… is becoming far too small for my liking.

This morning I met the previous tenant of this apartment. She lived here until March when she moved to an appartment at the front that has a sea view when it became available. And it turns ot that she formerly lived in Belgium and worked in the Fisheries Department of the EU and remembered me well enough to know my first name.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that someone from the EU followed me to live in Virlet. At least they are keeping tracks on me.

It was hard to leave my bed this morning. 20 minutes it took me to haul myself out (although I had been out of bed at about 06:00 but I wasn’t waking up then – ohhh no!) ready for breakfast. And once that was over, I had a little relax and then went off measuring up because I had forgotten to do that on Friday.

By 10:00 I was ready to leave, and this was when I bumped into my former colleague. 20-odd minutes we were chatting, although I do have to say that I didn’t say very much.

I found the dechetterie this morning, although I missed the turning and ended up going right around the houses. But now I know where it is and disposing of all of the cardboard was pretty straightforward. I’m sure Caliburn runs about 5mph faster now.

The dechetterie wasn’t all that I found either. I stumbled across a DiY place just down the road – one that I hadn’t noticed before. And I wish that I’d found it before last week because the stuff in there is a lot cheaper that the things that I bought last week. A set of reasonable screwdrivers cost me just €1:10, 13-amp plugs cost me €2:10 and a reasonable spirit level cost me €3:20.

And while I was there I couldn’t resist taking a photo of some more breath-taking parking. I really don’t understand why people are so selfish.

But it’s a sign of the times and you only have to read some of the comments on your social networking account to see just how much selfishness is prevalent in the modern Western world. It fills me full of dismay.

There’s a big Casino hypermarket on this industrial estate so I had a look in there. Stuff isn’t as cheap as in LeClerc but they had a couple of bits and pieces of household stuff that I needed. A trip to LeClerc was therefore in order. That’s much more like it.

I now have lace curtains in the window of my living room too. I went to Centrakor and found everything that I needed to hang them – and to hang the main curtains too. I don’t particularly like the lace curtains but there wasn’t anything in the way of choice and so beggars can’t be choosers. I was determined that, come what may, I would buy the main curtains too, but I didn’t like the look or colour of anything on offer there and so that was that. I wonder if I can find some on the internet.

Back here, I made my butties and went to sit on the headland in the glorious summer with my book. I was there for a good couple of hours and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, even though there were too many people walking along the pathway in front of me. I’ll have to try to find a quieter place next time.

This evening I went to the football. It’s US Granvillaise’s last match this season and they were at home to Bergerac Perigord. And I really am the kiss of death to whichever team I seem to support because they lost yet again. They went 2-0 down due to two goals in a minute – one of which was a magnificent powerful header from a corner – but pulled it back by scoring 2 goals in a minute themselves just before half-time.

Bergerac Perigord scored 2 more later in the game and the US Granvillaise keeper pulled off a couple of magnificent saves – and then US Granville pulled one back with just 5 minutes to go. That five minutes, plus a lengthy stoppage time, was the only time during the match that US Granvillaise played with any sense of urgency. But of course it was too little too late and that was that.

Cheerleaders seem to be the thing in Belgium for the half-time entertainment, but here today we had something different. A whole pile of young girls swarmed onto the pitch and performed a pile of gymnastic routines.

Not that I spent too much time watching because gymnastics is not really what I call entertainment. It’s a bit like ice-skating – it only becomes interesting when a competitor falls over or drops his partner, of the skater disappears into the water as the ice collapses underneath her.

But full marks for them for being out there anyway.

I’ll be off to bed in a minute. I want to have a good sleep because I’ve bought myself a new toy today – quite expensive but very cheap for what it is. And I need a full day or so to set it up.