I’m exhausted!

I’ve just seen the most exciting football match that I’ve seen for years!

So after yesterday, I had something of a disturbed night. But that’s really no surprise what with everything else that had been going around here just recently.

And it was disturbed for a variety of reasons, not the least being that I was off on my travels again. And for quite a while too.

I started off in Labrador but I don’t remember very much about what I was doing there.
But I do remember being back at my house in France and there was a huge queue of 4×4 quads passing up the track in front of my house making a great deal of noise. But a large tractor went out of control, demolished the stone wall at the back of my house and went bang into my wooden verandah. I went out to see what happened and to chat with the tractor driver who was sitting on a big old red tractor of the 1920s. The verandah was shaken but didn’t seem to be damaged, but the wall was in a state and it occurred to me that this damage made a convenient exit for me to go out there and load up the Escort van which I was still using. So while I wanted him to repair the wall, I didn’t want him to do it quite then.
From there I was back in the UK on the road between Whitchurch and Oswestry. I’d driven past some kind of tall cylindrical brick building like a water tower, followed by a huge brick blockhouse kind of place in a rhomboid shape flanked by two outer towers – used as a big ammunition store. It was set in a very dirty and untidy pig farm, which would prevent visits, that’s for sure. Just after this was a kind of bluff about 30 feet high with a house on the peak, and here I met Nerina. We had quite a lengthy discussion, which revolved around shopping. I asked her if she went to the market at Whitchurch or the market at Oswestry. She replied that the Whitchurch market had closed down and she went occasionally to Stoke on Trent on a Friday evening for her shopping. We ended up going for a walk around Oswestry to the shops and I was telling her about France – how LIDL had opened a branch in St Eloy and how it didn’t matter because at St Gervais (which was actually Commentry, but never mind) they had opened not just a LIDL but an ALDI so we still weren’t shopping in St Eloy, although not that that would matter too much to her because she had never been there anyway – I was confusing her last night with Laurence.

I struggled into breakfast where I had company for about 30 seconds – another lodger stuck his head around the door just long enough to gulp down a glass of orange juice – and then I came back down here to chill.

As the day brightened up, I decided to go for a walk to the shops. But this involved going down to Caliburn to pick up the shopping bags that I had left there by mistake the other day.

I could have gone on down to the Carrefour had I thought on, but instead I walked back towards the town in the freezing cold weather and headed towards the market and the Delhaize supermarket

Instead of going straight on down the Kapucijnenvoer and up the Brusselsestraat, I took the short cut through the maze of narrow streets, cutting off the corner.

There is a great deal of “Old Leuven” that either escaped the ravages of the German Army in 1914 and 1940, Allied bombing in 1944 and the extremes of modern architecture that did more damage to British cities than the Luftwaffe ever did.

As well as that, when the city was rebuilt after all of the damage, it was rebuilt in many cases as it used to be, not as modern architects thought that it ought to be.

Loads of little alleys, loads of little archways that really bring out the medieval flavour of the city. You can imagine just how this city must have been 120 years ago – how wonderful it must have looked.

It’s certainly a much more interesting way to come into the city centre than straight up the Brusselsestraat.

That’s the Brusselsestraat there – down the end of the Predikherenstraat there. And unfortunately, that’s not managed to escape the ravages of modern architects.

Luckily, when the architects and rebuilders turned to the Predikherenkerk, we had something that resembled very much what it was supposed to have been.

This is said to be the oldest Gothic church in the city and dates from 1234. It was originally the church of the Dominican order and the resting place of some of the Dukes of Brabant.

It was badly damaged during World War II, and restoration began in 1961. it wasn’t finally completed until 2008

My trek then took me down along the Oudlievevrouwstraat and over the bridge across the River Dyle. Unfortunately this area hasn’t escaped the ravages of the second half of the 20th Century and a huge pile of new apartments has sprung up overlooking the river.

I must admit that despite the rather bland appearance of the buildings, I wouldn’t mind a little apartment in a block just there, as long as there was a view of the river to comfort me.

Back here to warm up again, I had a coffee and a sit in front of the radiator for a while. And a brief search on the internet for nothing particular produced some astonishing results.

During the “unavailability” of my grandparents, my mother and her sister were boarded, when they were small, with a family in Palmers Green, London and later in Birchington, Kent during the 1930s. We’d kept in contact with them until they had died in the 1950s and 60s and even been to visit them as small children, although I don’t remember very much. My brother was actually named after one of the “cousins”.

It had come up in a discussion that I’d had the other day, and so in a fit of idleness I typed in the family name of one of these people. Much to my surprise, I found several pages on the internet that related to this family. Not only did this bring back many happy memories, I ended up having an on-line conversation with someone from those days.

The world is a surprisingly small place these days, isn’t it?

Another thing that I did, which I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, is to go through all of the till receipts in my wallet. Some of them have been there since I was in Canada.

Amongst the things that I found were a couple of receipts for medication, and a €20 note. That cheered me up, and no mistake.

After my butties and a little chat with Liz on line, I walked up into town and to the railway station. I’m not going to sit around here and be miserable when I can be miserable somewhere else, and it’s usually football at weekend isn’t it?

And I remembered why I had packed an oversize pair of the sports trousers that I usually wear. They had been in my Canada stuff and I’d brought them back here for some reason or other.

Before setting out, I slipped them over the normal-sized pair of trousers that I usually wear. They fitted perfectly and I was comparatively warm, considering that it was minus 3°C

Loads of places that I would have wanted to visit, like Eupen playing in the First Division, or even Hasselt in the Third Division, but Belgian football has staggered kick-off times, and the bizarre thing about that is that all of the matches that I would have liked to have seen, even OH Leuven’s match at Royal Antwerp, finished too late for me to catch a train back home again.

It would have to be Lier and Lierse SK with their cheerleaders.

What a shame!

At the railway station at Lier were three locomotives parked up in a siding, so I went over to have a look at them.

The two on the right, 6291 and 6317, are two of a class of 136 lightweight diesel-electrics built to a style of my former employers, General Electric. They date from the early 1960s.

The one on the left, 7798, is one of a class of 170 heavy shunter-freight locomotives built in the early years of the 21st Century by the German company Vossloh.

I was there in plenty of time and so I went for a walk around the site of the old ramparts of the city.

They have long-been demolished and little remains now. Nothing whatever at the site of the Antwerpsepoort – the Antwerp Gate. But it was here on 5th October 1914 that the British Army’s rearguard, guarding the retreat to Antwerp, erected a barricade and held up the attacking Germans long enough. for the rest of the Army to escape

I was expecting much more of a crowd seeing that the visitors today were Cercle Brugge. But the popular side was packed out anyway, and they made a lot of noise that contributed to the tremendous atmosphere.

I was in my usual place to the left of the goal with all of the other old fogeys, where there was a good view of the cheerleaders. I mean, there have to be some compensations about coming all of the way to Lier in the freezing cold.

As the cheerleaders withdrew from the field they stopped for a moment at the foot of one of the stands so I was able to take a quick snap of them.

It’s all blurred and out-of focus but the camera on my phone isn’t really up to all that much in these kinds of half-light conditions when you are snapping away in haste. And of course, you can’t take DSLRs into public venues in Belgium so this photo will have to do.

Liz asked me how the cheerleaders performed – well, I couldn’t tell you that from first-hand experience but you can see some of their dancing in this video clip just here that should give you some idea.

Not the best cheerleaders that I have ever seen but I just appreciate the effort that Lierse SK has taken to entertain the fans. If for some reason I can’t get out to see OH Leuven I’ll gladly come here and spend my money and I’m sure that I’m not alone.

I can still chase after the women, even if I can’t remember why!

As for the football itself, the two teams were evenly matched. As the first half wore on, Lierse gradually grew in confidence and took control, but Cercle Brugge looked dangerous on the break, especially down the right wing. However, as I have said on many occasions at this level of football, the teams are far too slow to play the ball forward, dwelling on it for far too long and finding the brief opportunites closed down.

Half-time was 0-0 but Lierse had hit the post and the bar, and had a couple cleared off the line too. Cercle Brugge had missed a sitter, open goal from 5 yards out, right in front of where I was sitting. A no-score draw it was, but boring it was not.

After half-time, the teams came out with much more of a purpose and the battle raged from end to end. Everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats as the pendulum swung from one side to the other. The slippery, ice surface was a wild-card in the match too, with players losing their footing at vital moments.

And sure enough, we had a goal. And to the surprise of almost everyone except those who follow this rubbish, it was Cercle Brugge who took the lead. For once they played the ball in early from the wing and caught the Lierse SK defence flat-footed.

And if you think that the game had been exciting up to this point, the two teams upped a gear and we were pinned to our seat as the tension mounted. We probably had the best 30 minutes football that I had ever seen from this point on.

Lierse SK equalised with 15 minutes to go, and Cercle Brugge can consider themselves to be quite unlucky to concede this goal. A Lierse SK player went down on the edge of the penalty area, no more than about 15 metres from where I was sitting, and I had a clear view of it. To me, it looked clearly as if the player had slipped on the frosty surface but not only did the referee blow for a foul, he booked the Cercle Brugge defender. I had a good look, and the linesman certainly didn’t flag for a foul and he was closer to the action than I was too.

From the free kick, the ball went straight to the head of a Lierse SK attacker, totally unmarked at the far post, and he didn’t miss from there.

The final 15 minutes continued at this roaring pace and when the final whistle went, the teams received a standing ovation from some of the crowd. And quite right too because it really was that good a match. And it was a shame about the equaliser – it meant that I didn’t get to console any of the cheerleaders.

I came home in the sub-zero temperature and caught my train at Lier. It’s the Liege train that I catch and I have to change at Aarschot. The train is at 16 minutes past the hour and there are only a couple of weekends when the 20:16 train doesn’t run, aren’t there?

By the time that I returned, I was cold and tired. But I’d had a really good day out and I was feeling a little better than I was yesterday.

I’ll pay for this day out of course, but ask me if I care.

And you wouldn’t care either after having to sit here and read over 2360 words, you poor people.