Tag Archives: jacobsplein

Wednesday 15th June 2016 – I FELT SORRY …

… for my landlord. He came all the way here with a new flourescent tube for my little room, and I didn’t use it.

I was in bed listening to radio programmes on the laptop, long before it went dark. And I must have crashed out completely because I remember nothing until waking up to switch off the laptop round about midnight. And that was about that until 06:33 when I awoke. And I did feel much better after that.

But here’s the most exciting news of today, and that is that I may well have found somewhere else to stay for the 11 weeks that I need a place. I had a reply from a kind-of tourist hostel and so I went off to have a look at it. It’s right by the Sint Jacobsplein where the famous fritkot is situated, which is extremely handy and very well-situated for the hospital. It’s a big house which, admittedly, has seen better days, but nevertheless, it’s still quite acceptable.

I’m having a single room all to myself, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. Everything is provided – wi-fi, bed-linen, cleaning and so on, and there’s a breakfast included in the price – and it’s going to cost me about €26 per night. It’s more than I wanted to pay, of course, but it’s here and it’s now, and a lot less that I would have to pay in a hotel. And, of course, once I’m in, I’m in and if I need to extend my stay for any reason, I can do that from the comfort of within rather than from out in the street in some kind of desperation.

As well as that, the included breakfast will save me some money. The presence of a kitchen will help me in this respect too – I can live on tinned food and so won’t have to pay for meals out in the evening. I reckon that if I’m careful, I can keep within my means but there won’t be a lot spare.

Anyway, it’s all now reserved and I’ve paid a (substantial) deposit. Just watch the place burn down now.

Apart from that, we have the internet working. The college’s intranet runs on an underlying public access internet network and one of the students here let me have the access code for the public access part of it, which was quite nice of her. So now it’s all systems go.

We had a torrential rainstorm at lunchtime too about half an hour after I went out to the shops for my lunch stuff, and so I was rather caught out in it and was soaked to the skin. It’s a long time since I’ve been out in a rainstorm quite like that and my baguette was all soggy in places.

Tonight for tea, I finished off the kidney beans and mixed veg from last night, along with some pasta and tomato sauce. And, of course, the spicy cake and soya dessert for pudding.

Now, I’m going to have an early night and a good sleep. I’m off gallivanting tomorrow.

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Sunday 5th June 2016 – AND WHILE LAST NIGHT …

hotel premiere classe hotel feignies maubeuge nord france… didn’t match the previous night’s sleep by any means, it was still one of the best that I’ve had for quite some time.

I was up quite late, what with one thing and another, and it took a while to drop off. We had the usual trip down the corridor and then a noise in the corridor awoke me some time during the night, and I couldn’t go back to sleep for ages after that. But when the alarm did go off, I was flat out and away with the fairies.

I’d started off the night back in Crewe somewhere around Gresty Road and I’d met a girl there. I’d had quite a few things to do and she was roped in to help me. We had been making quite a bit of progress, so much so that we had finished long before I was expecting to,and so I was making plans to leave. It was at this point that the girl announced that she was going to miss me very much – a strange thing to say seeing as how she was due to be married in four weeks time – and I had to spend a lot of time persuading her to concentrate on what was going to be her future without me being anywhere in the picture.
A little later on, I was joined by my brother and I wish that he would badger off out of my night-time wanderings. I’d been building up a kind-of database of girls whome I knew, and making little notes about them (I was much younger in those days) and out of the blue, my brother asked me “who’s this ‘blond stunner’ then?” I replied that it’s none of his business and that I would thank him to give me back my notes. He replied that he didn’t have them, all he had were copies, but that led to yet another one in a series of dismal family arguments.

It’s hard to believe that I left home when I was 18, one of the reasons being to get away from all of this nonsense and have some peace and quiet. I can’t believe that after all these years, they are still following me around. I still can’t seem to find any peace.

I had some things to do before I left, and it was 11:30 when I hit the road, stopping off for a baguette down the road at the supermarket. The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav took me round a few lanes and we completely by-passed Maubeuge which was nice because it’s a bit of a maze around there.

The drive up to the motorway services at Heverlee was quite uneventful, and I took my time. I was in no hurry. And by the time I arrived, the sun was out for the first time for a couple of weeks so I sat outside on the grass, ate my butty and read a good book for an hour or two.

It’s no surprise to learn that I’ve booked myself in at the Ibis on the motorway. It’s €69:00 for the night but it’s the most convenient for parking and it’s nice to have a little luxury every now and again. Tomorrow I’ll be off to Pellenberg at … errr … €10:00 per night and that’s quite a difference, both in price and luxury.

Before settling down for the night, I nipped into Leuven and the fritkot on the Jacobsplein for some chips and a veggieburger. Now I’m all ready for a good night’s sleep – I hope. A really deep and peaceful sleep will do me the world of good.

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Friday 13th May 2016 – NOW, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

Last night, I dropped off to sleep during the middle of one of the Boris Karloff “Mr Wong” films, and apart from a trip down the corridor in the small hours, that was all that I remember until 06:25. It was one of the best nights’ sleeps that I’ve had since I left France and I enjoyed it so much.

I’d been on my travels too, playing bass in a rock band somewhere and we had a concert to play, part of a huge music festival. And although we were set up and ready, our drummer (a friend of mine from way back) hadn’t turned up. He hadn’t sent a message or anything to say where he was or what he was doing, and because we weren’t therefore ready, our spot at this festival was slowly being whittled away by the organisers. And with him being my friend, my bandmates were having a little whittle at me about it. Everything was here from this drummer – his tent, his drums, even the roller skates for his roller skate hire business – everything except him.

So breakfast all eaten and done long before the alarm went off, a nice warm shower and clean clothes long before 08:30, even time to spend on doing some more blog updating before hitting the road at 09:30. And I apologise to Pellenberg for some of the things about it. Not because they aren’t true, but because it’s only half the price (like €10:00 per night) to stay here. I’m prepared to put up with the inconvenience at €10:00 per night.

First stop was the bank, where I had business to perform. And I learnt a thing or two there that I didn’t know either and that made me feel bettertoo. And afterwards, I went to LIDL where I bought myself a set of three new toys – some 800mm (massive) SDS drill bits, 16, 18 and 24mm, at €9:00 (for three, not for one) and these are so impressive.

Next stop was to Spit. This is a charity shop in Leuven that sells books, records, clothes and tons of furniture. It’s huge and full of stuff and I spent a pleasant hour in there looking for stuff. Not buying anything, of course, just looking. But I could have bought several items had I been of such a mind. There was some good stuff in there.

Lunch was at the fritkot at the Jacobsplein, and then off to the hospital for my check-up.

I gave a blood sample and it came back as 8.1. And that, surprisingly, is quite stable for the last couple of weeks. In fact, since I’ve been undergoing treatment, the blood count hasn’t dropped below 7.8. They reckon that I can go for a week without a transfusion because they are keen to see how I hold up. I explained that I’ll be doing a lot of driving but they seem to think that I’ll be fine.

I do like their optimism.

So they heaved me out at 16:00 – minus the transfusion – and I hit the road for home. And I don’t mean “home” as in Pellenberg but “home” as in the Auvergne because I’m coming back for a week. I need more clothes, more books, more stuff in general if I’m to stay here until September and I reckon I should grab it while the grabbing is good. My next appointment is Monday 23rd so I have a little 10-day window to do it.

But it was horrendous coming back. Totally horrendous. The traffic queue started just outside Leuven and lasted until well after Valenciennes. And then there were all kinds of perturbations on the Francilienne. All in all, a journey of less than 4 hours to Melun took just under six hours to complete. Ironically, before I set out, I was toying with the idea of going back via the old road to Auxerre but I reckoned the motorway would be less stressful.

Ohh woe is me!

If this isn’t bad enough, the Première Classe Motel where I’m spending the night (in view of my state of health I’m doing the trip back in easy stages and in comfort) isn’t actually in Melun, it’s in the neighbouring commune. However, there’s a street of the same name in Melun so that when you programme the street name and “Melun” into your GPS like someone around here did, you end up in the middle of some rather insalubrious council estate somewhere. That took me a good 20 minutes to sort myself out.

But as the legendary Marechal MacMahon once said – “j’y suis, j’y reste” or “here I am and here I’ll stay”. Or as Martin Luther put it – “hier stehe ich – ich Kann night anders” or “I’m staying here – I can’t do anything else”.

I’ve had enough for one day.

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