Tag Archives: crash out

Tuesday 7th February 2017 – THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL …

… tea, that was!

The second helping of my lentil and potato curry was delicious. Rice and carrots in a pan, with the portion of curry reheated in the microwave. Then the rice and carrots were rinsed thoroughly in boiling water, and the whole lot was then steamed for 90 seconds in the microwave.

It was cooked to perfection too. I’ve never ever tasted rice so well-cooked and I shall be doing that again.

Last night was a bad night. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and then we had a bunch or early risers at 06:00 who made enough noise to awaken the dead. And just as I was dropping off, we had another bunch of early risers at 06:30. And then, just as I was dropping off again, the alarm went off.

Breakfast was crowded this morning – four other people in there with me and it’s been a while since I’ve had a breakfast quite like that.

This morning I took it easy. I was meaning to have a shower but somehow I forgot. And by the time that I remembered, the bathroom was cold. The heating switches off here at 09:30 and doesn’t come back on until 17:00/

Later on, I went out for my baguette and came back with a carton of soya milk an another black plastic storage box. There must be 20 in here now and I shall have to consider taking a pile of them down to Caliburn romorrow when I go out to the shops.

Now remember on Sunday that I told you about the crane that has mysteriously appeared on the corner of the Kruisstraat and the Brusselsestraat?

Seeing as how I was going out for the baguette, I went for a short stroll along the Brusselsestraat to see if I could see the reason for the machine – I’m moving a little easier too today. And sure enough, I was lucky enough to catch it in action.

There’s a scaffolding up at the side of the house that they are renovating opposite my hostel. That’s been there for a week or so, but it’s now swathed in netting.

Down below in a parking space outside the building are a couple of skips. There are some men up there on the scaffolding working on the parapet underneath the roof, loading the debris into the bucket on the crane, which is then descending the debris down to the skip.

I imagine that in a few days time, they’ll be bringing bricks and cement up in the bucket and reconstructing the side wall of the house and the parapet.

This afternoon, I had a chat to Liz on the internet, had a crash out and then started to read Carl Christian Rafn’s papers from 1838 – his presentation of the Antiquitates Americanae.

I’ve not gone too far into them at present, but although Rafn’s calculations are somewhat exaggerated, if not thoroughly optimistic, his arguments up to as far as I have read do make some kind of sense and he can justify to some degree (in fact to a great degree for 1838) his propositions. he certainly didn’t deserve the abuse and vitriol that Reeves heaped upon him 50 or 60 years later, some 20 years before Munn, in his book “Wineland voyages Location of Helluland Markland and Vinland” proposed L’Anse aux Meadows as the site for Vinland.

Tea was nice, as I have said, and now it’s an early night again.

And the temperature is dropping. Minus 4°C is promised for the next few days.

Monday 6th February 2017 – I CERTAINLY PAID …

… for my day out yesterday.

Once I finally managed to drop off to sleep, I was out like a light – dead to the world in fact. I felt nothing at all until the alarm went off, and I didn’t feel very much after that either.

After breakfast, I came back down here and went back to sleep, where I stayed until 09:30. Flat out.

Once I’d come round and had a coffee to rouse myself from my stupor, I made a start on my blog entry from yesterday. I’d crashed out pretty quickly after I’d returned home last night, without doing very much at all except to edit some of the photos.

I managed to go round for the baguette from the supermarket and as they had carrots on special offer I bought a punnet for cooking – remember that I have some meat pies to eat. On the way back, I recovered two more black plastic boxes.

But it was a struggle to go there, just as it is to climb the stairs. Apart from the muscle that I pulled last night as I arrived home, I have a pain in my left foot, pains in my knees and in my groin as well as in a few other places too.

Cracking on with my magnum opus, it finished up with 18 photos and a magnificent 3331 words, which is a record for a day’s entry under any circumstances and deserves a medal all on its own. I was exhausted.

Liz came on line too and we had a little chat too.

Tea was exciting – I boiled a few potatoes and carrots, and while they were doing I fried some onions and garlic in turmeric and cumin. Once the onions were cooked I added the par-boiled potatoes and carrots, and a tin of lentils and a tin of vegetables, some pepper and a stock cube.

There was enough for four meals, which is fine seeing as I have found the long-missing seal for one of the glass storage jars. One helping with rice and a banana drink went down a treat. It was delicious.

Now I’m going to have an early night and catch up with my recovery. I knew that I would have to pay for my day out yesterday, so I’m not all that bothered.

I hope that I’ll be feeling better tomorrow.

Saturday 4th February 2017 – YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… how it is that I’m blogging so early tonight.

The answer is that I’m not that hungry and I don’t feel like eating anything. In fact, I left half my breakfast this morning, and also some of my lunch. I’m clearly not all that well again, and I can’t understand why, because I feel all right in myself.

I had a good sleep too, just for a change. So much so that I hadn’t switched off the laptop properly, and it took ages to reboot afterwards. And I haven’t been out shopping either because I don’t really need anything this weekend – not even a baguette.

For lunch, I had an invitation out. Or, rather, I invited someone out for lunch. Hans is on his travels back to Germany and was passing through this morning. He had a couple of hours to spare and so I invited him for a coffee. Then we went down to the Asian fast-food place for a quick curry.

Back here this afternoon, I had a crash out for half an hour, something that seems to be becoming a habit these days.

And that’s my lot.

But tomorrow, I’m off out for the day is the weather holds out. OH Leuven are playing away at Roeselare and they are a team that I’ve yet to see – and I haven’t been to Roeselare for 20 years at least. It’s a long way to the football ground from the town centre so I’ll be starting early and having a wander around the town instead.

That is – if the weather holds out.

So now I’m going to have a quiet evening and then an early night.

Wednesday 1st February 2017 – UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN …

… which has happened once, believe it or not, I might have been tentatively offered a job just now.

How bizarre is that?

The landlord came into the building to stock up the supplies for the building (and I’ve had my bedding changed at last!) and we got to talking, like you do … "well, like one of us does" – ed. I told him about the hospital and my plans (such as they are) to leave after my next hospital visit at the end of the month. He started to talk about how long I’ve been there, and how well I know the place, and all of this. I mentioned that I would be looking for a new place to live when I go back to France, and he finished his chat by saying “perhaps I should hire you on”.

Well, it’s been a long time since someone has offered me a job. My immediate response was “why not?”. After all, I need to keep my options open and this might be some kind of solution – you never know.

A bad night last night – it took ages to go off properly to sleep and then we had the 06:00 wake-up. I was alone at breakfast and then I came back down here for a little work on the laptop – and a doze too of course.

I went up to the Delhaize to buy lunch stuff, and of course I forgot everything that was important. I’m going to have to start to make a list, I reckon.

But I did have some more luck in my researches. I’ve tracked down a book entitled Voyages of the Northmen to America. This book, edited by the Reverend Edmund Slafter, dates from 1877 and is very pro-Norse, in contrast to the book Wineland the Good by Reeves, that we discussed last night.

In addition, “Voyages of the Northmen” contains a synopsis of Carl Rafn’s proposition, so derisively dismissed by Reeves.

I’ve not read much of it yet, but it seems from a map on the opening pages that Slafter favours Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts USA as being the site of Vinland. However, Slafter’s proposition seems at first glance from the map (although we’ll see when I read it) to overlook the fact that all of the Outer Banks off the coast have changed dramatically even in our lifetimes, due to storms and currents and the like. It’s very probable that back 1000 years ago Cape Cod Bay was nothing like it is today.

Slafter also acknowledged his sources, and tells us the name of the book written by Rafn. But it’s apparently written in Latin and it’s 45 years since I last seriously spoke any Latin. I shall have to go to Latin America for a crash course.

Puer amat mensam, hey?

Tuesday 31st January 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the quiet day today.

I went out for the baguette at lunchtime, and I had a crash out for an hour or so this afternoon, and that was my lot.

Mind you, I struck it lucky at the supermarket. There were two black plastic crates in the rubbish bins and so I liberated them on the way back. Together with the one that I liberated yesterday about which I forgot to tell you, that’s three this week and I think that I’m going to have to start to move them all down to Caliburn. I’m not going to be short of crates for packing, am I?

Last night was a bad night. There was a lot of noise in the building again – people coming in late and talking, that kind of thing. Of course, I do realise that the problem lies not with my housemates but with my light sleeping. But it’s still unpleasant.

It didn’t stop me being on my travels though. I was in a pub somewhere and talking was the woman who appeared frequently on “Just a Minute”. Not Andrée Melly or Aimi MacDonald but the other one whatever her name was … "Geraldine Jones, you mean" – ed. One of the subjects on the programme was “Rudd” but she talked on the programme saying that it was actually a suburb of Market Drayton and should be pronounced “Reeth” because until 1640-something, that area was part of Wales and it’s a Welsh word. Consequently it should be pronounced in the Welsh way.

Apart from that, I’ve not done very much. There’s been a big group chat on a page on my social network, discussing a pub – the Headless Woman at Duddon – that we used to visit in the mid-70s (long-gone of course) which held memories for me and in respect of which I had many humorous anecdotes to recount.

As well as that, I found another exciting book on the internet. Dating from the 1890s it’s the very famous “The Finding of Wineland the Good – The History of the Icelandic Discovery of North America” by Arthur Middleton Reeves.

It’s basically a translation of several Norse sagas with commentary by the author, and while I haven’t read much of it yet, he sets out his stall very clearly in the opening few paragraphs.

Remember that it’s 20 years before Munn, and 70 years before L’Anse aux Meadows, and he refers to an author of 1837 by the name of Carl Christian Rafn, who was probably the first academic to take the Norse sagas seriously.

Reeves’ comment on Rafn’s work was that “If less effort had been applied to the dissemination and defence of fantastic speculations, and more to the determination of the exact nature of the facts which have been preserved in the Icelandic records, the discovery should not have failed to be accepted …”.

He continues by saying that “it is difficult to account for the disposition American historians have shown to treat the Icelandic discovery as possible …”

You can see why I’m so eager to discover these old works and to see what modern investigation has uncovered in their respect.

I’m quite looking forward to reading this book. But where can I find the book written by Rafn?

And while we’re on the subject, Happy Up Helly Aa to those of you who are celebrating it.

Friday 27th January 2017 – THAT WAS A …

… game of two halves and no mistake.

38 minutes gone and OH Leuven 0-3 down. And lucky to get nil too, I can say. It was embarrassing.

Mind you, the first goal was an absolute stunner and well-worth the price of the admission on its own. A quick ball into the penalty area (and how I’ve been going on and on about getting these balls in quicker) behind the front two attackers, but a superb overhead kick from the centre-forward put it into the top corner. It’s just not possible to defend against a goal like that.

The second goal was a breakaway up the field from an OH Leuven attack. Three Lierse SK attackers against two OH Leuven defenders, and the keeper dived at the feet of the overlapping attacker to block a shot not once but twice, but nothing that he could do about the third shot.

The third goal was silly. Everyone, including the goalkeeper, standing around watching the ball 15 yards out. The hoots of derision from the OH Leuven fan behind the goal as that went into the net could have been heard back in Lier.

We had a couple of substitutions at half-time, and quite rightly so if you ask me. On came a left-winger called Loemba and the enigmatic centre-forward Casagolda. But the second-half started as it ended – with all of the action up towards the OH Leuven goal, where we had a new keeper.

But as the match wore on, it became obvious that the wind was slowly starting to change. Loemba was having a superb game and Casagolda was playing like he sometimes does. And this seemed to breathe some life into the big Macedonian striker Kostovski and it looked as if we might have a game on our hands.

And sure enough, after about 60 minutes, we had a goal. And it was OH Leuven. Good play down the wing, an early ball right across the face of the goal and there running in at the far post was Loemba. A few minutes later, Van Hamel in the Lierse SK goal had to palm a fierce shot around the post.

With OH Leuven pressing, it was Lierse SK’s turn to break up the field and they did manage to put the ball into the net for a fourth. But after much debate, discussion and deliberation, and a lengthy consultation with the linesman, the goal was disallowed for offside.

Back up at the Lierse SK end, we had a goal from OH Leuven. Kostovski battled and barged his way into the goal area to sidefoot in, but that was ruled out for offside too – much to the uproar in the crowd. In fact there were several bizarre decisions in this match, none of which seemed to go OH Leuven’s way.

But deep into injury time, with OH Leuven pressing and pressing, we had an incident in the Lierse Sk penalty area where a defender fell on the ball. Did he fall? Was he pushed? Did his arm touch the ball? Was it intentional?

The referee decided on a penalty and Casagolda scored. And there was hardly time to restart the match before the final whistle blew. It’s a shame that OH Leuven hadn’t played for the whole match like they had played the final 30 minutes of this game.

But it’s a shame that I’d had such a bad night. Ages and ages to drop off to sleep again, and then I was off on my travels. Working in an office and I’d reached retirement age, but instead of leaving work, they gave me a new job, cutting the hedges, checking the trailers, all of that kind of thing. But I’d done nothing and it had all caught me up all at once with the hedge sprouting and budding and all of that, and I was starting to look rather silly.

I had my two German ladies with me for breakfast, and later on they said goodbye to me. Are they leaving? I dunno.

The morning was spent having a doze and doing some more research, reading my Finnish expedition notes and chatting on the internet. I had lunch and then carried on with my snooze and my reading.

At About 19:30 I headed off down to the footy, calling at the fritkot on the way. It’s Friday, not Saturday of course, and so the fritkot on the square down at the back here is open this evening.

However, it was a big mistake to be wearing my yellow and black clothes. Lierse SK play in yellow and black and as I made my way into the “home” end of the ground I was asked three times by OH Leuven officials if I was a Lierse SK supporter.

We had a minute’s silence too before the kick-off. I’m not quite sure why, but there we are anyway. And then the match kicked off.

I told you all about what happened earlier so I shan’t repeat it. But at least the crowd here is very friendly and that is always nice. It does me good to get out and about, and you are all always saying that I ought to get out more often.

On the way back here, I stopped off at Caliburn to pick up some soya milk and soft drinks, and now I’m having a late night.

I hope that I’ll sleep well too.

Thursday 26th January 2017- I’VE SPENT MOST …

… of the day asleep today, which is a shame. The exertions of the last couple of days have been far too much for me apparently. And when you consider how far I’ve walked since the weekend, it’s hardly any surprise, is it?

It took me ages to go off to sleep last night but once I’d gone, I’d gone. It was a really hard struggle to force my way out of bed and upstairs for breakfast, and I wasn’t the first either. There are a couple of German women staying here apparently, and they were first in. That meant that I had to make do with the cheap plastic bowls for my cereal and my muesli and soya milk don’t take so good out of those.

I managed to struggle out for my baguette at lunchtime and for tea I made a mega-meal of kidney beans, mushrooms, onions, vegetables garlic and tomato sauce. And I had company too while I was cooking – the two German ladies were there too, although they didn’t have anything to say.

And apart from that, what a miserable day. Most of it fast asleep or otherwise drifting in and out of it all. I’m not having a very good time right now but it’s one of the things that I have to accet, because it’s not going to get much better than this.

Wednesday 25th January 2017 – PARKING …

… is a relentless subject on this blog – especially now that I’m in Belgium where the standard of parking, never mind driving, is totally abysmal.

And so here we are again – a small crowd of people and a police van with its blue lights flashing.

Of the men down there, a couple of them belong to that yellow van parked down there. They want to move off about their business but they can’t because the dark blue Volkswagen is blocking them in.

The police were called and eventually turned up, but they had no luck in resolving the issue.

But it managed to resolve itself because the two cars double-parked, one of which is the silver BMW, belong to the employees of a shop here. The driver of the BMW came down from the shop, backed his car out, the van could then manoeuvre itself out of the mess (and it took quite a while because it really was tight) and then the BMW driver put his car back.

But it’s really miserable, this Belgium parking. You ain’t seen nuffink like it.

I had a reasonable sleep last night. It took me ages to drop off thoroughly, but once I’d gone, I was gone until the workmen started to move about. I’d been on my travels too but once more, it all evaporated just as soon as I awoke and I don’t remember a thing.

There were bread and juice issues yet again this morning, but for some reason I wasn’t all that hungry and ended up pouring half of my breakfast away.

And then Hans came round to say goodbye. He’s hitting the road back to the UK for a fortnight or so.

He brought his travelling companion Selfie Ted around with him to say goodbye to Strawberry Moose, and then we went out for a coffee, a walk and another chat.

There’s so much to say when you have known someone for more than half a century. Almost 51 years since our first day at Nantwich Grammar School.

After lunch I crashed out for quite a while. I’m definitely feeling the strain and I’ve had a really busy few days just now. I can’t last the pace these days.

I was told on Monday that today would be the day that they would do my room. And so I’d done a little cleaning around but you know just as well as I do what was likely to happen. That’s right – no-one turned up. No big surprise, that, is it?

But I did manage a lengthy chat with Liz on the internet, and then I went for tea. Croquettes, vegan sausages and baked beans followed by pineapple rings and citron sorbet. It was all really delicious.

So let’s try for another early night again. I need as many as I can get and one day I’ll be able to fall straight asleep and not awaken until the alarm goes off.

But I’m not too optimistic about that.

Monday 23rd January 2017 – I PAID …

… for my exciting weekend today, as you might expect. Struggled to finish my lunch before I crashed out, and then was gone until about 16:30. Completely too, and it was a struggle to come round again.

Last night didn’t help much though. I struggled to go to sleep – it took ages to drop off but at least I had a deep undisturbed sleep – until 06:30 when my Eastern European housemates awoke. They are reasonably quiet in their behaviour so I can’t complain too much, but 06:30 is rather early to start running around and showering and all of that.

They remembered to bring breakfast around so at least we had fresh bread today. But they had forgotten to empty the waste bin for a couple of days running now so that’s overflowing now.

After breakfast, I had a slow steady morning and then went for a walk. I need some shopping so I decided to walk right down to the Carrefour by the football ground. And I’m glad that I did too because they were selling 1-litre tubs of vegan citron sorbet for just €2:00, as well as large tins of pineapple slices for €0:59. That means that my puddings for the next few days will be extremely interesting.

Of course, this afternoon passed by without much of a whimper and I was talking to my little-niece Hannah on the internet. She’s come to Madrid for 6 months under a University exchange scheme and that will do her good. I’m all in favour of young people broadening their horizons as much as they possibly can.

Tonight I had my pizza and garlic bread for tea, and now I’m having an early night for I’m having visitors tomorrow.

I’ve had more visits here than I ever had living back in the Auvergne haven’t I? At least there’s some benefit to living here, isn’t there?

Friday 20th January 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… really bad day today.

It wasn’t so bad until the afternoon, when I crashed out again somewhat, but when I went, I really went.

Although I struggled up to make a coffee at about 16:30 I still wasn’t in any fit state and it took until about 19:30 for me to properly come round. It was just like the bad old days today – it really was, and I was totally dismayed. Instead of getting better, I’m just getting worse.

I had another disturbed sleep last night, although I did manage to go off on a ramble. I was back in Shavington, at Goodall’s Corner in fact, heading south to Wybunbury on foot, and there was this woman on the far side of the road heading in the same way. At a certain moment I came to a railway bridge (not that there is one along there of course) and stopped to look down at the rails. This woman crossed half-way across towards me and then changed her mind and started to cross back. It was just at this moment that a huge grey Volvo lorry – the bonnet-nose type, came hurtling around the corner and just managed to screech to a halt, with its front bumper right in the small of this woman’s back. It was half an inch away from bowling her over.

Alone again at breakfast, and then I carried on with my reading. Tanner says that the reason for the decline in the Inuit population is that many of the Inuit girls married settler males and produced Métis offspring, which make up a good proportion of the population of the “liveyers” on the Labrador coast. He further states that

the Unuit girls have an extremely sensual nature
they are very keen to marry settlers of European descent
the girls are the hardest-working of all of the Inuit people, and goes on to list all of the household tasks that they are expected to do in the home

So when’s the next flight to Makkovik? I’m packing my bags.

But here’s a thing. Makkovik is an Inuit name for one of their settlements on the North Labrador coast. And it’s on an inlet deep into the interior. Now have a look at the etymology of the stem …vik… It’s a Norse stem for “cove” or “inlet”.

Of course, there are a thousand reasons why an Inuit word should look as if it has some kind of Norse etymology (not the least of which is that the first Moravian missionary there was a Scandinavian) but it’s very tempting to tie up the idea that the Inuit have absorbed some of the early Norse culture, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not the only Inuit place along the Labrador coast and the shore of the Ungava Bay that ends in … vik either.

And so I hope that I shall be feeling much better tomorrow. What with one thing or another, I’m feeling quite depressed right now. But I’ve been here before and I know that there’s a way out and in a few days I’ll be back up again as usual.

I hope.

Thursday 19th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… day out today for a change.

I’d run out of lunch stuff and so I set off to the Carrefour by the football ground for a good shop. On the way down there I stopped off at Caliburn to see how he was doing, but it was a bit of a struggle to start him up with the cold and the fact that he’s not been anywhere for quite a while.

And so I decided to give him a run up and down the road and that in the end led me out to Kessel-Lo. I went to Bio-Planet for a baguette and some vegan cheese, and then to the Carrefour down the road for a big shop. It was 13:40 by the time I came back. But I’d had a good couple of hours out for a change.

last night was another bad night with me not dropping off until late. And then I was awake a couple of times during the night, finally at about 06:45. Alone again for breakfast and then back down here for a while.

There was no heating this morning – that was what made me go out for a good wander. It would have to be the coldest day of the year so far, wouldn’t it? But later tonight it was fixed and that’s better.

I’ve had a crash out as well this afternoon, and read some more about this Finnish expedition to Labrador. They are spending a lot of time talking about the Inuit and their wanderings around Labrador. It seems that the population insofar as it has been recorded has hovered around the 1200-1300 mark. But a rough count around 1921 came out with just 800 or so – this being just after the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-19 which decimated the population of the Labrador coast and wiped out the villages of Okak and Hebron.

Tonight I finished off my curry and so I have my chips for tomorrow – well, in fact, croquettes. Trying to find oven chips here is next-to-impossible, even in a huge supermarket like the Carrefour. So tomorrow it will be croquettes, beans and sausages and Iam looking forward to that.

Now I’m having an early night if I can. There are quite a few new people here today and I hope that they are quiet.

Wednesday 18th January 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… was something a bit more like it too.

Although it took me ages to go off to sleep (I was reading Vaino Tanner’s notes on the Finnish expedition to Labrador until something silly in the morning) I ended up soundly asleep until the Eastern European workmen awoke me at 06:30. They were actually quite quiet during the night which was very a pleasant surprise.

On my own at breakfast, I came back down here and … errr … went back under the bedclothes to keep warm (it was minus 5°C outside). The next thing that I remembered was that it was 11:10. I’d slept for 3 hours without any difficulty at all.

Braving the freezing cold I nipped out to the supermarket on the corner for my baguette and an apple – I’ve run out of fruit in here. But making my butties at lunchtime, I was joined by a Far-Eastern woman and another man whom I don’t recall having seen before.

I pressed on with my expedition notes this afternoon in between crashing out somewhat. We’ve hit the anthropological stuff now, and he talks at great length about the Inuit. He’s tentatively identified a new race of Inuit round about the 15th Century that began to push aside the Thule Inuit, but fails to draw the obvious conclusion from his notes

Although now discredited by almost everyone despite the efforts of James Enterline in his book Viking America: The Norse Crossings and Their Legacy, the obvious conclusion has quite a logical ring to it – in that with the Little Ice Age descending on Greenland in the mid-14th Century and the Norse settlers being cut off from Iceland by the dramatic deterioration in weather, the only way for the Norse to escape the weather would be to head west and live off the ocean instead of the land.

Like many Europeans since then – in fact right up until the early 20th century, the quickest way for a new settler to assimilate traditional survival skills in a hostile environment is to take a native spouse who can teach you the necessary skills. Most of the population of Labrador are descendants of mixed unions of European men and Inuit women, and had the Norse assimilated (and there is no reason to suppose that they didn’t – they aren’t likely to have sat around and starved or frozen to death), there would be a completely mixed gene pool within just a couple of generations. And with their better technology and knowledge of iron, they would quickly have overwhelmed the less-developed Thule culture.

And the timescale fits too.

Liz and I had a good chat on the laptop later and then I went for tea. I was on my own for most of the time except for a young family with a baby (so we have this to deal with tonight).

Now I’m off for a shower and a change of clothes, and then I’ll be having an early night.

Tuesday 17th January 2017 – THIS REALLY WAS …

… delicious tonight – and if the improvement overnight is anything to go by, it’s going to be magnificent by the time that I get to the last portion.

On a plate too – not out of a saucepan either. And because it looked so nice and the presentation was so good, I took a photo of it. Just imagine it with some fennel and coriander leaves sprinkled over the top.

And I wasn’t alone in the kitchen either. I have been invaded by a pile of Eastern European workmen. There are at least five of them and they were eating away in the kitchen when I went up there. They seem friendly enough inasmuch as we could understand each other, but I wonder how noisy they are going to be.

That’s quite a good point on which to ponder too, because for once, last night, I had my best sleep for ages. In bed early, crashed out quickly enough, awoke to switch off the laptop and then I remember nothing at all until the alarm clock went off.

Well, that’s not quite correct either because I’d been on a mega-ramble during the night. And a mega-ramble it was too. I was with the girl who has been described in these pages as “The One That Got Away”. We’d gone to buy a caravan from some kind of second-hand car sales place. We’d turned up as soon as the place opened, explained what we wanted, and were told to wait. And wait we did, for five hours at least until we lost patience. We then went off in search of a salesman but ended up with the female secretary again, the one whom we had seen as we arrived. She wouldn’t put us in touch with a salesman instead but came out with a variety of reasons why we couldn’t see one – all kinds of silly statements such as “if we moved he caravan what is going to happen about the bare, worn patch where the caravan is sitting?”. Despite the silliness of the questions and the ease with which we could answer the questions and solve the problem, she just came up with even more silly problems and we weren’t getting anywhere with this.

A little later I was with the father of Zero, a girl who sometimes accompanies me on my travels although she wasn’t out there tonight. We were driving somewhere in Canada at the back of Montreal.The road that we were taking was a road that I didn’t know but at a T-junction where we hit a main road, I suddenly recognised the road and where we were – we had just come a different way round. We were very low on fuel but it didn’t really matter because I knew that along this road was a big “Shell” service station where we could stop.

We haven’t finished yet either. I was back at school, and it was here that I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It was just a case of getting on as best as I could – the same for a few other people who were having similar problems. One boy in particular was having a hard time coming to terms with his illness and I had to keep on telling him to pull himself together. But then he put in another appearance, moping around, and although I could only see him from behind I was convinced that it was him, so I snapped at him to “pull himself together”. He turned round and it wasn’t him but a good friend of mine whose wife was ill, and I immediately regretted having said what I had said. We ended up having a chat about our various problems but it wasn’t doing anyone any good.

Yes, with a night like that, I can do with another half-dozen

I was alone at breakfast, and then came back down here to carry on with my work. I’m still on the notes of that Finnish expedition and we are discussing vegetation right now. I’m up to page 424 and that’s about half-way. I can’t wait to get onto the history and anthropology bits, but whenever that might be, I really have no idea.

What is interesting though is that they haven’t actually gone into the interior – I suppose that in 1937-39 the interior of Labrador is pretty much unexplored. They are making interpretations of the interior based on other people’s published voyages and I note that the works of Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace are referred to quite often, as well as the notes of an explorer by the name of AP Low who went into the interior in the late 19th century in a canoe.

As an aside, it was Low’s badly-drawn maps that led Leonidas Hubbard up a creek without a paddle on his ill-fated voyage of 1903. Low only recorded one river at the end of Grand Lake when there are in fact three, the Beaver, the Susan and the Naskaupi, and Hubbard could only find one – but the wrong one.

I’ve had a play around with my 3D program too, as well as a good crash-out after lunch. So soon after lunch that I hadn’t even drunk my lunchtime coffee.

And I made it to the supermarket for my baguette today. There were also a couple of black plastic storage boxes in the rubbish, so I’ve liberated those too. I really do need to take some down to Caliburn as my room is filling up. At the last count there’s 11 of them in here.

Now here’s a thing.

Parked in the Kruisstraat this morning was an almost-new BMW saloon. And a short while after it pulled up and the owner disappeared, another car pulled up.

The driver was extremely interested in the vehicle and stopped, took out a camera, and snapped it about a dozen times from all angles, including a close-up of the rear number-plate and of the wheels.

And then he got back into his car and drove off.

Of course, I’m making no suggestion or allegation whatever. In fact, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m quite often pulling up at the side of the road to take photos of vehicles parked in the street or in people’s driveway.

But not of brand-new BMWs though, and it did look rather weird to me. But without any doubt he had a good reason for doing it.

So now, I’m going to try to have an early night again. Despite all of the new arrivals, I hope that my sleep will be as good as last night’s!

Monday 16th January 2017 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… tea that was!

First of all, I sliced up a large carrot and potato and put them on to boil. And while they were doing, I sliced up an onion and some garlic and fried them in vegan margarine with some cumin and turmeric.

Once they were fried to perfection, I added a tin of mushrooms and a small tin of macedoine vegetables, and then tipped in the potato and carrot. Once they were simmering away, I cooked a pan of rice in turmeric.

There’s enough curry for four days, so three helpings went in the fridge and I had the fourth with the rice. And just for a change, I had it on a plate instead of eating out of my saucepan. Completely delicious. And there’s more to come over the next three days, when the spices have had more of an opportunity to percolate into the food.

A job well done, my curry!

I slept right through until the alarm went off, with only one distraction and no nocturnal rambling either. Alone again at breakfast and I might well be alone in the building too, because I’ve not heard a thing from anyone else for a good few hours.

That gave me plenty of opportunity to crack on with some other stuff today. I did some stuff on the 3D program that I use, using the design function and I actually managed to create something. Or, rather, modify an existing prop. It wasn’t difficult but it’s a step forward all the same.

As well as that, I’ve been doing some more research with my Labrador project and the Finnish espeditions. Interestingly, they make reference to a Priest, the Reverend Paul Hettasch, who was a Moravian priest from Germany who ran one of the Moravian missions on the coast, at Makkovik. The author of the report, Vaino Tanner, talks at length about all of the weather reports that Hettasch was keeping – how precise, complete and thorough they were. And a further search about Hettasch on the internet revealed that according to the Canadian Police, Hettasch was a Nazi sympathiser who sent all of his weather notes back to Germany and these formed the basis of the weather predictions that aided the German bombers of the Luftwaffe in their attacks over the UK in the early days of World War II.

It’s amazing what you can uncover these days in all of these research projects.

But while I was looking over the Labrador censuses during the inter-war period I came across some interesting notes taken by the census-recorder at Davis Inlet while he was asking about the Innu settlement at Voisey’s Bay in 1935. His notes were extremely brief, with just the most basic details recorded, and he explained that the “… information was furnished by a Davis Inlet Indian and it was impossible to get further details. Their life is a nomadic one and it would be futile to go look for them.”

But it was difficult this afternoon. I kept on dozing off here and there, and when I was awake, it was difficult to concentrate. I need to do what I can to recover my fighting spirit and get back to work properly.

I can’t go on like this!

And you may well have noticed – I’ve not set a single foot outside the building today.

Friday 13th January 2017 – I WOKE UP THIS MORNING …

… du deh du der deh … to find that the snows of winter have once more been covering our landduring the night.

Nothing like as impressive as the other morning (not that that was particularly impressive) but snow just the same. And just like me, it didn’t last all that long either.

And that’s right – I didn’t last long either. I’d had a bad night and had an awakening at about 03:15, but this time I don’t know why I awoke like that. At 04:15 I was still awake too and I didn’t feel at all like going back to sleep, but nevertheless I must have done because the alarm awoke me yet again.

I was alone at breakfast at first, but someone whom I didn’t recognise at all came to join me later. A new tenant because I had to show him around and show him how everything works in the kitchen.

Back down here I did some work, reading this paper that I talked about the other day, and then I had some real work to do. I didn’t mention it yesterday but I had made a start on defrosting the freezer compartments in the fridges here. I have spoken about the oven chips and how they come in big bags. There is in fact the space to put a bag like that although you might not think so seeing how the ice compartments are full to the brim with ice, the doors having been left open at some time. With my mini-wok and boiling water, I managed to defrost everything after a while and clean them out. Now we have room for all kinds of stuff and quite rightly so.

Just before lunch I went out to the supermarket for the baguette, and ended up having a good chat to the girl who seems to manage the place. We were there for about 10 minutes chatting, although I probably understood as much as one word in 20.

After lunch, I went down to Caliburn to bring back some more stuff and the laundry sop – braving the snow because by now the snow was teeming down quite heavily – although it didn’t stick at all.

The launderette was next and I washed a ton of stuff. And now I have all clean clothes, as well as three odd socks and I’ve no idea how I managed that. But it always happens, doesn’t it? There’s a sock goblin living even in launderette washing machines.

Back here I had a crash-out and then made tea. A quick tea out of a tin seeing as tomorrow I’m footballing and Sunday is pizza night.

The djervushka is still here too, but with a young boy in tow tonight. So I can cross her off my list, which is a shame. It also means that I won’t have much of a sleep as her room is directly above mine and we know how these beds creak.

I’m still going to try got an early night though. If the weather is reasonable tomorrow there’s a possibility of a day out. We shall see.

EPIC HALL

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