Tag Archives: bombay mix

Saturday 29th December 2018 – SO MUCH …

… for my early night. It doesn’t do any good if you end up lying in bed tossing and turning for as long as I did last night. And then awakening at about 04:30 and not being able to go back to sleep for ages doesn’t help much either.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave my bed and it took me a while to come to my senses, which seeing how few senses I have these days, is rather astonishing.

We had the medication and then we had breakfast, followed a little later by a shower. And then I hit the streets, having set the washing machine off on a cycle. Quite clever, my washing machine.

LIDL didn’t come up with much, except a new pair of slippers. My old ones are starting to fall apart and they had some cheap ones in at just €4:99. And they had some cheap sheets on offer too. I don’t have really enough of those and I would have bought another one, but all of the blue ones had been sold. White is no good for me.

NOZ was pretty good and I would have spent a lot of money in there had I had the space and the inclination. But some orange-flavoured digestive biscuits, an Arsène Lupin DVD, a baking tray for mince pies and the like and three glass dessert coupes were amongst the things that I bought.

LeClerc didn’t have anything special on offer, although I did have a surprise. There on the shelves in the Industrial Bakery section was a pack of 6 pains au chocolate – the type that kids like to eat for breakfast. And the packet was clearly marked “VEGAN – 100% VEGETAL”.

I’ve been complaining about the lack of vegan products here in France – how they are 50 years behind the times – so this was an impressive find.

People making vegan products on an industrial scale need as much encouragement as they can receive, so I bought a packet of solidarity and support. It’ll be good to vary my breakfast habits here and there.

Back here, I had a coffee and then slowly unpacked the purchases. It took me a while and it’s still not done yet. I’m definitely slowing up these days.

After lunch I didn’t do too much at all – downloading a pile of stuff that I had tracked down on the internet and then organising a few directories so that everything is stored correctly. I want to have this computer organised ready for whenever the new one might come.

I was also following the football on the internet. And just for a change, the clubs that I follow all managed to win today. That’s not likely at all. Usually they all fall apart.

As for tea, I didn’t bother tonight. I’ve eaten rather a lot just recently and going without a meal for once won’t hurt me. I had a nibble on some Bombay Mix that I had left over from my trip to Leuven.

It was gone 22:30 when I went out for my evening walk. There was no-one around at all at that time of night except for the kids on the car park.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s Sunday so a lie-in is appropriate. But whether I would ever get one remains to be seen. I’m not doing too well right now what with one thing or another.

Friday 24th February 2017 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me! And I’m at the age where you don’t count the years that you have had, you count those that you have left. And a decision from the Environmental Authorities ruled out the possibility of a birthday cake – fears of Global Warming apparently.

Despite having a reasonable night last night, I was wide awake yet again at 06:30 – dunno whose alarm it is that’s going off at that time. I wish that I wasn’t such a light sleeper.

I could only manage a small breakfast too, and then I came down here for a morning of not very much at all. After all, it is my birthday. I just had a chat with a few people on the internet.

Round about 11:00 I went up into town and the Delhaize for a walk but I wasn’t out long. It was fairly nice, if rather windy, up in town and it started to rain just as I arrived back here. I’d been lucky for once. And as it’s my birthday, I treated myself to a bag of Bombay Mix and a bottle of Dandelion and Burdock that I had bought from the English shop the other day.

This afternoon, I had rather a health relapse and spent most of it fast asleep. I dunno why because it’s not as if I’ve been doing very much. A sign of the times, unfortunately.

Tea was exciting. Now that we have some freezer space I had bought some frozen veg to replace the tinned stuff. And so tea tonight was curried mashed potato with frozen peas and carrots and a veggie burger. And absolutely delicious it was too, smothered in vegan margarine.

And so now it’s beddie-byes time. Tomorrow I’m going to start packing and to empty my room here. If all goes to plan, I’ll be leaving here Tuesday so I need to organise myself

Sunday 19th February 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… meal that was!

Alison took me to the Indian restaurant on the Grote Markt for a birthday treat. I had a lentil curry which was delicious. not as good as mine and certainly nothing like as good as you might find in a restaurant in Stoke on Trent, but for an Indian restaurant in mainland Europe it was excellent.

Just for a change I had an excellent night’s sleep. Well away with the fairies right until the alarm went off. And I was on my travels too. Back to the hotel that bore a startling resemblance to the place in the Ardennes where I stayed in November. I was there with some people, one of whom was a disagreeable person with whom I worked at that weird American company where I spent 12 of the most bizarre months of my working life. She was complaining (as usual) about something or other and I had to go down to sort it out. This involved descending (at breakneck speed) a set of stairs with two different doors at the bottom. One of them was the door into the main area but the other one would take me round the back down a long dark alley, and that was the route that I decided to take.

Alone again at breakfast, which suits me fine of course, and then back down here where I had some work to do. I have a meeting on Monday and I need to be up-to-date with my paperwork. So I went throught and sorted it all out yet again. And I now have much more of an idea as to what I need to know for tomorrow at 11:00.

I had a nice chat on the internet with some nice friends of mine and then went for lunch. Nothing to go on my butties, but I had the other half-uncooked demi-baguette from yesterday (they come in packs of two and I used one for my garlic bread last night) so I baked that and used some more of the packet soup that I had bought from LeClerc when I was in Sedan.

Alison came onto the internet – she was going to the English shop and would I like to go? Well, do bears go for picnics in the woods? I went for a quick shower and a shave too look pretty, and Alison picked me up and off we trotted. I bought some more Dandelion and Burdock, more Bombay mix, some vegan burgers and a big bag of oven chips. Now I have all of my food (except the lunch stuff) until I leave here, and there’s even tons of stuff left that I haven’t used. And that’s a surprise.

We passed by here where I could dump everything in the freezer compartment of the fridge, and then off we shot into town for coffee, the Indian meal and a very lengthy chat.

Back here, seeing as how I’ve started to celebrate my birthday early, I opened a packet of mint sweets that I had brought back from Canada. Just a few – the rest are for later.

And now it’s early night time – I’m busy tomorrow.

Sunday 29th January 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… afternoon!

Alison sent me a message – “I’m going to the English Shop. Do you need anything?”

My reply was simple and to the point. “Why don’t I come with you?”

And so Alison came to pick meup and we went off to the shop. I came back with vegan sausages, vegan pies, dandelion and burdock pop and some Bombay mix. So that’s me set up for the next few weeks, isn’t it? The pies out there are delicious and go down well with spuds and veg. But I also have more kidney bean stuff and a pizza to eat too, so I’m not short of food.

After that, we went for a coffee and then for a meal. We tried a new fritkot as the usual one is undergoing renovation and … shock! horror! the guy in there knows me from somewhere. Dunno where, but he greeted me like a long-lost friend, and that’s uncomfortable. And he made a reference to where we had met but he spoke so fast that I didn’t understand it.

Last night, I had a good sleep – for a change. I tried the usual tactic of watching a Bulldog Drummond film in bed. And that was me stark out. I’d been on my travels too, to visit a couple that I know on the Wirral. But they had moved house and were living on the ground floor in a terraced house. It seemed that they only had one room – I asked about upstairs and they said that this was a different flat, and as for the other room, this was lived in by a girl who had some kind of unusual attachment to the male person in this couple. In fact, all-in-all, I know someone – or two people in fact – who would be very uncomfortable with the significance of this dream.

The trouble with going to bed early and crashing stark out is that you wake up early. And I was awake long before 06:00 too. but I didn’t go up for breakfast until the usual 07:00. I was on my own up there too.

And to my dismay I found that I’d forgotten my loaf yesterday. I had to go out and buy a baguette and even at 08:30 they had sold out. I had to have bread rolls instead.

But this morning has been busy. Editing a pile of photos and a few blog entries, discussing a few things with friends on the internet and watching a football match on the internet from yesterday.

So now, let’s try another Bulldog Drummond film. See if this sends me off to sleep. After all, it’s hospital tomorrow!

Tuesday 20th December 2016 – I MADE SURE …

… that I dropped off early to sleep last night.

What I did was to do something that I hadn’t done for quite a while, and that was that I got into bed and started to watch a film on the laptop. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes or so, I was off.

But if I ever lay my hands on whoever it was who left the building at 02:40 this morning, slamming the door behind them, they they will know about it. Because I didn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

And it was just as well because the girl in the room next door was up and about at 06:00 and she wasn’t exactly quiet either. But then you can’t pick your housemates, can you?

Anyway, I was in at breakfast at 07:00 and out by 07:30 and back down here at work.

Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened to me at the hospital yesterday.

For the benefit of those who don’t speak French, the sign on the back of the Fiat van says “Please don’t park within 3 metres …” of the rear doors, to allow the rear doors to open to admit a wheelchair.

And so the car behind is parked within 1 metre of it – right outside the entrance to a hospital.

I went up to the driver and asked him if a sign has to be written in both official languages (French and Flemish) to be legal, but as you might expect, my comment went clear over his head.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said to Kenneth Williams “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”, and reminds me of the spoof Open University course on “Understanding Irony”, which actually received several applicants.

But it’s a sad reflection of the selfish attitude of many Belgians, isn’t it?

But the second thing was even more unnerving.

I walked up to the reception desk and the woman looked at me and said “ahh, Mr Hall …” Yes, I’m even being recognised by the clerical staff in the hospital now. This is uncomfortable, isn’t it?

Another thing that I have forgotten to do is to post the photo of the stuff that I bought on Sunday at the English shop.

Working clockwise around, we have Linda McCartney vegan pies, a vegan Christmas pudding, Bisto vegan gravy browning, a bottle of ginger beer, a bottle of dandelion and burdock, a bag of Bombay mix, some custard powder and, pride of place, two boxes of vegan mince pies.

Now I’m all set up for Christmas.

Later this morning I went down to Caliburn to sort out some stuff to bring up here and then went down to the Carrefour. I came back with a baguette and some tomatoes, some seitan slices (for Christmas dinner), some potatoes, some carrots and some leeks as well as a couple of pots of fresh spices.

That was because, for tea, I had boiled potatoes with fresh mint, carrots with fresh rosemary, leeks and Linda McCartney vegan pie covered in thick Bisto gravy. It made such a change from my usual fare and it was absolutely delicious. It all worked out fine too, much better than my pizza did. I shall be doing more of this, as well as looking at the possibility of baked potatoes in the microwave here.

High time that I was organised.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and also did some work on my web pages.

Another thing that I did was to walk into the (unlocked) bathroom just as my nubile next-door neighbour was wrapping herself in a towel after her shower. Serves her right for not closing the door!

So now we’ll have another go at an early night. And I’ll hope for better luck too.

Thursday 25th December 2014 – MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers. And I shan’t make any wisecracks about the walls of the public conveniences on Crewe Bus Station because I say the same thing each year and you must be sick to death of it by now.

During the night I was in Rome being fleeced by an Italian shopkeeper, and having to sort out a few kids, some of whom were mine and the rest of whom were kids that I was looking after, and they were having a fight in a hotel room and the police had been called.

I was awake early this morning but managed to stay in bed until about 08:30 – I wasn’t in anything of a rush to leave my stinking pit as I’m sure that you can imagine. And after breakfast, I did precisely zilch.

I’ve watched a few films though. First up was The Mask of Dimitrios starring Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet. Lorre is one of my favourite actors and this film continues the joint roles that the two of them played in The Maltese Falcon. That’s a film that I can watch time after time after time, and having seen the Mask of Dimitrios, that will be the same.

I’ve also watched the first couple of Fantômas films. Louis de Funès is my favourite actor but occasionally he has a tendency to over-act and these films are not amongst his best. But still, I found a box set of the Tantomas films going cheap

I’ve not eaten much today either. I have plenty to nibble on so I’ve been attacking all of that. I even found a bag of Bombay mix from I don’t know when and that tasted wonderful.

And do you know what? It’s more of the same tomorrow. I’ve absolutely no intention of going anywhere or doing anything at all. Which is probably just as well as when I went out just now to take the stats, there was the start of a heavy frost. Everywhere is cooling down again and there’s snow forecast for Sunday.

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EPIC HALL

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