Tag Archives: bondgenotenlaan

Friday 14th January 2022 – AFTER ALL OF YESTERDAY’S …

… efforts, I ended up in bed at some kind of early time of night. With no need for an alarm tomorrow no appointments, and also no phone either), I was going to make the most of it.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out like that. I don’t sleep as well in the bed here as I do in my bed at home, and then there was the fact that I’d been off on my travels.

There are several different sound files on the dictaphone, and that shows that I had a very disturbed night. At some point I’d just been to fill the kettle that was on the bedside table, put it on its stand and went to switch it on to make a cup of coffee in the middle of the night.

It’s amazing the kind of things that you can do when you are fast asleep, isn’t it?

There was something about submarines last night. It wasn’t a tube as you might expect but it was U-shaped passenger compartment where four people could lie down. It was the only way to be. Two of them were in the higher part in the centre and two were in the lower part, one at each end. The submarine was sent on active service like that. There was no way for any of these people to move once they were on board and it must have been the most uncomfortable and claustrophobic thing ever yet even I had been out in it on active service. On one occasion I was at school watching these kids and the tutor was talking about who’d done what, who’d dome something else, naming these kids. Then on eof the kids mentioned my name. It turned out that one of the kids wanted me to give a talk on these submarines so I gave them a little talk on it. As I say, it’s most surprising because you would never ever get me into a submarine like this, not in a million years. later on when I went to see if I was back again with this submarine there was something to do with lords and ladies, not their names, and some kind of operating manual about this submarine but I can’t remember what this was and what it related to, anything like that

Much as I hate submarines I found myself volunteering for the crew of this to go out and sail in it and that is most unlikely for me. But anyway it looks as if I’ve just stepped back into the story from which I had just stepped out.

There were some of us last night around the West Midlands. We’d been somewhere and had to return home so we were looking for a railway station. We were in a vehicle and had driven underneath a railway line. A little further ahead was another railway line so we imagined that there was a railway junction which might mean that there would be a station. There was a bus coming out of there with schoolkids. We saw a sign that said “Intercity” so we turned down this road underneath the railway bridge and followed the railway line. Instead it took us into a yard where there were all kinds of railway maintenance equipment etc. We thought “this can’t possibly be right” but we carried on. At the end of the yard was a kind of dirt track out so we followed this dirt track, still following the railway and ended up somehow in someone’s house. We thought “we’re in civilisation so we can get out here” but we ended up in some girl’s bedroom. There was no handle on the door on the inside. This guy and I had a look round but I could see that this wasn’t going to work so we’d be better clearing off quickly. I went back into the annexe where we’d appeared. The other two people were standing there. I told them that we had better make ourselves scarce because this isn’t it. The fourth person, the one who had come with me into the main room hadn’t put in an appearance. We thought “we can’t hang around because sooner or later we’ll be caught by someone being in this house.

Finally I was in Shavington last night and there was an Austin 1100 being worked on down the street. A young boy was going it. There was a little girl of about 3 or 4 helping him or watching him. He was talking to her and asked her where something was, like a nursery or a toy room or something. She took him down to where Caliburn was parked. He opened the door of Caliburn and took out a bottle of beer and started to drink it. I went down there and grabbed hold of him and asked him what he was doing. He wouldn’t answer so I asked him for his name. He gave me about 4 or 5 different names. In the end I asked him what was his name in his birth certificate. He replied “none of those. It’s extremely complicated”. I was becoming extremely short-tempered at this particular moment so maybe it was just as well that I awoke.

Being awake is one thing. Being out of bed is something else. It was round about 09:30 when I finally arose from the dead, and then after the medication I spent much of the day choosing the music for the next batch of 5 radio programmes.

All of that is done and dusted, although it took me longer than it might have done. Breakfast was a contributory factor and so was lunch, but there was more than just a small amount of indolence too

When I’d finished, I went off into town for my walk.

With it being Friday, it’s market day in the Herbert Hooverplein and the Monseigneur Ladeuzeplein although they have usually all cleared off by 14:00. I caught the very last one, who “shall fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away”, just like in Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done”.

First stop on my way into town was at the FNAC to check the data cables for my telephone. But if anyone thinks that I’m going to be paying the kind of price that they want for one, then they are mistaken.

So never mind. I have a cunning plan, so I headed off outside the front door into the Bondgenotenlaan.

There’s a “Match” supermarket just up the road from here but by the looks of things it isn’t going to be here all that long. Since I was here last, they have made a start on demolishing it.

That’s a shame because what we’ll have is a modern deluxe building with the kind of rent that a supermarket like Match could never pay and make a profit, and there’s another local amenity gone for good.

However it is quite amusing seeing the 18th Century building still standing after all these years and here they are ripping down something of the 1960s. It just goes to show.

In Kruidvat, as I expected, I struck it lucky. I picked up a 2-metre micro-USB cable for just €2:99. That’s much more like it.

That was a good move because I can use that with the ZOOM H8 and bring the smaller cable with me on my travels to use with the ‘phone and the NIKON 1 J5.

In my quest for a baking tin, I went down the Louis Melsensstraat towards the cheap shops. And here I noticed a wall plaque of a type that I don’t recall seeing before.

The story of the Sack of Leuven by the Germans in August 1914 has been told often enough and you’ll see many buildings in the town with a wall plaque like the one on the left, indicating that the building was a victim of the German atrocities.

The one on the right though is different. I’ve no idea to what the date of 1922 refers. It might possibly related to the date when the building was restored. I shall have to make certain enquiries when I find someone who might know the answer.

Neither Wibra, Zeeman nor Hema came up with a suitable baking tin so it looks as if I’ll have to buy one of the overpriced ones at LeClerc when I go home. Those there are 18cm ones there but that’s more than enough for me to make a cake for myself in the future. The pyrex dish that I used instead was rather too large for what I want.

There was better luck in Sports Direct, where I bought some new trousers and also in the health-food shop Origin’o where I picked up some more grated vegan cheese for my pizzas and some vegan sausages. I really enjoyed those that I bought last time I was here.

On the way to Delhaize (for some more banana soya drink) and Hema, I went for a little wander by the River Dijle to see what was happening there.

It’s changed quite a lot since we last stood on this spot. Back in 2016 when I was living here the river was overflowing after that very dramatic rainstorm that we had had, and a few months ago it was pretty full too after a lengthy bout of rain.

At Delhaize I picked up my drink and then went round to Hema. No baking tins here either, which was a surprise. Hema usually has almost everything that you need. What do people in Flanders (and France) use when they are baking cakes? And where do they go to buy it?

Back in the Grote Markt, it’s starting to go dark so they have illuminated the Christmas trees and the other decorations.

The crèche has gone so there isn’t all that much here to illuminate today so we have to do the best that we can with what we’ve got. Lighting up the real tree that’s here is … errr … interesting.

It’s still quite cold so I’m not going to hang around this afternoon. There are plenty of places that I would like to visit, but not in this weather. The possibility of a piping-hot coffee is summoning me home.

Back here I had the coffee that I had promised myself and then went through the photos that I’d taken over the last few days.

But now that I’ve had my tea, I’m off to bed. I have an 05:00 start in the morning ready for my train at 06:26.

Friday 15th October 2021 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I actually had a reasonable night’s sleep last night and I can’t say how much I appreciated it.

The night was reasonably early for a change and despite waking up once or twice during the night I slept right the way through to 09:50. And having left the heating on during the night, for once, the place was warm.

And despite everything, there was plenty of activity during that night that I didn’t realise. I must have travelled miles.

I was at a football match. Crewe Alexandra had drawn some team really exotic in the cup so I went there with Xavier. When we went to find a place to park we were right up to the gates and Xavier said that we were with the radio and let us in. We had to fight our way through the crowds to enter the stadium and I was trying to interview people from the away side and so on to find out their story but he wasn’t interested at all at interviewing anyone. he just wanted to watch the game and listen to the music but I thought for the radio that the people there were much more important than the game.

Later on I was watching another game of football last night – TNS v someone else. One of the players passed the ball back to the left-back of TNS but he wasn’t looking at the game. He had his back to it. The ball went out for a throw-in. There was a whole series of throw-ins and corners from that incident into the TNS penalty area. I was intrigued. There was bound to be a goal scored from this but for some unknown reason I switched the computer off. I then realised that there was something I hadn’t done so then I had to switch it back on again. Of course I missed the crucial moment of that game.

Later still I’d been seconded to the Customs and Excise and was going through the suitcases that had arrived on an aeroplane. I picked one out at random and it turned out to be Dominic Raab’s. he came wading over saying “you can’t do this to me. I’m a Government Minister and I shall report you” so I took out my notebook and asked him to repeat those words while I wrote them down. Then I went through his suitcase and found a dozen bottles of wine, everything. He was forced to stand there and try to sell them as passers-by to take through Customs. later on I went into the restaurant. It was someone’s birthday. I looked at all the food that had been laid out by the caterers. There was nothing there that I could eat. I went to find the kitchen supervisor. I asked the Security Guard where she was and he took me back into the meeting to speak to someone else. I said “this isn’t what I wanted. I wanted the kitchen supervisor”. The kitchen supervisor came with someone else who said “I know him. He’s been complaining about this for ages, telling me about this disease that he has and I know that he’s talking nonsense because I know someone else who has it and they don’t have to deprive themselves of anything like he says he has to” so the two of them just walked away and left me sitting there. In the end I was fed up of waiting for some developments so I walked off as well thinking about what my next step would be. All these people suddenly turned up on bicycles, hordes of them. Some were on tandems and some on these things that you sea in Blackpool where you can put 12 onto a bike, something like that.

After the medication I sat down and chose the music for the next batch of radio programmes and by the time that I’d finished later on in the afternoon I’d actually chosen the music for 5 programmes.

This included a pause for breakfast and a pause for lunch as well as a couple of coffee pauses.

Some of the stuff was quite complicated to do because I have several discs of all kinds of assorted music, several tracks that I wanted to use in order to break up the run of groups, and so I had to track down the songs, who recorded them and on which album they appear.

This afternoon I went for a good walk around the city centre to stretch my legs and to see what else was going on around the town that I had missed yesterday.

In the Tiensestraat there are several sites currently being redeveloped. On a couple of them there has been no activity since we last looked but at this one next the the chemist’s that I sometimes use, they are pressing on.

They have now added the cladding to the concrete front of the building – some white bricks or tiles which while not in keeping with the rest of the street are not as bad as they might otherwise have been.

Down the road in the Herbert Hooverplein they are slowly preparing for winter.

There’s usually a street market here but I’m later than usual going for my walk so they have all cleared off and gone home, leaving me all alone.

The fountain is switched off and the outside tables and chairs from the cafes have been taken back inside to hibernate until next Spring.

But what caught my eye was the spiral tree in the background just left of centre. If must have taken them a while to train that.

It looks as if we are going to be having another festival pretty soon.

All over town there are signs and advertising publicity like this large balloon outside the University Library advertising “The Town’s Festival Of The Big Bang”, and I’ve no idea what that might be because I’ve yet to discover a description.

All that I do know is that if it goes on for as long as they say, it won’t be much of a festival so I don’t imagine that i’ll be missing all that much.

Further on down the Koning Leopold 1 Straat and the Bondgenotenlaan, there’s yet more excitement.

They have a cherry-picker just here and they seem to be installing all kinds of decorations, like the skeletons for example. They must be preparing for Halloween because it’s far too early to be thinking about Christmas decorations.

But then again, I probably give some thought to Christmas decorations usually round about Christmas Eve. In fact, thinking on, I haven’t taken them down from last year yet.

In the Bondgenotenlaan there’s some building work going on.

The brick building in the centre of the image has had all of its rear swept away – there’s only the facade still standing and that’s propped up with a big yellow steel framework.

That’s quite a common way of working in Belgium. It keeps the character of the street and of course, no-one can see what’s happening behind the facade.

There was quite a scandal about this in Brussels about 25 years ago. They slapped a preservation order on a building because of a magnificent spiral marble staircase but the developers simply kept the facade and swept away everything else.

Incidentally, that’s a common misconception with the Whitrope Tunnel on the old Waverley Line near Hawick in Scotland. Everyone in the area will tell you that it has a preservation order slapped on it, but the preservation order only applies to the facades or portals.

There’s more rebuilding work going on in the Diestsestraat as well.

last time that we were here we saw them making a start on a vacant site and over the past few weeks they seem to have pushed on quite rapidly with the job – not something to which I’m accustomed in Belgium.

This is the street where all of the cheaper shops might be found but there wasn’t anything in there today that interested me. I was looking for a plunger-operated coffee percolator but I was out of luck.

Well, I wasn’t, but I’m not going to pay €39:99 for one.

One of the things that I did was to buy a new rucksack. The big one that I have is starting to fall apart after all of the rough handling that it’s had for the last four years and this one that I bought was on special offer at €50:00. It’s of a reputable make and has a capacity of 65 litres.

All in all, I managed 5.7 kilometres without stopping for a breather. I know that the town centre is comparatively level so walking around isn’t as difficult as it is in some places, but even so it’s an impressive achievement considering the way that I’ve been feeling just recently.

This evening I finished off the last of the veggie balls with pasta and vegetables, and since then I’ve made a start on packing my things ready to leave tomorrow. I have a train leaving Brussels at 08:43 so I need to be up at 06:00 and well on my way down the road by 07:00.

It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.

Friday 16th July 2021 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since these pages have featured an old car?

At one time it used to be quite regular but these days it’s a lot more rare than it ought to be. And unfortunately, this vehicle here isn’t as old as it looks either.

As I was wandering down the Brusselsestraat on my way home I happened to glance down the Predikherenstraat where I saw this.

At first I thought that my luck was in and it might have been a real Morgan three-wheeler but unfortunately I was not labouring long under a disillusion

One glance at the engine was enough to tell me.

ThIs engine is not a nice big 998cc JAP V-twin but an S and S engine, which tells me that this vehicle is less that 8 years old.

And that’s rather a disappointment because I’m really looking forward to finding an original JAP-engined Morgan from the 1920s and 1930s.

So after having taken a few photographs and having had a chat with another admirer I made my way back into town.

But all of that comes later. We need to start at the beginning.

When the alarm went off I was up early this morning and after the medication I came in here to transcribe my dictaphone notes. I was very much persona non grata at some kind of do involving my family and a couple of girls from my class at Grammar School. I can’t remember what it was about but something came up about, was it Welsh Independence or something? They were all sitting there saying that it’s all been done wrong and if it had been organised correctly they should have done this and this and this. I replied “if you don’t like the way it’s done don’t vote for it” so they said they weren’t and it became something of a slanging match. The younger girl who was there was then talking about a few things “well so-and-so will be coming and we’ll be having to do this down in somewhere” something or other and I was of the opinion that she was having a visitor but I couldn’t understand what it was all about obviously, having been left out of the loop for half a story so I checked my diary. There was nothing in my diary so I thought that I’d better write down a few notes. I went to the drawer to find a pencil. My mother asked me what I was doing. I replied that I was looking for a pencil. I found one but it wasn’t sharpened so I needed to find the sharpener to sharpen the pencil to jot down a few of these notes.

As well as all of that I fell asleep too. Only for about half an hour or so but nevertheless …

At about 08:45 I headed out to the hospital for my appointment.

Seeing all of the people walking along the Tiensestraat loaded up with all kinds of shopping tells me that it’s market day today, as if I wouldn’t have known it anyway.

Here at the Herbert Hooverplein is where it all begins and it spreads out through the Ladeuzeplein and down to the Bondgenotenlaan, swallowing up that whole area.

In the past we’ve been for a wander around the market but unfortunately today we don’t have time. I’m on my way to the hospital for my dermatology session. And so I pushed on down the hill in the Tiensestraat towards the city centre

Halfway down the hill I was almost squidged by a lorry that was reversing back up again having presumably made a delivery there.

The previous day I’d noticed something unusual in the Oud Markt – some kind of shipping container with a display screen outside it.

Today it was open so I could see what was happening in there. What we have are a few exercise bikes in there and people can go for a ride on them. Presumably the distance and speed that they travel is added onto the figure shown on the screen.

Normally I would have loitered around to see of anyone was going to have a go and if the total on the screen would increase but there wasn’t anyone around and I couldn’t wait all that long for someone to turn up.

Down at the foot of the hill is the River Dijle.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve had an unbelievable amount of rain over the last 24 hours and it’s caused all kinds of devastation in the eastern part of the country.

The level of the river has risen quite appreciably since the rain started and even since I last saw it yesterday afternoon it’s risen by another few inches. Not quite as high as it was that day in 2016 when I was living here but another day or two of this weather will deal with that.

That rainstorm yesterday morning was terrific, in many senses of the word.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I talked about the old medieval tower that has now been unveiled to public view following the demolition of Sint Pieter’s Hospital.

Yesterday I’d photographed it by accident because I didn’t know that it was there. But now I do I went there forewarned and forearmed this morning and found a spec where there was a much better view.

It’s protected by scaffolding and corrugated sheeting so that seems to imply that it’s not going to be demolished during the redevelopment of the site and it might even be restored as part of this project that’s ongoing with the city walls further along at the side of the river.

There is some talk about uncovering the river just here too, and that will be interesting if they do that.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is that a couple of months ago we saw them installing a set of bicycle racks in a couple of car parking spaces in the Kruisstraat.

At the time I remember speculating that these bicycle racks wouldn’t be receiving much use as there wasn’t a great deal of accommodation in the area

Nothing that I have seen since has changed my opinion. Despite there being space for about 40 bicycles here, there’s not even a handful and that’s how it’s been every time that I’ve walked past.

Sometimes it’s very difficult to actually work out what is going on in the minds of the City Fathers when they do things like this .

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing are the roadworks around the Monseigneur van Weyenberghlaan and the Goedsbloemstraat.

Last time we were here we saw them finishing off the Goedsbloemstraat, working on the pavement by the traffic lights. What they were doing, which they have now finished, was to install some tactile paving, the corrugated pavement that gives indications to blind people that they are approaching an obstruction.

Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous guises will recall that I once met the girl who designed this tactile paving and we had a little thing going on that unfortunately led nowhere

When I arrived at the hospital I was channelled into the Dermatology clinic where the young trainee doctor poked and prodded me and took sample of my skin. She left me alone for 40 minutes too during which time I … errr … dozed off.

When she returned she had a chat with me about my skin issues, gave me a few prescriptions and then told me to clear off. They will “be in touch”.

On the way back to my digs I went to retake the photos that I didn’t take yesterday.

When the NIKON 1 J5 died on me, I was on my way to take a photo of the new building that’s going up between the Kapucijnenvoer and the Zongang.

And having complained quite long and quite loudly of the Byzantine pace of construction etc in Belgium, then perhaps I should try not to be so vocal in future because they are cracking on with this. It’s going up like a mushroom.

The big difference, I suppose, is that this is a private enterprise building a private building for resale to the general public, rather than a Public Authority work. The quicker it goes up, the quicker the developers can recover their cash.

Nevertheless I suppose that someone will remind me of this in 6 months time when the construction has stalled.

Yesterday we went past this new velodrome that they have constructed. And what with the torrential downpour that we were having, there wasn’t anyone riding around it.

Today of course, the situation is different. The boards are now dry and all of the local kids have descended on the place. A few of them are gingerly feeling their way around whereas one or two of them really have got the hang of the principle of a banked velodrome and are pelting round it.

And like most things involving kids, it all ended in tears a few minutes later in a tangle of kids and bicycles as one came to grief and brought down half a dozen of the others. That was rather odds-on, wasn’t it?

Having dealt with the Morgan, the next couple of photos are going to be quite interesting.

This one here and the one below represent the same image more-or-less, but taken in different ways.

The first one is actually a still taken from a moving picture. I was interested to see what size the resolution of the video would be when I tried it on different screens, but the size of the screen didn’t seem to be an issue.

Nevertheless I took a still from the video to compare it to a still image.

As you can probably see, there’s quite a difference in quality as you might expect when the full-size images are compared, but reduced to the resolution that I use for publication, the difference is not all that much, which is a pleasant surprise.

Why can’t my dashcam produce images of this quality?

Feeling that I’d earned myself a little treat after my exertions, I stopped off halfway up the hill for an ice cream

Just up the road is a pharmacy so I went there with my prescriptions to have them dealt with.

For someone who said that he wanted to cut down on his medication, just look at all of this. It’s going to be something of a logistics issue just taking this lot home with me on the train. It’s a good job that I have a decent shopping bag with me.

And the cost was astonishing, which is hardly a surprise when you see the amount that I was given. My bill at the pharmacy came to €253:00 which is the same as a year’s expenditure on food, I suppose. When I return home I shall have to send in my accounts to my insurers and see about some reimbursement.

This afternoon fighting off the sleep (not always successfully, I have to mention), after lunch I sorted out the music for three new radio programmes, so that’s another batch of all done and dusted. Things are doing rather well from that point but I need to have a go at a few live programmes.

Some of the medication wasn’t available at lunchtime so I had to go back before they closed in the evening to pick it up.

But the number plate of this car parked outside appealed to my rather juvenile mind. I was thinking that it would be appropriate for quite a few people whom I’ve encountered.

One (or rather, two) of the items that the chemist gave me filled me full of dismay. It looks as if we’re back on the elastic stockings too. More and more, I can see myself returning to early 2016 and that’s not very good news..

After tea, I’ve done some tidying up and washing up and now I’m off to bed. Early of course, but I have to leave my bed at about 04:30. So I’ll finish this off tomorrow on the train (if I don’t fall asleep on the way back) and post it on line tomorrow night.

You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?

Saturday 2nd January – I MANAGED TO …

… beat the third alarm out of bed this morning.

Mind you, I have to admit that I cheated somewhat. Not having gone to bed until late and needing to be on form, I reset the alarms to start at 08:00 instead of 06:00. I reckoned that that was a reasonable compromise, what with one thing and another.

First thing that I did was to have a listen to the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night. In fact I’d been in Shavington but it quickly transformed itself into Crewe. There was a fire in the outskirts and it was slowly heading into town. We had things to do, we had to sit down there and I wanted to watch a football match or listen to one on the radio. We were making our way into this big building but it was clear that the flames were starting to get worse and I noticed in the end that I was the only one in there. Then someone else came round, a woman with a few things . I had a feeling that if I stopped she would stop too and that was going to be a bit silly so I explained to her about how dangerous the fire was going to be. In the end we went outside and there were a few people outside co-ordinating rescue efforts. One of the guys from the radio was in charge. We stood and watched for a couple of minutes then slowly picked up our things and moved away as we heard that the fire had now reached the outskirts of Crewe round Davenport Avenue and Nantwich Road. We moved away and I had the satisfaction in seeing that I was the last one to gather up my stuff and move away and I checked to make sure that everything was clear before we did so. It reminded me of a General and his troops retreating and how the General ought to be the last and making sure that the way was clear in order to do so just like in the Army.

In connection with the fire, later on in the night 3 objects came up for auction. There was a soldier’s compass, a soldier’s badge and a 3rd thing that I can’t remember what it was. I remember thinking that these would have come in handy if we had been in the fire and these were available. This was where the fire dream came in at this point just here and now and we found ourselves back in Shavington on the corner between Edwards Avenue and Edwards Close with this burnt and blackened paper shredded and flying around.

The next task was the Welsh homework. No matter what, I have to keep up to date with that. It didn’t take me all that long although it’s bcoming more and more complicated and took quite some research. Interestingly, we aren’t now being asked to asnwer questions, we are being asked to come up with questions to ask.

Afer a shower, I made some sandwiches and then, gathering them up, I headed off to the Railway Station.

While I was waiting for my train to Brussels I was eating my sandwiches on the platform. And hence I was taken completely by surprise when the train came in early.

Our train today is one of the strange AM96 multiple units. When one trainset is coupled to another the rubber bellows make a perfect seal, and the drivers’ cabs at the join tilt round 90° so that passengers can walk from one trainset to another.

Our train pulled into Brussels Central Station bang on time, and walking up the steps I met my friend Esi.

Esi and I studied together and University when we both lived in Brussels years ago but she went back to Wales and I went on to France after we graduated. We’ve met up a couple of times since then when our paths have crossed in Brussels but earlier last year when Brexit became a reality she moved back to Belgium to cement her European rights.

The two of us went for a walk around the park opposite the Royal Palace where we chatted about our different adventures since we last met, and then went off to the Belvue Museum in the Place du Palais to meet one of her friends and then for a walk around the museum.

The museum is a fascinating place to visit. It’s all about the history of the country of Belgium since it won its independence in 1830.

There was plenty to see in there and I could have spent a lot longer in there than our alloted time slot. But for me, the pride of the place was this gorgeous FN 4. It’s the world’s first 4-cylinder in-line motorbike – block 4s and V4s had been made previously – and was made between 1905 and 1914.

This is a later one rather than an earlier one – you can tell that by the rear brake. This is a drum brake whereas the earlier ones had rim brakes rather like a pushbike.

Interestingly, to start it up, you had to pedal it until the engine fired up. No kickstart.

One of the more interesting things to see is the view from out of one of the windows.

This view is right up the Rue Royale, past the park where we walked just now, all the way past the old Jardin Botanique and all the way down to the Église Royale Sainte-Marie de Schaerbeek, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city but now sadly delapidated and more-or-less abandoned despite the fact that it was renovated 30 years ago.

After the museum, Esi had a few things to do so the three of us walked around the city running errands. We stopped for a coffee in the Central Station and then like the Knights of the Round Table, we went our separate ways.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there are 4 expresses every hour from Brussels to Leuven. However they are all bunched pretty much together and then there’s a long gap.

There is however a semi-urban stopping train that runs across the Metropolitan area and terminates at Leuven. We’ve caught it a few times when we went to watch the football at Tubize and one of them pulled into Central Station just at the right moment. It’s one of the modern class AM08 multiple units that was just coming into service as I left the city.

When it pulled up in the station we all piled out and I headed off back home to my digs, having first stopped to take a photo of the train

Well, in actual fact, I didn’t head off hiome. I had a few things to do first.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other evening when I was wandering around the city in the dark, I took a photo of the Bondgenotenlaan from the Rector de Somerplein looking down to the railway station. Tonight, seeing as I was standing outside the railway station in the Martelarenplein, I could take a photo of the Bondgenotenlaan looking back down to where I was the other night.

Right down the far end of the street we can see the lights of the Stadhuis – the Town Hall – in the Grote Markt.

While I was here in the Martelarenplein I had a good look around the neighbourhood to see what else I could see.

Where I’m standing now is on an overbridge that crosses the ring road – the Tiensevest – that is emerging from a tunnel underground. It’s one of the main throroughfares of the city with the railway station to my left and so just the kind fo place that you would expect to be brightly illuminated to welcome visitors to the city, but once again, it’s quite depressingly banal.

All in all, I’m rather disappointed with the Christmas decorations this year, not just in leuven but in just about everywhere that I have visited.

Turning round further to my left there was a view between the buildings to the eastern end of the train shed of the station.

Behind it, there’s one of the hotels in the vicinity of the station and then a couple of office blocks. This is the area where it all happens.

Back at my little room it was teatime so I made a plate of pasta and vegetables and chick peas with tomato sauce. But just as I was sitting down to start my notes, Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we ended up being on the phone together for 1 hour and 38 minutes.

There was now some packing to do and then I have to go to bed as son as I can because I have to get up at 05:00 and you know how I feel about that these days.

As for my notes, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Wednesday 30th December 2020 – I HAVEN’T BEEN …

… very far today.

And that’s because for most of the day we’ve been in the grip of a torrential downpour. It was going at it hammer and tongs when I awoke so to be honest I turned over and went back to sleep where I stayed until about 09:30.

It was still raining when I awoke so I had a drink and then listened to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. There had been a party going on in the attic of my house in Virlet and for some unknown reason all of the lights went out. It wasn’t dark, but I was there at the cables trying to touch different cables with a connector to see if the lights would come on, trying to work out the position in which these two cables ought to be in, in order to make the lights wotk. It seemed pretty straightforward but you’ve no idea how complicated it was last night when all of this was going on. Occasionally I was getting the lights to be illuminated but they didn’t look bright enough, suggesting a bad earth or something like that or whether they had the terminals the wrong way round (which of course wouldn’t work LEDs). I was making such a hard job of making this job correct and I have to say that the wiring that I was messing around was a total mess to start with. It didn’t resemble anything like a set of wiring ought to do, except the wiring that I did right at the very beginning.

Later on there was a conflict in a family-run business and the old guy who ran it had been shunted out and the two brothers were fighting over it. It came to dividing up the assets and 1 of the brothers suggested that because of the way of life of the other, he wasn’t entitled to as much money. This discussion went on for ages and in the end they agreed to settle it by an exchange of assets – a painting and something else would be exchanged for a painting and something else of greater value and that way it would be quits. The 2nd brother went to talk to his father about it and in the end, secretly one night before this exchange was due to take place they agreed a change of assets themselves which left n°2 son better off and withdrawing all his claims, leaving his father who was in a much better place to fight the claims against his other son. As they were saying goodbye to each other it was a case of “for God’s sake don’t go home. You want to hit the road straight away to make sure that the other son doesn’t come round to your house by accident and catch you with this because you’ve had a much better deal and he would be extremely dismayed by this”. And then the father too hit the road with his ill-gotten gains but started to be dogged all the way by his illegitimate children turning up from when he was younger claiming their share, unpaid bills suddenly appearing that the company hadn’t satisfied and so on which would lead to a seizure of assets. It seems that the n°2 brother wasn’t as stupid as he looked and had gone and shopped his father for all of this in the hope that if all of the assets were liquidated he would receive more because of his family share of it.

This led to another walking adventure, of which there have been more than a few just recently. I was walking with another couple of guys walking away from somewhere which might have been this situation and having a really pleasant and pleasurable long walk through the south-west England countryside trying to get away from civilisation for a while. On one occasion we ended up lying underneath a car talking about bread pudding, whether you butter the slices of bread or not (ohhh! The excitement!)

Finally, I was being held prisoner for some reason and a big burly guy something like Bernard Bresslaw had been instructed to “deal with” me. When he took me outside I explained that we’d had our differences but they had always been fair fights and we took what was coming in good grace, but this was a pretty unfair way of doing it and did he think it right? etc. he started to see my point of view and agree but just then his boss came in, clearly exhausted and exasperated after a hard day somewhere and barked out a few orders, and I could see then at that moment that I was wasting my time.

As you might imagine, it took me quite a while to transcribe all of that. And what surprised me was that I’d been so far. I’d had a really bad night it it had taken me hours to go to sleep.

By the time that I’d finished, the rain had stopped so I cleared off quickly into town.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve been looking at this property for quite a while.

It’s part of the complex where I have my accommodation, a part that has not yet been developed. It’s been a rubbish dump for quite a while until they started to tidy it all up a while ago.

And I know the story behind it now because I asked the complex manager when I saw him. It seems that they had started to develop it into apartments for the hotel but planning permission was refused, and they have been fighting about it for the last 10 years. The manager isn’t all that optimistic about its future.

As for the tidying up, they apparently had a notice served on them by the local council.

There’s yet more excitement going on just around the corner in the Tiensestraat.

There’s a vague idea going on around in my head that last time that I was here they were doing something to one of the properties there but it seems that whatever it was that was here, they have simply erased it from the map. This is going to be something to keep an eye on over the next while.

From here I headed off into town to see what was going on. And the answer to that is “nothing”. It was a bit much to expect that the Christmas market was going to be working this year.

There was nothing whatever happening in FNAC either. If that was their New Year sale, it’s a bit thin. And I imagine that the New Year sales for most places will be the same.

In the Bondgenotenlaan they have been working on this property for a few years now.

It’s where WIBRA used to be and after they left it was totally stripped out down to the four walls. And it’s another thing that’s taking a while to come to a conclusion. They are a long way from finishing it.

Talking of WIBRA, I stuck my head in there and also in Zeeman but there was nothing to tempt me. Not even a nice new
woolly hat that I would like. I ended up in Delhaize for just a couple of things and then came back here.

After lunch I sat down and did some work on the radio programmes. I now have two programmes with the music chosen, remixed and paired. And I’m hoping to do a couple more on Friday.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to do my Welsh homework as I … errr … had a little relaxation.

No tea either – I wasn’t al all hungry, so I wrote up my notes for the day, such as they were. No evening walk either as it’s still pouring down with rain and didn’t leave off until after curfew as you might expect.

So a rather late night, and tomorrow I have the hospital when I can see what they are going to do to me. And see how I’ve been keeping for the last couple of months since my last appointment in October.

And I shudder to think.

Saturday 25th January 2020 – THEY WERE RIGHT …

… about this “fatigue” thing as a side effect of this new medical treatment.

Last night I crashed out long before I’d finished the notes for the day and having anticipated some kind of reaction and thus having switched off the alarm, it was 08:37 when I fist saw the light of day.

And that’s not to say that I left my bed either at that time.

But when I did, I had my medication and then came back up here and finished off yesterday’s notes. And it took me an age too because I wasn’t quite “with it”.

After breakfast I attacked the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

I started off with someone and we had been in a Traction Avant – a white one – and it was the road that left Shavington past the High School. It was very steep and got steeper and there was loose gravel and stones. We went roaring up there at a ridiculous speed making tons of clouds of dust, everything at the risk of punctures on the sharp stones. We got right to the top and we were talking about this and I can’t remember now. Then it came down to having to go back. I ended up with these two girls in the car with me. I must admit that was quite keen on these girls and so I asked them “do you want to go the way back or do you want to go a different way?” There was in fact a different way that was much more quieter and much more intimate. I thought “yes, we’ll go back a different way”. But instead they took me back yet another way, not the way that I was thinking. We were in a Morris 1100 by this time. We got back down the hill and the road was all flooded. We turned left and it was flooded there so I told the girl who was driving – one of these girls was driving – “keep it out of the wet. Keep it well over this side of the road and go really slow”. Just as we got there some guys were standing about and sending a huge splash on everyone so you couldn’t see and the cars were having accidents. Some people were getting out of their cars chasing these boys. I was telling these two girls that I just can’t get used to this kind of behaviour. It’s nothing like what it is in Europe and I just don’t understand it. They said something like “yes you get the complaints about the kids being on the streets all the time and out of the control of their parents and here they all are”. And at that point I must have awoken because the voyage seemed to have stopped there.
Later though we had the Pears soap commercial kind of thing. Clare had posted something about Wright’s Coal tar Soap in her Social Network page. We were playing football and some of the tackles were really desperate and dangerous and these kids were doing fine. There was a “share” button where you could share this video out with different people so I pressed “share” so that my friends could see the kind of foul tactics that this team was using against a team of kids. I don’t remember much about this but I seem to remember that I lost my wheelchair somewhere. And what all of this and the flashback to the Granville – Olympique de Marseille have to do with Clare and her soap I really have no idea.
Later still I was with Terry and Liz at Darren and Kate’s. We ended up in the cellar and their cellar was enormous. It was really really nice. I was being shown around it. There were four or five little rooms, one a boiler room with a boiler in it. They had cupboards hanging from the ceiling where the drawers pulled downwards into the room. I thought “how strange is that? it’s stupid”. But they pulled the drawers down and showed me that they were all arranged like shelves inside with all screws and all that kind of thing in it and it was really well done. The boiler was nice and hot and there was a big table by there and Darren and kate were working out some kind of design on the big table. One of the kids shouted that all the cats were out. A big grey and white one came in to the cellar and “no, we haven’t seen that. Are you sure that that one is ours? There are only 3 or 4 like that in the whole world. I gave it a big stroke and a tickle under the chin. It turned out that it belonged to a famous actress. She had had it as a kitten and one of the kids had lost their cat so she gave it to the kid.

Believe it or not, all of that took ;e up until midday, at which point I went out for some bread.

Deciding to go for an extended walk and see what was in the shops, my perambulations took me via the FNAC (where there was nothing of interest) into the Bondgenotenlaan where I could qdmire the work that;s being done to the old “Wibra” shop.

We had some good things from there in the past and it’s a shame that they moved into smaller premises where they only carry a fraction of the stock.

They have completely gutted the building until there is just the facade left.

We saw then a while ago having dug out the cellar and now they seem to be fitting in the concrete flooring for the first floor, the ground floor having already been done.

It’s taken them an age to get this far and I can’t see them finishing it off any time soon. But it will be interesting to see what will be going on here in the end.

Kruidvat had nothing of interest and neither did Zeeman, Hema, Sports Direct, Blokker and Flying Tiger. But the Wibra did. I’d bought a flexible rubber spatula for cookery purposes a while ago and I’ve found it useful for so many things. But I don’t want to taint it with tomato sauce and stuff like that so I need another. And there in Wibra they had small ones for just 79 cents.

Couldn’t find any small pyrex bowls, and neither could I find a set of pastry-cutting rings. I shall have to keep on trying my Systme D method.

having been to the Delhaize for my bread, my attention was distracrd yet again, in the Brusselsestraat this time.

This mobile food stall in the outdoor market here is one that I haven’t noticed before. And I surely would have done because it’s advertising quite a range of vegan food.

Not that I was too interested at that moment, having organised my butties for lunch, but I made a mental note of its existence for it might one day come in useful.

Coming back up the Tiensestraat I noticed that they had been digging a hole in the pavement so I went to have a look down inside.

Not that I was sure what I was going to see of interest, if anything at all, but these brick foundations look interesting. The building here is a comparatively modern one so these presumably relate to a previous building here on the site.

And I bet that they would have an interesting story to tell us if only they could speak. It’s the kind of thing that is full of history.

Back home to the back of the Condo gardens in the Windmolenveldstraat.

We’d seen yesterday that there was some work going on on the fence here, but there’s more work going on at one of the houses in the Tiensevest that backs onto the Windmolenveldstraat. The rear of the house has been demolished and it looks as if an extension might be being built here.

That’s something else for me to keep my eye on in the course of time, I suppose.

By the time that I returned it was long after lunchtime so I made my butties and a coffee. The aim was to carry on with more work but instead, this fatigue thing caught up with me and I crashed out again.

A proper, deep, full-blooded intense crashing out too. I was properly gone with the wind and for some while too.

When I finally rejoined the Land of the Living I had a shower and washed my clothes and then carried on with some more radio stuff.

The music for Project 17 is now chosen as far as I can, and I’m about half-way though the music for Project 18. With a live concert to fit in somewhere in between, I’m now well into March and that is exactly where I want to be. I need to be at least 2 months ahead of myself just in case I do actually make it back to the High Arctic again.

Tea was pasta and vegetables with lentils in tomato sauce followed by peach halves and sorbet. Thoroughly delicious it was too

later on, I went for a really good walk. My route took me around the Tiensevest, up the Parkstraat and into the Naamsestraat.

It’s a route that I hadn’t taken before so I was hoping to see lots of new things the existence of which I was previously unaware. And I wasn’t disappointed either because I came across the Sint Michielskerk in the Naamsestraat.

Built between 1650 and 1671 by the Jesuits, it’s said to be one of the most important baroque churches in the whole of Europe. And it certainly looked impressive to me from where I was standing.

No mention seems to be made of any damage during the Sack of Leuven in 1914 so it may well have escaped that, only to have been hit during a bombing raid in 1944.

You can’t win ’em all.

Just up the road a little at number 37 is this beautiful building.

Leuven was, and still is, a very rich city and there’s evidence of that all over the place. Magnificent houses are everywhere and this one is a typical example.

These days it seems to be a solicitors’ office but it would be interesting to look into its history and see who lived here in the past. Whoever it was can’t have been short of a bob or two and I for one am quite jealous.

We’ve been to the Hogeschoolplein before, but not down at this end.

Here is the statue of Andre Dumont. He’s more usually associated with Liege but his claim to fame is that he was responsible for the geological maps of Belgium published between 132 and 1849, having travelled all over the country – on foot. He deserves a statue for that alone.

As for the square itself, it was created between 1807 and 1812 and there are several colleges from the University scattered around here – hence the name.

But it also has another claim to fame too.

We’ve seen Pizzamats and Potatomats and breadomats in the past, but the Hogeschoolplein is the only place in the whole wide world where i have ever encountered a Dessertomat.

And if you think that I’m joking, I’m not. Put your three or four euros in and dial the appropriate number and you’ll have your Black Forest Gateau or Tiramisu without any more ado than that.

It’s probably the most interesting thing that I’ve seen in Belgium.

Back here I wrote up my journal and now I’m off to bed. Later than intended. And despite it being Sunday, there’s an alarm set for tomorrow because I’m having a day out in Germany. And I’m looking forward to that.

An early start so I need to be on form. But with only 5 hours sleep I’m not sure how that’s going to work at all.

Friday 13th December 2019 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that my blood count has gone up yet again. It’s now at 9.2 which is pretty astonishing as far as I am concerned. And I made a point to ask exactly what treatment they are giving me for my illness and the answer is “nothing”. The tablets that I take are to counter various side effects and the medication is to boost up my immune system.

But as for the illness, absolutely nothing.

Mind you, it’s pretty disconcerting to see that your doctor needs medical treatment herself. She had problems with her foot. But nevertheless, she can come and soothe my fevered brow any time she likes. This is a University hospital and all of the staff at this level are young University students. There has to be some benefit of my illness and I intend to make the most of it.

But as for bad news, then there’s plenty of that.

Firstly, my train out of Paris has been cancelled on Sunday due to the strike. It’s not the end of the world though because there are other solutions, amongst which “hiring a car” should never be ruled out. But there are options other than that to consider first.

Even so, hiring a car might sound expensive to some, but when you think about the price of a hotel in Paris, it’s not an outrageous proposition at all.

And that’s not all. You’ve all heard about the results of the Uk General Election where 14 million people voted for the Fascists and only 6.5 million voted to revoke the exit from the EU.

That in itself isn’t so important. But what IS important is that I now lose

Some of my UK pension rights
my health insurance rights
my employment rights
my rights of free movement and residence in the EU

And when one of my (ex) friends in the UK posted something bewailing her lot and I replied telling her to make the most of what she’ll be getting because I’ll be getting much worse than that, she called me all kinds of names (honestly!) and accused me of all kinds of things for not sympathising with her, even though she didn’t spend a single moment thinking about my lot.

But that’s the true spirit of the British people. Mean, narrow-minded, selfish, self-centred. I’m better off without these people dragging me down. And isn’t that just why I abandoned everyone in the UK in the first place? It can’t be a coincidence that they all end up like that. They all show their true colours eventually.

It’s definitely Friday 13th today!

Last night I wanted an early night so I tried the usual standby – switch on the laptop to watch a film. And sure enough, it works every time. Within 10 minutes I was away.

And right away too. There are a few files on the dictaphone that weren’t there when I went to bed, so it should be interesting to see those when I make it back home.

The alarms went off as usual at 06:00 etc but seeing as my appointment at Castle Anthrax wasn’t until this afternoon I was in no rush to rouse myself. A little lie-in did me good and it was 07:30 when I finally showed a leg.

This morning was spent firstly dealing with last night’s little perambulations.

I vaguely remember something about ships and fuel tankers having to reposition themselves and so on. Some captain had to reposition his ship but he hadn’t brought his money with him so it was rather pointless. i’d ended up at my electronic studio and I was trying to work on something. I managed to produce a really really good electronic music track and while I was at it I produced some vocals and overdubbed them over a piece of music that someone else had written and they were really really good. A few people came round to my house to do something with the computer so I had these tracks playing in the background and they looked really impressed. Although after a few minutes they asked “are we going to get on with some work or are we going to listen to this all day?” and I thought that maybe I had played a little too much and that was a shame because I was so impressed with what I’d done.
Sometime later we were back with the songs again and someone was going to bring some music over and we were going to do all of the singing. It meant getting out of this crowded tram. Someone was fighting their way to the door but the doors closed and there was a cry of “jam the door”. Someone stuck their foot in it so that it wouldn’t close, and it rebounded open. This person had to fight their way out through the crowds and out of the door. We ended up talking about fishing again and the situation of the British having sold all their permits and are now getting upset because the permits that they sold are now making money and the ones that they still have aren’t, and as usual.

Then we had the issue of dealing with the egocentric and selfish Brits in the UK but I did tear myself away to go to the Delhaize for shopping. Pasta, burgers and frozen veg will be on the menu or the next few days.

Back here, I had a shower and a clothes wash, made my butties and then headed for the hospital, calling at the Delhaize in town on the way because I had forgotten the vegan cheese and vegan mayonnaise.

Pouring down with rain now but I pushed on regardless.

My route today took me, as usual, down the Brusselsestraat and past St Pieter’s Hospital. An early and significant casualty of the linguistic war, this huge modern hospital was constructed to serve the French community, apparently (so I was told) who, once it was built, created a new town called Louvain-le-Neuve and moved all of their infrastructure out there instead.

The memory that I will always retain of this place as they make a serious start on demolishing it is that there were still the makers’ labels on the double-glazed windows on some of the floors because the rooms on those floors had never even been occupied.

By the time that I reached the hospital I was looking something like a drowned rat. 13:30 was my appointment but I was treated at 13:45 and then I was sat in a chair for a while as the medication was pumped into me.

Rosemary rang and we had a good chat while it was all going on, and eventually I was thrown out. A call at the pharmacy for medication and then down into town.

Last time that we were here they were excavating a giant hole in the middle of the car park on the Jacobsplein, and I was interested to see how they were getting on and, more importantly, what they were going to be doign with it.

So here I am, and all that I can say is that in the last 4 weeks or so there hasn’t been very much change in the situation. The hole is still there and there doesn’t seem to be anythign to indicate why they have actually gone and dug it out.

It’s probably one of those things where time wil ltell and I should come back in four weeks time where I shall be equally confounded.

A visit to the Origin’O Health Food shop was also on the cards The Delhaize doesn’t sell all the vegan product that I need.

Before I went in though, I took the opportunity to take a photo of the Christmas lights in the Vismarkt. You can do quite a lot with modern LED lighting and this looked particularly good to me.

That was the cue to go into the shop and see what was on offer. They had some of that nice smoked vegan cheese that I had before so I bought some more of that, as well as some more grated cheese for the pizzas and the cheese sauces.

Though the rainstorm had died down by now, it was still wet and miserable going back to my little room.

For that reason, and also for the fact that I had the little Nikon 1 with me and not the big D500 with me, I didn’t hang around too long looking at Leuven’s Christmas lights, beautiful as they might be like these ones in the Bondgenotenlaan.

What I’ll have to do is that if it’s not raining tomorrow evening, I’ll bring the big Nikon out for a walk and go on a prowl around the city to see what I can see.

By the time that I arrived back at my room it wasn’t far off tea time so I made myself some food. And it wasn’t too bad either. It’ll keep the wolf from the door for a while.

There was football on the internet later. While Connah’s Quay Nomads were being turned over by Cefn Druids, we were being treated to Barry Town v TNS.

And it was easy to see why TNS have been Champions of the Welsh Premier League for the last couple of hundred years. Barry Town had been leading the league at one point this season but TNS dealt with them in summary fashion, winning 4-1 away from home without even breaking sweat.

First to the ball on almost every occasion they never looked in trouble at all and had Ratcliffe in the Barry goal not played a blinder, TNS could easily have doubled their tally.

As far as I’m concerned, they may as well give the title to TNS right now because no-one is ever going to stop them. They could even afford the luxury of leaving Greg Draper their leading scorer on the bench until about the 80th minute.

On that note, I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough for now. Nothing planned for tomorrow except to recover from today so if the weather has improved I’ll just go for a long walk.

See you tomorrow.

Incidentally, I did take some photos of the Christmas lights of the city. Too many to put on this page so if you want to see them you need to go to this page

Friday 15th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

Even though I went to bed early, I was almost immediately stricken by a bad attack of cramp.And this went on for several hours and I was in total agony. What was even worse was that some of the attacks occurred spontaneously without even moving. I have never hurt so much in all my life.

At some point during the night I did manage to go off to sleep. And to go on a voyage too. To some kind of touristy island in the Mediterranean where there was a typical British family trying to run a bar. They were making a lot of money at it too catering for all of the Brits who went there, but there was clearly something else going on because although one side of the cashing-up briefcase was full of cash, the other side was empty and there was a very neat slit in the bottom of the case that someone had made to get into the case and take the money. In the end, they decided to move to an island just offshore where there was a vacant bar. There was some kind of festival that had taken place on there, where four people charged a bull, and then the five of them turned round and charged the rest of the people sitting at the table. They decided to revive the festival, but the first day there it was pouring down with rain and they were so dispirited that they didn’t want to open. In the end, I volunteered to go because even though there wouldn’t be any custom,the place still needed to be open. So I went upstairs to the cafe but two policemen followed me up and they fixed two white triangles in the window to indicate that the place was closed by the authorities. Apparently the new owners hadn’t applied for a licenceand they were fed up of Brits coming over and flouting all of the regulations just because they didn’t suit. All of this ended by the youngest son going off to an island off the coast of Madagascar to open something but he had been to the authorities to sort out all of the licensing issues first.

We had the usual medication and breakfast – and my porridge took longer than at home – probably due to the lesser power of the microwave here. and then I spent most of the morning catching up with some work.

At lunchtime I went off down the Tiensestraat to the Delhaize in the centre of town.

My route took me round by the Herbert Hooverplein and despite all of the time that I lived here in Leuven I didn’t know about the existence of this market.

It stretches right round into the Ladeuzeplein too. It was closing down now that it’s lunch time so I’ll have to come here earlier the next time.

FNAC came up with nothing either which was a shame, so I headed off down the Bondgenotenlaan.

On the other side of the road there seemed to be a gilets jaunes demonstration, but closer examination revealed that it was in fact nothing more than a group of nursery school on their way for an afternoon out.

So I left them there and went on to the Loving Hut.

And the Loving Hut was a wash-out yet again. But at Delhaize I found stuff for lunch as well as some vegan burgers, tinned vegetables and pasta sauce for tea for the next few days.

With having had a really bad night I spent most of the afternoon drifting off into a state of semi-consciousness broken only by a shower and a clothes washing session.

And then tea – and I overcooked my burger which was a shame but the rest of it was nice, especially the sorbet and pineapple.

Later on, I went for a walk around the Tiensesteenweg.

The fritkot there, where I used to go for my chips when I first started living at this end of the town had closed down a while ago. Tonight, I noticed that they were in the process of flattening it.

I wonder what they are going to put here in its place.

While I was here, I peered in at the window of the motorbike shop – but I couldn’t see much in here.

But now it’s an early night. I’ve an early start tomorrow and off to Koln. And the weather forecast is exactly as I expected. Pouring down with rain.

street market monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven belgium

roadworks paving grote markt leuven belgium

railway bridge leuven belgium

Tuesday 25th December 2018 – A MERRY CHRISTMAS …

… to all my readers. And I’ll refuse to make any comment about Crewe Bus Station toilets, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I make the same remark almost every year.

While you admire a photo of the buildings of the Hogeschoolplein, taken during my evening stroll tonight, let me tell you about my Christmas Day.

Or, rather, starting off with yesterday night’s affairs.

t wasn’t that much of an early night – being in bed at something like 01:00. But I had no intention whatsoever of leaving my bed when I awoke at 04:30. Nor at 07:00 either.

While you admire the Town Hall, or Stadhuis, last night I was on a crowded railway station waiting for a train called the something-or-other express. At the time it was due to arrive, a train pulled in, but this was called by a different name, so I didn’t go for it. And neither did a few other people. Our train didn’t appear so after a while I went to find someone to ask about it. They told me that the train that I had mentioned – that was our train but it was now known by a different name. Eventually I tracked down one of the station supervisors and told him of what had happened. There was a similar train due in in three hours time so I asked him to make sure that the other name of the train would be called too so that there would be no confusion. He replied that he couldn’t arrange for an unexpected train to stop in the station regardless of the circumstances – and was then called away to attend to someone else. I eventually caught up with him and explained that he had misunderstood the situation. The train wasn’t unexpected at all – it was simply a question of the name. Anyway, the train did stop, the name was called and we all climbed aboard. It was a double-decker so I went upstairs, and we set off. By now our train had transformed into a bus coming from Southwest London near where I lived once upon a time in Wandsworth. We went around a square something like Trafalgar Square and the bus was swaying dramatically about and everyone was gasping. It turned out that there had been a heavy snowfall, the ploughs had shifted the snow into banks at the side of the road and our bus was driving up and down over these snowbanks.

09:00 was a much more realistic time to come to my senses (such as they are these days) and from then on the rest of the day was spent in gentle leisure. I didn’t do anything.

Lunch was nibbling on bits and pieces here and there, and straight after lunch I started to make tea.

I fried some onions and garlic, added the tempeh cubes that I had bought, and when they were fried, put them in some water with a stock cube and some frozen veg. They were then left to simmer for an hour.

I had a shower too and washed my clothes to date. I need to keep up-to-date with my clothes.

Following that, in accordance with usual procedures just recently, I ended up having a crash out on the bed.

Later on, the lazy day continued, with a pause for tea (and there’s plenty left for tomorrow) followed by half of the Christmas pudding in a creamy soya sauce.

Round about 22:30 I went for an evening walk into town.

To admire the Christmas lights, see if there was anything going on and to stretch my legs. There were a few more people around than yesterday but still not the crowds that you might expect.

By midnight I was back here loitering around again and by 01:00 I was in bed. One of the quietest Christmas Days that I’ve had.

But I don’t care. It does me good to relax every now and again.

night town hall stadhuis christmas lights grote markt leuven louvain belgium

night christmas lights bondgenotenlaan leuven louvain belgium

night monseigneur ladeuzeplein library leuven louvain belgium

night town hall stadhuis christmas lights leuven louvain belgium

night christmas lights mechelsestraat leuven louvain belgium

night hogeschoolplein leuven louvain belgium

night quo vadis muntstraat leuven louvain belgium

Sunday 23rd December 2018 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER .

… thing crossed off my list of things to do.

Back in the early 1970s when I first started coming over to Oostende, I was always puzzled by the train that was waiting at the station for the passengers. Its destination was always Welkenraedt and I didn’t have a clue where Welkenraedt was.

A little later I had a look for where Welkenraedt might be. It’s a small town nestled in the Ardennes miles from anywhere.

That puzzled me even more as to why the boat trains from Oostende would be going there.
I eventually found the reason. It’s a junction station where lines from Spa and from Eupen come in.

But more importantly, it’s the last station of any importance before the German border. The electricity current in Germany used to be different to that in Belgium, so that was where the Belgian engine came off, and then a German locomotive would be attached to take the train on into Europe.

Alison and I went to Welkenraedt on one of our excursions out back in July to see what was going on. But it was always my ambition, strange though it might seem, to change trains there.

So here I am, on a windswept, soaking wet freezing platform huddled under a tiny shelter at Welkenraedt in the middle of winter waiting for a train to come in.

And no coffee for miles around either

Despite it being Sunday I’d left the alarm connected and at 06:00 it duly rang. No breakfast, no medication, just packing my backpack and then out into the dark, stopping off on the way to take a few photos of around the station area because I had plenty of time..

At 07:24 the train to Eupen came into the station and I leapt aboard. And at Welkenraedt I hopped out. These days the trains don’t go on into Europe but go round to Eupen.

We had to wait for a diesel multiple-unit to come rattling in from Spa.

We didn’t have long to wait until this filthy, dirty disreputable ancient thing came staggering into the station.

Old, covered in grafitti and all kinds of things, and the train was even worse. I’d be ashamed to be seen in something like this, and the idea that the SNCB would be content to send such a machine into a foreign country where it could be compared with the pristine stuff on offer over there is an absurdity to say the least.

But here it was and here I was. So I climbed aboard and rattled off into Germany.

Here I am finally in Germany, in Aachen in fact, at the Hauptbahnhof.

I have to change trains here, and there’s a wait of about 20 minutes for my connection, so there is plenty of time for breakfast.

German bread is probably the best in the world and so a couple of bread rolls of different varieties and a coffee were just what the doctor ordered.

My next train was already in the station. A newish double-decker that put the SNCB offering to shame. This rolled off out of the station, 10 seconds late, and an hour later, I was in Koln.

That was where I took this photograph, by the way.

Interestingly, the announcements on the train were in German followed by English. I imagined what might be the response from the xenophobic racist Brexiters if this kind of cosmopolitanism were ever to happen in the UK.

It’s years since I’ve been to Koln. About 2007 if my memory serves me correctly.

Looking for something to do to pass the time, I’d been idly scanning through the SNCB website and I found that a voyage by train from Leuven to Köln and return would cost me a mere €68:00 – that’s a four-hundred kilometre round trip.

With nothing much happening in Belgium, I decided to come for a day out.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the city, visiting all of the places that I had visited on my previous trips. But at midday I had to return to the cathedral.

When I was chair of the North European Regional Forum of Open University students, one of the committee members lived here in Koln. And by coincidence she was a big friend of my old friend Liz. Hence the regular visits to Koln. Jackie and I hadn’t seen each other since those days, but she had heard that I was coming to Koln and we were going to meet for lunch.

It was at that moment that the heavens opened. As I picked my way through the crowds I was becoming wetter and wetter, and so I was glad to meet Jackie and go for a coffee.

When the rain eased off a little we headed off into the town and an Italian restaurant. It was a strange place for an Italian restaurant. They wouldn’t do me a plate of vegetables with pasta and tomato sauce. I got the pasta and the tomato sauce, but they couldn’t do the vegetables. That can only mean one thing, as I’m sure that the more astute readers will realise.

By now the rain was coming down even worse, but we headed off regardless. Down the main shopping street and through a couple of the Christmas markets, looking at the products on sale.

We ended up at a hot drinks stall. Jackie had a gluhwein and I had a hot cocktail. The mugs were beautiful so we forewent the deposit and I took them away in my backpack.

Jackie’s partner came down to meet us. They were off to a carol concert at the end of the afternoon so I said goodbye

Now on my own, I retraced my steps back through the markets and down to the River Rhine, thinking that I could have done with a good Rhinecoat.

I walked up along the side of the river and then up the steps to the Hohenzollern Bridge – the huge railway bridge with a pedestrian footpath that straddles the river.

It was a dismal dreary walk in the dark and the rain but even so, it’s good to stand there in mid-stream and watch the fleets of barges and cruise ships passing by underneath.

Eventually I found myself back at the railway station. And to my dismay, the rear of the station has all been cleared up and modernised and the excellent fritkot that I remembered from the past has been swept away.

Nevertheless I did manage to fit myself up with some food. Back inside the station, I found a Thai restaurant in the subterranean shopping gallery that had a range of vegetarian and vegan food.

I had a stir-fry tofu with rice and it was really good.

My train was a few minutes early and already in the platform. To my surprise it was pulled by the same locomotive that had brought me out.

I hopped aboard and grabbed myself a comfortable seat. And here I had an interesting encounter with a German ticket-collector. It had been so wet that the damp atmosphere had caused the ink on my rail ticket to run and he couldn’t read it.

In the end, reason prevailed.

Another wait at Aachen for an even more disreputable Belgian multiple-unit. And which, surprisingly (or maybe not) it was likewise the same one that had brought me out.

There was graffiti all over the inside of the train and rubbish strewn all over the floor. Not a very good advert for the SNCB, sending atrain like this across the border into foreign parts.

And then another wait on the cold and wet at Welkenraedt for my train back to Leuven.

So now, I’m back home, looking and feeling like one more haggard, drowned rat, although I had no idea where I would find one more haggard drowned rat at this time of night.

And straight off to bed because I have the hospital in the morning and I need to be on form.

On my travels today, I took well over 100 photos. Some are in the text and some more below.

But if you want to see the rest, I’ve prepared a web page where you can see them in all their sodding and dripping glory, such as it was.

christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium