… better day today. I felt much more like it and managed to accomplish a lot of the things that I should have done yesterday.
And for a change we had a different kind of night. Flat out almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and then wide awake at 04:10. It’s either one thing or the other right now, and it’s certainly not the other, I can tell you that.
But I did go back to sleep again at some point for it was a struggle to resurface when the alarm went off. And then we had the usual morning ritual followed by a shower and a change of clothes. After all, it is Thursday.
Before I left for the shops I attacked the backlog of work, and I’ve now booked my rail ticket to Leuven and my accommodation there. But not a return ticket though. Idly surfing the internet like you do … "like YOU do, you mean" – ed … I found a three-day mini-break in Oostende (I like Oostende as you know) for just €110 plus local taxes. I need a break, and so that will do nicely, thank you.
On the way to the shops I called at the Bank. My rent here is being increased by the cost of living index – all of €3:74 per month, so I need to amend the standing order. And at the station to pick up my rail ticket, I had to help an old man (like I’m really young, of course) wrestle with the ticket machine. It’s not easy if you don’t know what you are doing.
Nothing of much excitement at LIDL although I did forget the Agave Syrup. I even had my hand on it at one point but was distracted and that was that.
On the way back I had to call at the Estate Agent. With the rent being increased, there is €0:34 to pay for the period at the end of April. But they didn’t have a till or a cash box and I didn’t have the correct money, so I’ll have to go there another time with the right amount.
Once I’d had my coffee, I set to work.
10 kiwis, one banana; half a cup of desiccated coconut, one carton of coconut cream and a couple of tablespoons of honey (in the absence of Agave Syrup) all chucked into the whizzer and it created half a litre of kiwi mixture.
It’s now busy freezing in the freezer and tomorrow I’ll pass it through the sorbet maker to aerate it. And then it should be done. But I hope that the honey works. Agave Syrup is used for this as it keeps the molecules separate and doesn’t freeze the food in a big solid block.
But then, that’s what the aerator does.
After lunch I went for my afternoon walk, as it really was a beautiful afternoon.
And technology seems to be catching up with me right now. Parked on the car park of the college this afternoon was a car powered by hydrogen – a mere 20 years after my Open University thesis on the use of hydrogen for motor fuel.
But we saw that when I lived on the farm – what I was doing back in the 90s becoming mainstream 10 or 15 years later.
It’s not the only thing that is catching up either.
We saw the works for the fibre-optic cable and saw them building the new compound for the next phase. And here they are, now attacking the rue du Port as predicted.
Queues a mile long, seeing as it was school chucking-out time, but not that that’s ever going to bother them, is it?
I mentioned that there are four buildings here that formed part of the barracks. One is now the College, the second is the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs and contains the public rooms, and the other two are being converted into apartments (I live in one of them).
The last one is already part-occupied, and I see that they have now started on work on the final section of it.
I tried to buy an apartment in there, but no-one ever returned my phone calls. And people complain about a recession, don’t they?
But being of a small mind, I had to laugh at the name of the company that is currently working in there.
Mind you, anyone who knows anything about the “Carry On” films, and in particular Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head
But I digress. I came back in for a coffee.
I’m not sure what happened to the afternoon after that. Next thing that I knew, it was 18:45. I must have been stark out for a good 90 minutes or so. This is really getting to me, isn’t it, this ill-health? I shall have to pull myself together somehow.
But I still managed to find the energy to make my aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. And the helping that I had tonight (there are four others for the freezer) was delicious. I really enjoyed that.
It was a beautiful evening when I went for my walk, and I bumped into an old lady out for a perambulation being followed around by a dog and several cats, one of which is my long-haired black cat.
It turns out that the cat is indeed hers, and she is called Minette (the cat, not the woman). We had quite a lengthy chat but Minette kept her distance. I suppose that the smell of Gribouille, who once more let me pick him up for a stroke, had made her rather jealous.
But it was weird to see this little procession down and around the streets of the Medieval town
So I’ll have a drink and a little relax and then I’ll go to bed. I have my carrot soup to make tomorrow, I reckon.
