $114 – arrgghh – and that’s with the senior citizens discount too. Heaven alone knows what it might have been at full price. But with 10.5 hours on the bus (changing at Riviere du Loup) it’s not really all that bad, I suppose. But 22:30 I leave, 09:00 on Wednesday I arrive – I am not looking forward to this, but since they ripped up all of the trains there isn’t much of an alternative.

So I had a really good chat to Rachel on the phone, giving her enough advance warning so that she can flee the country, and then a wander through all of the galleries – or, at least, as many as I could find. It’s cooler in there than outside.

That cheap technology shop near the railway station had nothing of interest although I did start to notice in one or two places that Government energy stickers are slowly starting to appear in the shops. A sign of the times, hey?

And look at this! This is not a new Ford Transit but a replacement for the Ford F-series panel vans. And if you are wondering why many of the very useful white-van-man features of the previous Ford Transit have mysteriously (and surprisingly) disappeared from the new version on sale in Europe, then look no further.

They don’t have white-van-man in North America. His equivalent over here drives a 4×4 pick-up and that’s where you will find the interesting bits and pieces. White vans here are just used for furniture removals and parcel deliveries and a little bit of urban maintenance and so are a completely different breed.

So if any North American has had a hand in designing the new Transit, that will explain why, as far as facilities go, the new Transit is essentially a backward step. I’m convinced that Transits of the model such as Caliburn
actually had a white-van-man on the design committee and it’s sad that Ford Europe doesn’t have the muscle to have pushed forward their observations to whoever was on this global design panel.

Abandoning another good rant for now I head off down the rue St Catherine where there’s a big new shopping mall type of place on the right as you go down the hill. All clean and bright, with a Subway sandwich place down in the basement. Ahh! Lunch!

And for the first time ever, since I’ve been visiting a Subway, when I asked the Serving Wench for my 12-inch with just crudites (yes, if it’s crudities you want, then I’m your man) she did not ask me if I wanted cheese with it. I made a comment about it, to which the aforementioned replied "well, I’ve been working here for quite a few years now so I’m used to it"

They had a fountain here too so I took a photo of it seeing as how pretty it looked, and as soon as I had started to leave, it erupted, so I came back for another photo.

Back outside and down the street they had the giant chessboards out again and so I watched 3 or 4 games in the company of a woman, and we were exchanging comments about the games. One game was ultra-defensive and everyone lost interest after a while, including the two players who abandoned the match.

Another one was however quite exciting. It was a younger girl against an older man and was played in what you might call something of an aggressive spirit, swinging like a pendulum from one way to the next as they traded piece for piece. She made a couple of moves that had mystified me, but then suddenly she caught his king in a trap against her pawns. By this time he just had his king and a knight and she a bishop (or fou as they are called in French, so I discovered) and a king, and they both had four pawns each.

What helped my concentration was that there was an ice-cream parlour right next door, and I can thoroughly recommend the coconut milk sorbet.

Further down the road in St Catherine Est I came across a bookshop selling second-hand books and CDs and so that’s me spent up yet again for another year.

The Chapel of Notre dame de Lourdes was erected to the glory of Mary so we are told (but just WHAT is the Glory of Mary?) thanks to the generposity of the local people.

However that generosity does not extend to giving out help to those who ask for it. There’s a big sign outside saying that it is forbidden to solicit alms either outside or inside the Chapel.

Just what kind of Christians are these?

My reverie was interrupted by the rather bizarre noise of something different coming down the street. Luckily I had my camera to hand to photograph it.

I couldn’t get close enough to this to see what it was, which was a shame, but it looked very much like a three-wheeled batmobile to me. It bore something of a close resemblance to The White Swan that we saw on the Saguenay Ferry in 2011.

I had my falafel for tea as well. I walked right up the bank to the rue Sherbrooke and then rue St Denis to where I had had my tea one night in 2014.

Just up the road from here is this magnificent building, the address of which is 3725 rue St Denis, and one day I’ll find out much more about it. It has to be something quite important or have an interesting history.

The metro from Sherbrooke brings me all the way round to the metro DuCollege, and then back on the bus. And I ended up being guide to a couple of French tourists from Picardy on the same bus who were trying to find their hotel.

I had a shower, for by this time I was steaming and then to bed for my last night for a while in Montreal.

Friday 14th August 2015 – ZURICH IN THE RAIN

Having crashed out at some silly times like 22:00 last night, and having slept the sleep of the dead, I was up and about, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, by 06:00, admiring the view from my hotel window. And a nice warm shower quickly brought me round into the Land of the Living.

By 06:30 I had finished watching the film that I started yesterday, then edited all of the photos, uploaded them onto the web and then brought my blog

up to date, all by 08:30.

I’ve had a good breakfast too – I’m not sure at all that there will be something for me to eat on the plane to Zurich and while I’m now in possession of a fruit loaf and some biscuits (as well as a bottle of water), thanks to the Carrefour Hypermarket in the gallery down the road, on these kinds of journeys the plan is to eat when I can.

I’ve uploaded a pile of radio programmes to the laptop too, to refresh the radio library, and with a few other things that needed to be done, I was out of the hotel and gone by 10:45.

At the station (the other side of the station) there was a tram already parked at the platform ready to go to the airport so even though there’s a €1:00 supplement (on what is already a steep fare) for tickets bought on board, I wasn’t going to hang about. A bird in the hand … and all of that.

Lyon airport is something of a maze, and to make matters worse, you have to look long and hard for a baggage trolley. I couldn’t find one, and at first I thought that they simply didn’t have one, but I later saw someone at the check-in with one so they must exist somewhere. But the terminal is big, clean, light, airy, and there are not too many people about. At the baggage check-in, I didn’t even have to queue. There was an assistant waiting for me.

Even the passage through “security” was relatively stress-free, although the woman at the scanner had a good moan about my camera. I think however that that is more to do with the fact that she was of the moaning type, rather than for any other good purpose.

As for our plane – well, what can I say? It was nominally a Dash 8-400, built by Bombardier in Canada, but you don’t need to be an aircraft expert to recognise this for what it is – a Vickers Vimy.

Orville and Wilbur Wright were at the controls, Ameilia Earhart was sitting at the back, and I had to move Glenn Miller’s sandwiches off my seat. That’s the kind of plane that it was.

I shan’t say much about the flight. The events speak for themselves. We had to wear our seatbelts throughout the entire flight and they refused to serve tea and coffee at any moment during the flight. All of the kids were screaming during the flight, and one or two of the adults were too. Not for the faint-hearted, this particular flight.

And as for the landing – well, we didn’t actually land. It was more like we were shot down over the airport. But even that didn’t deter the passengers, many of whom rose from their knees to give the pilot a round of applause – presumably to celebrate the end of the flight

And it was here that everything started to go wrong. I was waiting for over an hour for the hotel shuttle bus to arrive, which it never did. And no-one answered the hotel telephone. Eventually, another hotel bus driver told me that there wasn’t one for the Ibis Budget Hotel. He offered to take me for 20:00 CHF

However I’m not easily taken in by this kind of thing and I walked down to the bus station. Here, one friendly river with whom I had quite a chat with whatever German I could remember. He sent me over to the 510 bus an while the driver was a little on the grumpy side, he put me off at the right place and pointed out the way to the hotel from there – all of 50 metres.

At the hotel, there’s no electrics for guests. All of the sockets are these two-pin mini-continental sockets and you need to buy an adapter – cost 10CHF.

We had a few words about that, and at the end of our debate she finished with "is there anything else that I can do for you?"
Well, she was in her early 20s, long blond hair, a nice shape, but I remembered where I was."No thanks. You’ll probably want me to pay for it".

When the rain stopped (did I say that it was p155ing down?) I walked back to the airport for a recce. I ended up walking past the car park for a hire company. And here parked at the back was an old Land Rover snowplough that had clearly better days.

In fact, this is quite a rarity here in Switzerland. There are all kinds of old cars in the country but mostly quite expensive and fully-restored. I can’t say that I have ever seen a vehicle in this kind of condition lying about like this.

Yes, I really did walk back to the airport. It took me all of about 15 minutes. And I’m glad that I did because it gave me an opportunity to photograph it

I discovered that a 24-hour ticket would cost me 13:20CHF to cover all of the zones that I need to get into the city, and so I duly did. Had I done that earlier, instead of paying the bus driver for the single journey, I would have been quids-in. But you have to pay to learn.

I found an all-night supermarket, lots of water, and a main-line railway station where, inter alia a train goes every evening to Budapest. I made a note of that. But I’ll tell you something – I was astonished by the number of beggars (mostly young, fit types) loitering in the streets.

Another thing that I noticed was that allbut one of my night-time images of Zurich didn’t come out. I’d gone into the city with the intention of trying out the camera on the phone at night in an urban environment, and the result has not been succeesful. The daytime ones work fine as you can see, because everything to date has been taken with that.

And on the way in, I noticed at the Haldenbach tram stop an imbiss type of place so I leapt off the tram (such are the advantages of a 24-hour tram ticket) and yes, they did indeed sell falafel.

So I’m fed and watered and ready to bed. But I’m struggling to come to terms with Swiss prices.

Thursday 7th May 2015 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

… that you saw one of these? I can’t even remember when it was that I saw one in the UK, so I never expected to find one parked in a supermarket car park in Brussels.

I can’t remember when it was that they stopped making them but I don’t recall any later than the mid 70s so this one is at least 40 years old.

But make the most of it, because it’s not going to be here for long. To be frank, it’s an absolute nail, full of rust and rot and simply painted over, rust, rot and all, as a display advert. What a waste of a good old BMC Minivan

Here’s where I spent the night last night, at a motorway service area at Nivelles, on the outskirts of Brussels.

I didn’t think that I had had a particularly comfortable sleep, but I must have done, for I was off on my travels during the night. Playing in goal for Pionsat’s 3rd XI as it happens. And then I was off to see my friend Kris. She was living up on the moors right near the crest, and had a huge pile of wood that needed sorting out and would I help her?

Not too far away, on the edge of a village right on the crest, was a Muslim monastery (yes!) just like a huge castle but with an enormous tower in the centre. Round and comparatively modern (like Flemisn 15th Century architecture) it was 14 storeys high but the 14th storey had fallen off. each of the remaining storeys was let out as a separate apartment.

Each time Krys and I went somewhere we saw the tower from a different viewpoint and each time I asked her what it was, and each time she told me.

I’ve sorted out the gas issue by buying what I needed from a sports outfitters here. I reckoned that it would be cheaper then paying to eat out every night, but having had to buy it in Belgium, I’m not so sure. The price was totally shocking.

I’ve solved the beichstuhl issue too. Seeing as how IKEA was right next door to the sports outfitters, I paid them a visit. I’ve bought a galvanised metal pail, and also the curtains seeing as they had the exact colour that I need. And as you might expect, it was the most expensive that they had. I always seem to have the most expensive tastes and I just wish that I had the money to back it up.

Talking of expensive tastes, I’ve found exactly the worktops that I want for the bathrrom and the kitchen.

A mere €295 per square metre, but it really is beautiful and I would love to have this about the house. The biggest problem is that the worktop in the bathroom needs to be 45cms and in the kitchen 50cms, and the smallest sinks in IKEA (they have to be factory-fitted) are 45cms for the bathroom and 50cms for the kitchen.

That’s clearly not going to work so I need to have a really good think about this.

For lunch I stopped off at the Etangs Mellaerts to eat my honey and nut bread, and to watch an old woman feeding the ducks and swans.

As you can see, she had quite a crowd around her – clearly the most popular form of waterfront entertainment.

And at least, I could watch it from the van. For tea tonight I went to my favourite restaurant in Ixelles for a falafel supper, and ended up having to park a hundred miles away . Parking in Brussels these days is something of a joke, that’s for sure.

I’ve also been to sort out the bank as well. I needed to activate my bank cards for my forthcoming trip to Canada. And I took advantage while I was there of sorting out a few financial arrangements. I visited the Post Bank too – I had completely forgotten about an account there and that has been frozen. I need to contact them to reactivate it.

But here’s a thing – it’s the first time that I’ve ever been to the Post Office at Schuman and been served straight away without ever having to queue. That’s a record.

So tonight I’m on the motorway service area not too far from Leuven. I hope that the showers are working because they weren’t this morning at Nivelles.

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Wednesday 11th February 2015 – THIS MUST BE SOMETHING OF A RECORD

Today, I had a massive 169 amp-hours of excess solar energy and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load went off the scale (ie more than 70°C). There has never been that much surplus solar energy in the month of February – in fact we would not find too many days in July and August where we would have more than that.

That gives you some idea of what today wad like. The temperature outside reached 15.1°C and this was the first day for I don’t know how long when the temperature in my attic rose during the day rather than fell.

The increase in temperature prompted me into action and first job that I tackled was to paint the landing. But that wasn’t how it panned out, as I dropped my pliers into the 8 litres of white paint. They will be nice and pretty when I finally get down to the bottom of the tub and can fish them out. But that’s not going to be for a while yet.

So here we are. You can’t really see things very well in the landing, but here’s the first coat of yellow paint on the wall. This is basically 8 litres of white emulsion and a tube of yellow paint pigment.

It’s not brilliant, but it will look much better tomorrow after I have done the second coat. And I don’t really like the colour – it’s come out much darker than I was expecting and much darker than what I wanted.

But never mind. it’s on and it’s staying on.

After lunch, I started on the second piece of OSB for the end wall of the wardrobe. That eventually went into place with a little bit of manoeuvring and fine adjustment, and it won’t be coming out again.

It’s a different colour than the rest, due to the fact that I didn’t have enough OSB in the house and had to go outside and scrounge a piece that I had been using as part of the false floor in Caliburn. But as it’s being coated in crepi, it won’t make much of a difference.

This afternoon, after a few other bits and pieces that I had to do, I made use of the surplus solar energy and started to sand down the plasterboard. That took ages and I’ve only done about half of it, but the sandpaper on the sander split itself, at exactly 18:05, and I took that as being the signal to knock off for the day.

And those falafel balls and oven chips for tea were delicious again.

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Tuesday 10th February 2015 – IN WHICH OUR HERO MAKES GREAT STRIDES

The first lot of great strides took me up to Virlet and the mairie to be censored, seeing as how it’s census time again and I missed both visits of the census team. And it’s clear that the people at the mairie read this rubbish because the first question that I was asked was ” did I manage okay seeing as how I was snowed in for 10 days at home?” and the second topic of discussion was about the postie and an explanation as to why she couldn’t make it here. All totally unprompted.

Not only that, I was taken to see the new snow-clearing apparatus and I was asked for my advice about some technical aspects. Well, well, well. Whatever next?

Second lot of great strides were down to the bottom of the garden and the composting bin, where I empted out the beichstuhl and refilled it. Such delightful jobs that I have to do around here. Still, it’s all grist to the mill, and compost for the garden too.

Once those delights were sorted out, I attacked the bedroom and gave it a thorough cleaning – or, at least, the best cleaning that I can do seeing as how there are still four sheets of plasterboard in the middle of the floor. And as usual, running my big magnetic dish through the pile of sawdust and plaster dust and ordinary dust, I salvage about a hundredweight of screws and nails that have been dropped over the passage of time.

With that out of the way, I can press on and fill all of the joins in the plasterboard. And how I wish that I have the time and the money (and the inclination) to rip off the wall everything that I did a few years ago in here and start again.

All of that work so far took until lunchtime and it really is quite impressive, even though I say it myself (apart from the rubbish plasterbaording of course). I could be quite happy living here.

Although it was still very cold today, we had another really bright alpine day. Not good enough for varnishing or painting, but good enough to sort out the circular saw and cut the first of the two end-pieces for the remaining unfinished wall of the wardrobe. To cut it, shape it and fit it, it took all afternoon firstly because it needed to be an exact fit – 1mm out and it’s no good at all, and secondly because trying to fit it on my own was almost impossible.

It had to be the upper piece that needed doing. That needs to be fitted first and difficult as it might be with nothing underneath it holding it in position, fitting it in second is impossible. In the end I had a crowbar wedged underneath it at the bottom and an endstop nailed to the beam above, and I was gently levering it into position between the uprights with a big wood chisel.

I had it in position and screwed in nicely after about an hour and a half, only to find out that it had slipped down the crowbar and was about 15mm out at the top. Taking it out was a barrel of laughs too, as was putting it back in again in the correct position but finally, at about 18:30 it was in exactly where it ought to be, and all screwed in position.

A wash in the beautiful warm water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater (we had 104 amp-hours of surplus electrical energy today and we would have had more had I not used the circular saw) and up here for a nice warm fire and oven chips with peas, carrots and falafel balls.

What I’ll do tomorrow depends on the weather and the sun. We are promised a warm day and if that is indeed so, I’ll be painting the landing. Otherwise, I’ll be sanding down the filler.

But starting work on the wardrobe already. Isn’t this progress?

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Tuesday 4th March 2014 – THIS MORNING TOOK ME BY SURPRISE

As you can see by looking at poor Caliburn, we’ve had a right pasting of snow this morning. It was certainly impressive!

But then again I had an interesting night. A couple of Security guards were accompanying some notable person and how they communicated with each other was by coded flashes of a torch. They thought that it was quite novel but I took the trouble to explain to them that we had been doing that for years – even down to having different lenses (clear, green, red) and even Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes adventures had been doing it. (The Speckled Band as it happens).

So that was enough excitement for the morning. I headed off into the town of La Massana at the bottom of the hill.

There’s a huge ski slope up in the mountains and the lifts start from right in the town. A gondola or two went a-clattering over my head and so I resolved for a closer inspection.

Seems that these days Yours Truly is entitled to a Senior Citizens’ discount but even so, €7:50 was still a lot of money to spend. But anyway, as Martin Luther once said – “hier stehe ich – ich kann nicht anders”.
I was tempted to hire some skis and other kit for a little go but I’m glad that I didn’t because of course it’s Carnaval and school holidays. The slopes were absolutely teeming with kids.

It was freezing cold too and the wind was perishing so after a cup of coffee and a wander around, I came back down again and continued my walk around the town.

But you can see where much of the money in Andorra is coming from these days. Some of the Estate Agents have their adverts written in Russian for their nouveau-riche visitors. And as for the prices, well you and I can forget it. Think of a number, double it, and then add some more on top;

It wasn’t just the house prices in Russian either. We had menus in Russian, notices in Russian, signs in Russian, all that kind of thing. In 25 years the Russians have gone from being oppressed Communists to the worst kind of Capitalists. That’s what a western lifestyle does for you.

The country is, however, very welcoming and even terrorists are made to feel at home and given every assistance possible.

Almost every commercial building has a little place where a terrorist can leave his bomb … “are you sure about this?” – ed … no sending it by post or sticking it in a waste paper bin here.

Good old Andorra!

So after a really good wander around and some falafel with hummus, I went back to my hotel.

That’s it up there – the Hotel Gaspa. And such a nice, warm, friendly place it is too that I’ve decided to stay on here for an extra day. I don’t want to be going far by road in this weather, and at least I’m comfortable here.

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Wednesday 30th May 2012 – MY LAST DAY …

… in Canada for the moment. I won’t be back for a while.

And after a good night’s sleep in my expensive motel, I’m ready for anything

On the motorway back into Montreal, I notice a huge Home Depot at exit 94. I’ll make a note of that because the ones in the city itself are a little “restricted”. But for now, the huge Walmart, Canadian Tire and Home Depot across the river from Quebec are currently in the lead.

At my little storage unit at Jarry I unload the Dodge and stack everything away for the next time. I’m leaving my heavy winter coat here because I’m hoping to be back in the autumn.

The guy in charge of the unit tells me of a car wash place in the rue Jean Talon and sure enough, it comes up trumps. There are three Eastern Europeans there and they washed, vacuumed and valeted the Dodge to within an inch of its life for just $23. It now looks like something that has just come out of the showroom. I don’t think that I have ever rented a car that has looked as nice as this even when it’s been new. This car is spotless now.

And down the road I found a falafel restaurant that served up a plate of chips and a falafel wrap with a can of pop for all of $7:00.

I need to fuel myself up as well, never mind the car, for the return journey because I quite often have dietary issues on the plane as you know.

Here’s my plane for the journey back home.

We’ve had the usual stress issues at the airport again, but on a more positive note, this time we had free internet and a pile of electric plugs to help pass the time and that’s a change from the stinking reception that I have had in Dorval in the past.

And it gets better than that too. On the aeroplane one of the films was Some Like It Hot and then we had a whole pile of albums by Hendrix, Springsteen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young.

I’ll fly by Air France again, even if I don’t ever get to sleep.

Monday 25th July 2011 – AND THAT WAS THAT!

Yes, Expo has gone. All signed, sealed and delivered.

At 14:30 I walked into the lawyer’s office and at 15:00 I walked out again minus one apartment.

Well, almost – the new owners asked me to accompany them back to the premises to show them where everything was and how it all worked and so I duly obliged.

But already the money is melting a hole in my pocket. This morning I went to my travel agent and she booked me a flight to Canada on 31st August, with a return on 25th September. Not only that, she does a good deal on airport hotels – much cheaper than I can get them, and so I have a hotel reserved at each end of my journey – Paris the night before I go and Paris the night I get back. That is just as well.

I’ve also reserved a car for when I’m over there – well, not quite a car. What with accommodation issues and you can’t really expect anyone to do this kind of thing for you as they are never sure what it is that you actually want, so what I’ve done is to hire a minivan – a 7-seater MPV thing. Most of the seats fold flat in those and with half an hour’s work I can make a neat little caravanette.

I know it’s not a motel or a B&B but it worked out at just about $27 per night extra over the basic car hire, and you can’t get a motel for anything like that. While I’m there I’ll try to sort out a caravan or something. That’s the usual trick.

I’ve also spent quite a packet in IKEA. They were having a sale and there was quite a bit of cheap stuff that would go nicely to improve the comforts of my little room. Cheap stiff indeed but by the time you add it all up, it’s not so cheap then. But all the same, it will improve things quite a bit up there.

And I’ve had my chips too!. Along with a large plate of falafel and now I’m in the back of Caliburn on the lorry park with the unsecured internet connection. Tomorrow I’ll be helping Marianne and then I’ll be heading for home tomorrow night.

But on my way back to the lorry park where I spent the night, I found myself going round the Schuman roundabout at the top pf the rue de la Loi.

You’ll recall that we were there the other day too and I remember saying how struck I was by how beautiful it was all looking with its new streetlights and all f the traffic passing by. So much so that I couldn’t resist parking Caliburn up and spending another half an hour there taking different photos.

And it’s a good job that I did because while I was gazing up the hill past the roundabout at the Parc de la Cinquantenaire and how nicely illuminated that was in the distance, I intercepted a Danish car that was heading the wrong way down the street.

Looking for a hotel, they were apparently, but they weren’t looking at the one-way signs in the street. Anyway so after a brief discussion I packed them off to the Marriott and I leapt into Caliburn and went on my weary way to the lorry park for the night.

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Saturday 16th July 2011 – HAVING SPENT THE NIGHT …

… parked up on the Motorway Service Area at Drogenbos, a good (for once) sleep led to a major shopping expedition and I have finally found a new whistling kettle – I’ve been hunting one for ages.

And then after lunch it was round to the apartment.

You might recall that back in the winter we tried everything that we could to undo the lock on the cellar to empty it. And nothing we tried would make it work. This time, I took a couple of enormous extensions and a drill and angle grinder. And of course, trying to unlock the door just one more time “for old time’s sake”, it came undone with no issues whatever!

Just like Sam Gamgee’s rope in Lord of the Rings in fact.

And so that was emptied and the racking dismantled in no time flat and all loaded up into Caliburn. I don’t know how people can function without vans, I really don’t.

And so with plenty of time to spare, another shopping trip, this time to IKEA where I discovered a few exciting items in the sale.

Having called at the Simonis Fritkot for my assiette falafel, I headed off to my motorway service area for a kip. But in fact I spent quite a while fixing a car for a British guy returning from holiday with his family and whose electrical charging circuit had broken down.

No peace for the wicked, is there?

Wednesday 21st April 2010 – Friends Reunited

Strawberry Moose got to see his Auntie Tracy this evening. In fact it’s been quite some time since the two of them met – probably two years or so.

As predicted, cleaning this apartment is pretty hard work particularly when your heart isn’t in it. But at least I’ve cleared away the forest of dead plants inside the apartment, made a start on the ones on the terrace, and I began some desultory cleaning.

But then of course the rest is history.

It didn’t take me long to get discouraged so I rang up Tracy in Antwerpen to see if she fancied coming down for a coffee, but she wasn’t feeling too well and so, any excuse to stop cleaning and tidying, I went up there.

We had a good chat, mostly about what’s been happening to us since we both graduated from the Open University, and then went out for a meal. And if there’s one type of cooking that will run a good Indian close then it has to be Middle Eastern cooking and as luck would have it there is an Egyptian restaurant not too far from where she lives whose falafel and hummus is second to none. And of course there has to be a big plate of fritjes to go with it. After all, this is Belgium and they invented the French Fry. There is of course all of the old jokes about this –
“Why are there no Belgian astronauts?”
“Because there are no fritkots on the moon”
“What do you call a German living in Belgium?”
“Fritz”
“Why are there potatoes in Belgium and oil in the Middle East?”
“Because the Belgians had first choice”
Yes, we know them all.

But I like Antwerpen – it’s got much more going for it than Brussels. And had my work not have been so “irregular” I would have gladly bought a place here. In fact there is a suburb of Antwerpen specially named for me – it’s called Weerde. I would have been very happy there, almost as happy as living in that Belgian town between Enghein and Ath.

It’s called Silly.

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EPIC HALL

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