Tag Archives: kruisstraat

Thursday 7th April 2022 – MY BLOOD PRESSURE …

… is up. When it was checked at the hospital this morning, it was at 168 over 109 and that set all sorts of alarm bells ringing in there.

They have told me to double the dose of certain medication that I take, and to visit my GP for a blood test in 14 days time to see if this extra medication is causing any more problems.

Mind you, had I told them the real reason for the high blood pressure they wouldn’t have done anything at all and allowed it to pass. It’s all to do with the fact that I had a visitor during the night, someone who stayed with me all the way through.

Not Zero though, despite my comments yesterday. In actual fact TOTGA had the call-up last night, and a very young TOTGA it was too. There was a group of us on board a ship – maybe even THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR discussing all kinds of things. For some reason I lay down to sleep under a blanket. It was one of those sleeps where you were asleep but you could hear everything that was going on. They were talking away. I turned over and fell off the seat onto the floor. Everyone came round to see me and to see what I was doing and help me up. Gradually the conversation drifted off and it was just me and TOTGA. I started to become quite familiar with her. I happened to mention that I knew almost everyone on board to which she replied that so did she. She pointed out a few people whom she knew. There were persons who were friends of my mother so she said “let’s go downstairs and see who I know through my grandfather”. At this point I slapped her behind. We were halfway down the stairs when there was a bride and groom coming up. They had married and were travelling on their honeymoon, still in their wedding clothes. They were saying that they had just bought a pub in Alsager and had demolished it and were going to build houses on it. They were really surprised to see TOTGA here. The way that the two of us were fooling around, it was quite obvious to anyone that the two of us were a couple, which would have been quite strange because of the difference between our two ages during this dream but it was pretty clear to everyone. TOTGA knew the bride and that’s how we were talking but it was clear to everyone that the two of us were certainly a couple.

I forgot to mention that the group of us was doing things in music and the reason why the 2 of us were alone was that we had to persuade whoever was supposed to be looking after her that she could come on a tour abroad with the rest of us and play the music and that she’d be fine and well-looked after (clearly whoever writes the script and directs these nocturnal rambles doesn’t know me very well. Since when would TOTGA ever be safe alone with me?) etc but we didn’t reach that point in the dream

Later on I stepped back into this dream where the leader of the orchestra was trying to spit up TOTGA and me. He thought that our relationship was inappropriate but I was so unwilling to give her up and she was so unwilling to give me up. All around us things like Russian songs and Russian poems had been written on the walls of this ship and the 2 of us wrote something on there too but I can’t remember what.

And then I was back in this dream yet again but I missed a lot of the start that I can’t remember that I’d dictated into my hand without the dictaphone being there. The 2 of us were walking down a set of steps with some people whom she knew, her parents or guardians or something. I had my arm around her but considering her age that would be most unlikely. Again we were looking for these musicians, talking about playing in this music group. I’ve missed so much off the start of this with dictating into my hand.

Finally I was back in this dream again. We’d made it to Köln. I came out of the station and onto the square there and was thinking about where we were going to play. It looked very much as if we’d made up our minds so I went back to the station to find everyone else and that’s all that i can remember of this, coming out of the station, making up my mind and going back. But I’m sure that there was a lot more to it that I can’t remember now.

So having spent the whole night in the company of a very young TOTGA and on a very familiar basis too, it’s hardly surprising that my blood pressure was racing. Yours would have been racing too under these circumstances.

When the alarm went off I was already up and about and when the second one went off, I had actually already had a shower. It goes to show that I can do it when I really try.

Having made my butties I staggered off outside into the rain and my walk up to the hospital.

At the start of the Tiensestraat where it leaves the Rector de Somerplein I walked past the building that they started to knock about a couple of months ago.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were lucky enough to have had a peek inside back then but it’s not quite so easy right now with all of the goings-on.

But I’m intrigued to see what they are going to be doing with it. I hope that it’s not going to become another fast-food joint. There are already plenty of those in the town and it would be nice to see something rather more substantial.

another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is that taking photos of people taking photos is a fairly regular theme that runs through these pages.

Today we have something slightly different, a photo of someone making a film.

Back there where they have the camera, there’s some kind of plaque set in the floor that doesn’t announce anything in particular yet it seems to be of a great interest to the guy with his camera and his assistant.

That prompted me to make a mental note to go for a closer look on the way home but regrettably, it seems that I forgot.

My route carried on through the rain down to the demolition site that was formerly Sint Pieter’s Hospital.

The site over there where there’s the concrete base is where they occasionally erect a marquee when there is something going on in the town but right now there isn’t anything happening anywhere.

But as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if they are going to be building some kind of “model village” on this site with expensive apartments and all that kind of thing, they are going to have to do something about the view.

This isn’t really what you want to see if you’ve shelled out a lot of money for somewhere reasonable to live, is it?

But then again, as we have often said about Belgium, they don’t seem to be in all that much of a hurry to do things around here so I’m not expecting these apartments to see the light of day for quite a while yet. It took them long enough to knock down the hospital.

But as we saw yesterday, the pile of soil on the extreme right seems to be slowly growing. Perhaps one of these days they’ll get round to landscaping part of the site with it. Just imagine the weeds that will be growing in it once the summer arrives.

And while we’re on the subject of growing … “well, one of us is” – ed … the newt building in between the Kupicijnenvoer and the Zongang seems to have stopped.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last time that we are here we saw them caulking the joints where they had installed the windows. This month they have now gone along and installed the exterior cladding.

They have been quite quick doing that, which just goes to show that even Belgian builders can get a move on when they have to. It won’t be long before the tenants start moving in.

It’s not for me though. It’ll be quite dark in there, I reckon. I’ll need more light than they can offer otherwise I’ll wilt.

Another new building that has attracted our interest over the last few months is the one that they are erecting further down the Kapucijnenvoer on the other side of the road.

They are making a start on the second floor now and in the normal course of events it shouldn’t take them too long to do that. But the depth of the foundations and the height of the cranes onsite seem to suggest that the building is going to be a lot higher that that.

The size of the underground car park is quite impressive too so I’m intrigued to see how tall the building will be and who is going to occupy it. In Leuven you would think that it would be something to do with the University, but why would they need such a car park?

And the final climb up the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan finished me off. Despite the cooling effect of the rain I was defeated at the halfway mark and had to stop for breath

And a couple of places further up the hill too, although one was for a photo opportunity too.

This is something that you don’t see too often, except in Belgium where you find them quite often. Moving house is sometimes complicated when apartment-dwelling is commonplace, and the easiest way to shift your furniture can often be “out of the window”.

That’s where these furniture lifts come in handy. They can do the job in a couple of minutes. When I moved into my apartment in Brussels in 2000 I hired one, but when I finally moved out in 2011 I went out in the hours of darkness via the interior lift.

And so I struggled on up the hill to the hospital. It was a bad day.

At the urology department they poked and prodded me around, took piles of copious notes and weighed me. Despite all of the exercise that I’ve had over the last week I’ve gained 2kg and I don’t know how. And they’ll “get back to me” in due course.

They had already been looking for me at the Haematology Day Clinic so when I arrived they were ready for me. As soon as I walked into the reception she had the paperwork and my ID bracelet all ready. The fact that they are beginning to know me in the hospital is a little disturbing.

With everything ready, I was coupled up quite quickly and I didn’t have to wait very long for the doctor to see me.

She was much more friendly than the one last time but she had no concrete suggestions about my struggles. Next month I have the appointment with the heart specialist and we’ll see what he can suggest.

Having picked up some extra medication I headed for home and halfway down the hill I had a ‘phone call from Urology. “Come back on 5th May”. So that’s now three appointments on that day. Things are obviously reaching a critical point.

Several months ago I noticed that they were installing some cycle racks at the side of the Sin Jakobuskerk.

At the time I speculated that they weren’t likely to see much business because they were rather off the beaten track as far as accommodation goes, and it looks as if I might have been right.

What caught my interest though was the electric bike in the foreground. I noticed that it was carrying some kind of registration plate. As well as that, instead of having a chain it has a synthetic drive belt.

Next time that I’m out and about I’ll have to keep an eye out for what’s happening with this situation. I’ve not encountered it before.

The banana-flavoured soya milk that I love and can only buy in Belgium has now run out so I called into Delhaize for more supplies on the way home. And back here I had a coffee and a chat with Liz before I rather unceremoniously crashed out.

This evening I’m not all that hungry so I’ve just had a couple of biscuits. This weight issue isn’t do to food but to water issues, but even so I should take every opportunity to cut down on my food intake.

So having written my notes I’m going to lounge around for a while before going to bed.

But a whole night with TOTGA! Whatever next?

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?

Thursday 17th June 2021 – THEY DIDN’T KEEP …

… me in the hospital. They soon kicked me out of the hospital yesterday and I’m back in my comfy little digs now where I started out this morning.

When the alarm went off this morning I awoke in a really damp sweat again. I staggered out of bed at 06:00 and the first thng that I did after that was to listen to the dictaphone. there were a couple of files on there – one from two nights ago that I had yet to transcribe, and the one for last night.

This was something like I’d joined the Army and I had a whole list of things that I wanted to do. One of the things was to go for a whole series of medical examinations but the map was so confusing and the details so confusing that I wasn’t sure when or where to go. In the end I set off to try to find the place. It was a staggering set of old buildings, old ruined medieval towers propped up with wood, old burnt-out houses, two cars that had collided outside a house all entangled in a big heap of metal. Just totally strange. Luckily I met one of the professors whom I knew and I asked her where I was supposed to go. She pointed me to the place, just opposite the shop. She showed me a side street as well and said “down there is the French educational building” or French school or whatever. So I set off for my medical.

So having dealt with that, I made a start on writing up the blog but the next thing that I remember was at it was 08:00. I’d crashed out for about an hour or so sitting on my sofa. But once I pulled myself round, made myself a coffee and carried on with the notes.

Once they were published I made some toast for breakfast and then chose the music for the next radio programme.

A shower and a clothes-washing session was next, followed by making my sandwiches ready for the hospital, and then I hit the streets.

And it was nice to see so many people taking advantage of the easing of the Corona Virus situations.

In the beautiful sunny weather and at lunchtime too there were crowds of people sitting at tables at the various restaurants in the town, like here in the Tienesestraat. And beautiful weather it was too. Summer has arrived at long last and the restrictions have been eased in time for people to enjoy it.

But I can’t help the feeling in the back of my mind that all of this is happening far too soon. We’ve already seen that the ease in restrictions in the UK has led to a rise in cases from less than 2,000 per day to the figure today of 11,007.

But as REACT – the body that surveys the spread of the virus in the UK – has said, the UK’s policy of just a single vaccination has been a failure. At least, in Europe, they’ve concentrated on double vaccinations.

Carrying on down the hill through the town centre and out the other side, I came to the road junction of the Brusselsestraat, the Amerikalaan and the Franz Tielemanslaan

When we were here last month we had seen them working on the pavement there doing some remodelling. They seem to have advanced quite nicely with that and I do have to say that while I’m not too keen on the brickwork for the cycle path, it’s a vast improvement on the slabs of asphalt that they used in the Monseigneur Van Waeyenbeghlaan.

They seem to have moved on now and are doing some kind of work on the little square that is build over the River Dijle at the back. It’s going to be interesting to see what they are going to do there and how it’s going to look when it’s all finished.

While we’re on the subject of how things are going to look in the future, I went along the Brusselsestraat to see how things were developing at the site of St Pieter’s hospital that they have spent the last year or so demolishing.

Part of the site has been cleared and they were erecting a huge wooden structure in the place of part of it.

There was a guy standing underneath a parasol nearby who came over to chat with me.He told me that they were building a velodrome on the site. Apparently it’s going to take 6 years for the whole of the site to be cleared and redeveloped, so as a temporary measure, they are erecting this velodrome.

The velodrome is expected to be there for three years before they will be starting to redevelop this part of the site.

As for the rest of the site, they are clearing the site fairly rapidly as you can see.

They seem to have ground up the rubble into a fine powder and now they are loading it up onto a series of lorries which will presumably take it off to another site to use as infill or as part of a mix for some new concrete somewhere.

But it’s going to be a long time, I reckon, before they uncover the river that runs underneath the site. That’s certainly the plan, but we shall have to see how things develop.

Right now though, I’m continuing down the street on my way towards the hospital There is still plenty to see.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last time that we were here we saw them erecting some bicycle racks in the Kruisstraat. I mentioned at the time that I couldn’t see why they were erecting them there as there weren’t the clients there to use them.

Now that they have been here for four weeks we can see how things are developing here. And it looks as if my assumptions were correct because there can’t be more than half a dozen bikes and scooters there. Not like the bike racks elsewhere that are bursting to overflow.

At the hospital they gave me a Covid test, which was negative, of course. Then they took a blood sample and coupled me up to the stuff that they pump into me. And I had an interesting trilingual chat with the nurse who was dealing with me.

The doctor who came to see me told me that my blood count had increased to 8.9 and so I can go home. There’s no reason for the increase that I can see, and it certainly doesn’t seem like it. All that I can say is that Liz Messenger’s cake contains many secret ingredients and has magic properties.

But the doctor didn’t really have too many answers for the other points that I raised – the night sweats, the increase in weight and all of that. But next time that I come, I have four appointments at different units of the hospital, and we shall see how things develop at that point.

On the way home I walked down the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan towards the Sint jacobsplein when the menu at the Frittoerist, the Fritkot in the Sint Jacobsplein.

It shows you how much things have evolved these days when even a fritkot can offer a vegetarian menu to the public. Mind you, this is Leuven, a town full of students where I’m sure that they outnumber the locals, as anyone who remembers my desperate search for accommodation here 5 years ago will recall.

At least the fritkot is open and accessible. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the street here in front of the fritkot and the square behind it were dug up for well over a year and access to the place was rather difficult. Clambering over a pile of bricks and mud was not the easiest way to go about buying a cornet de fritjes.

Down at the end of the street is the street known as the Kapucijnenvoer where there is more building work being undertaken.

They are progressing with the development of this site, pourig ton after ton of concrete into the place. The base is now concreted over and they are building some kind of rooms down there. These might be private cellars for the residents or they might be machinery rooms for lifts, air conditioning, power plants and the like.

The rest of the subterranean labyrinth is quite possibly going to be used as a car park, but there is no ramp installed there right now.

And you can see the red-capped metal strengthening bars. It looks as if they are going to be building concrete pillars to support the building that’s going to be erected here. And by the diameter of the pillars, it’s going to be some substantial building.

There’s another building site in the Kapucijnenvoer on which we are keeping an eye. It’s the one in between the Kapicijnenvoer and the Zongang.

They seem to be making some rather rapid progress on this particular site and that makes quite a change here in Belgium. It’s going to be some kind of block of flats by the looks of things, but on a restrictive site like that, the apartments are going to be rather restricted in size. It’s another one of these “we shall have to see” situations.

All that I can say is that it’s a shame that the nice building behind it that was revealed by the demolition of whatever was on this site previously is going to be obscured by the building that they are erecting. And I can bet my bottom dollar that whatever they are going to erect here won’t be anything half as attractive as the building behind it.

Back now in the Brusselsestraat on the way into the city centre I went past the site of the demolition of St Pieters hospital.

And to my surprise there’s a big lorry here that seems to be taking away one of the big machines that has been working on the site for the past ever so many months.

What is so surprising about this is that even though the building has been brought down, they are still a long way from clearing the site. And with them in the near future having to lift the culvert off the river here, they are going to need all of the heavy equipment that they can get.

Maybe they are taking it off to work elsewhere and they’ll be bringing it back in due course when it’s needed back here.

One of the things that I have to do today is to go along to the bank and withdraw some money as I’m rather short of ready cash.

Going into the town wentre the crowds of people were all sitting on seats in the public areas watching the football, just like here in the Zeelstraat. Belgium are playing Denmark in the European Championships and it seems to be the thing here that rather than sit lone in the comfort and privacy of your own home, you go out and sit in the square with the crowds.

Having arranged some cash I set off to meet Alison and while I was on my way through one of the back squares stumbled across a new ice cream parlour. They had two varieties of vegan ice-cream – chocolate and moka – so despite the dreadful service in the place I eventually walked away with my prize.

Alison and I went for a meal at the Greenway Vegan Restaurant. I had a red pepper burger and Alison had a Thai wrap. And then we went off for a coffee and a chat.

Aliso had to leave early so I came back home – totally hot and sweaty, drained of blood and having walked 124% of my daily activity. No wonder I was exhausted. And so I hauled myself off to bed thinking that I will write up my notes tomorrow.

Thursday 20th May 2021 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… since I really can’t remember when, I had a meal in a restaurant.

Not this restaurant here in the Tiensestraat, I have to say, but this is the best example of social distancing in a café that I could find. And when I say “in” a café, I don’t actually mean that, because we aren’t allowed to be “in” a restaurant All we can do is sit on a terrace.

Alison and I went to the Greenway, the vegan restaurant in town. The social distancing wasn’t as thorough as this but it was still very nice to actually have a meal at a restaurant, even if it was out of doors, for the first time since whenever.

And then we went for a coffee on another terrace where there was simply a separation of tables but as the café wasn’t crowded it wasn’t an issue. We could sit quietly by and watch the hordes of policemen arrive and disappear into the Square behind us where there must have been something going on that required their attention.

This morning after having crashed out so spectacularly last night, I awoke, as you might expect, before the alarm was due to go off, so I was up and about quite promptly when the first alarm went off.

After the medication I made a start on the notes for yesterday and it took me much longer than it ought to have done to do it as I wasn’t really all that motivated. There was tons to write as well so it’s no surprise really.

There had been a voyage during the night too, as I discovered when I listened to the dictaphone some time later. My brother had gone to Dresden in Germany for something. I had to travel there so I was looking through the dashcam files and I came across one of when I’d been to Dresden in February one year. I remember getting close to the ton and how beautiful it was and on the outskirts I’d tried to find a place to stop to take a good photograph. I had to drive miles around in like a box to try to get a really good place. At one point I was driving alongside a river and suddenly came to a spot where the bank had collapsed and all these cars were parked in this field. I asked what had happened and they said that they had been driving on the ice when suddenly there had been a flash flood and they had all been transported away in this flash flood and just dropped when the water receded. All of the banks at the side of the river had collapsed under this kind of flash flood so they were all now stranded in these fields. Somewhere alongside were a brother and sister, arty types, and they had been having a big row and dispute about art. They were playing a strange kind of game with a load of magazines, something like “snap”. I was watching them play and they were basically making up 2 piles of these magazines. When they reached a certain point they would stop, shuffle these 2 piles together and start again but I never did understand or get the hang of what it was that they were doing. It looked totally weird to me and I couldn’t see what it was that was going on.

And there was also time to choose the music for another radio programme.

Round about 12:00 I stopped everything and made my sandwiches for lunch, and then headed off on my way to the hospital.

Into the town centre and out of the other side and in the Brusselsestraat at the junction of the Amerikalaan and the Franz Tielemanslaan I cam across another set of road works.

There have been plenty of roadworks going on all over the town as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and they have been taking years to do some of them. And so I wonder how long it’s going to take to do this lot on the corner here.

And it’s hard to see exactly what they are going to be doing because there were plenty of places in the town that are in need of much more work than this and I can give them half a dozen leads without even thinking about it.

The Brusselsestraat leads past the site of Sint Pieter’s Hospital, the hospital that they have been demolishing for the last year or so at least, and I was keen to see how the works were going on because they seem to have been taking for ever to do it.

And to my surprise, I found out that the hospital has gone completely after all of this time. I know that it was a big building but they seemed to be really taking their time with it.

They are now actively engaged in clearing up the site ready for redevelopment of this new parkland and housing development. They are even talking about taking out the culvert and exposing the River Dijle to the open air.

There is one thing that can be said about this demolition work in that it has opened up several new vistas that were previously hidden from view.

In this photo we can see the Predikherenkerk in the Oude Lieve Vrouwstraat from a viewpoint that we have never seen before, and then further round to the left is the rear of the ancient Sint-Elizabeth Gasthuis and the Convent of the Augustinian Sisters that we haven’t seen before.

In the previous photograph we could see the rear of the Sint Rafael Hospital which, as far as I am aware, is going to remain.

And all that we are left with here are a couple of large piles of rubble.

It’s not quite everything though.

There’s a big digger here that seems to be fishing rubble out of what was formerly the cellar of the building. And I’m wondering why they would be doing that because if they were going to develop the site they would need to fill in the cellar anyway and what better way to do it than to use the rubble that is present on the site.

But having watched them digging stuff out from the whole I pushed off on my way along the Brusselsestraat on my way towards the hospital on the edge of town for my usual four-weekly appointment with destiny at Castle Anthrax.

Round the corner in the Kruisstraat I intended to look into the Sint Jacob’s Kerk but the door was locked. And in any case I was distracted by some work that was going on here.

They have obliterated a couple of car parking spaces and replaced them with a pile of bicycle racks. At the moment the bicycle racks aren’t concreted into the ground but we can see the workmen on the right busily mixing a load by hand that will concrete them firmly.

That is something that has rather bewildered me as well because there aren’t any residential buildings or any colleges all that close to where they have put the bicycle racks no I’m not sure who it is that is expected to use them.

And now finally, something extremely exciting.

It looks as if after all of this time the compound in the Sint Jacobs Plein has been dismantled.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we came home from Canada one year and found that they had dug a huge hole in the square, apparently for an overflow tank for the new drainage system that they were going to install. And when they had finished it, they filled it in and fenced it off to use it as a works compound for the roadworks that were taking place.

But that’s all gone and finished now and the cars are back parked on it. Life is slowly returning to normal.

The work that they had been doing was to dig up the Biezenstraat and the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan and sink some really huge culverts in there for drainage.

This is work that we have been following for the last couple of years as they slowly, much too slowly in my opinion, worked their way down the street from top to bottom but now it’s all finished by the looks of things and all of the traffic, including the service buses that run to the hospital, are now in there.

We have to admire the cycle lanes in the main road. There’s no danger of missing those, even if they do restrict the flow of the traffic. Not that I have anything against restricting the flow of traffic, but there needs to be ample parking on the edge of the town with adequate pubic transport to take people to where they want to go.

And I see that the water fountain that they were trying to restore now seems to be completed.

It’s not actually the end of the roadworks in this area though.

We pass by the mouth to the Goedsbloemstraat on our way up to the hospital. We noticed a couple of months ago that they had started to dig it up and despite the fact that in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan the roadworks have no finished, they still haven’t finished off whatever they were doing here.

But whatever it is that they are doing, it doesn’t look as if it involves any large sever pipes. There are just a few small ones there and the rolls of pipework on the edge of the street.

But anyway I left them to it and pushed on to the hospital.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is that the last time that we were here they were digging a trench in the grass verge and there were a few heavy pipes at the side of the trench.

All of that has finished, they’ve moved the pipes, filled in the trench and replaced the turf. You wouldn’t really know that they have actually done anything there by now. It’s all finished and the workmen have moved off elsewhere. Maybe to the Brusselsestraat at the junction of the Amerikalaan and the Franz Tielemanslaan

At the hospital I registered in and had my treatment. Nothing much happened about that but then I was sent down to have my heart examined. They found my heart so at least I’m not a Tory, but what the technician discovered led him to call for his professor who examined my results in depth.

From there I was sent back to the Day Centre where the Professor who handles my case came to see me. I go to the hospital every four weeks and have done for over 5 years now, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the professor – and yet today I get to see two.

She examined me, which is a first since March 2016, and when I asked her what was the issue she replied “we’ll be in touch”. Strangely, they didn’t say “see you in 4 weeks” like they usually do.

By the time that they threw me out it was too late to go to the Pharmacy so I headed off back into town.

But here’s something exciting, shooting down the cycle track at the side of the hospital. It’s another one of these streamlined low-sung bicycle things.

We’ve seen a few of these out and about here and there over the years but we’ve never ever had the opportunity to inspect one at close quarters. But knowing that there’s at least one of them in Leuven gives me hope that I’ll get to have a look at one of them in due course. I’ll have to keep a good eye out.

But one thing that I noticed from this photograph is that this one appears to be a three-wheeler and I don’t recall having seen one of this type before. The heavy construction of the front wheels suggests something more than an ordinary bicycle.

A little earlier, we saw the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan all nicely fitted out and finished. The other end of the street is called the Biezenstraat and I can safely say that that end is finished too.

People can actually reach the fritkot without having to scramble over a pile of rubble – not that a pile of rubble would ever prevent a Belgian from reaching a fritkot, but that of course is another story. They do say that the reason why there have never been any Belgian astronauts is because there aren’t any fritkots on the moon.

The trees in the Sint Jacobsplein are in full leaf of course and look really nice but I would have expected that, with the country’s commitment to zero emissions and the like, they would have planted a few more to absorb the pollution.

Down at the far end of the Biezenstraat is the Kapucijnenvoer and regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen the demolition of the building that was here.

They had dug a big hole in the ground where the building was situated and I speculated that they may be making some kind of subterranean car park at the bottom. Now they have some concrete reinforcement matting down there and I imagine that the next step will be the delivery of a few hundred m3 of concrete.

On my way home from the hospital in the future I shall be keeping a close eye on what’s going on here. With this amount of car parking space, it’s obviously going to be a very big building.

Something else on which I shall be keeping a close eye in the future is the building work that’s taking place between the Kapucijnenvoer and the Zongang.

We’d seen them clearing the site and moving in the building materials last time that we were here, and over the last 4 weeks they seem to have started the construction in earnest. There is some kind of site advertisement telling us about apartments for sale, so that’s what I reckon that we’ll be having here on the site.

In the town centre I treated myself to an ice cream from the stall that sells vegan ice ceam, and it was the quickest ice cream that I have ever seen because as soon as I had it in my sweaty little mitt Alison rang me up to say that she was here, so I wandered off round there to meet her.

After our meal and a coffee we went off for a walk around the town. I was dying for a walk down the Handbooghof along by the River Dijle because I was interested in seeing how they were getting on with the renovations of the old medieval city walls.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past they have been sagging and bowing out, looking quite precarious and dangerous and after 7 centuries they were badly in need of some kind of renovation if they were to remain in place. It always reminded me of the castle in “The Carpathian Terror” – “The first Count Romany built it in 1410. That’s given it almost 500 years in which to disintegrate”

They fenced it off a few months ago and moved in some building material.

But now the renovations are well under way and it won’t be long before they will have finished.

What is depressing about it though is that they have used more modern brick rather than contemporary brick in patching them up. I realise that they can’t always find the correct stone to do the job these days but at least they could have made more of an effort to find something that matches.

Alison had another appointment so she brought me home after our walk. Back here I started to write up my notes from yesterday but I fell asleep again in the middle of it all. It was actually quite late so I went to bed and I’ll finish off my notes in the morning.

Saturday 25th February 2017 – IT’S THE START …

… of the Krokusvakantie here in Belgium this week. That’s the school half-term, and while it might be known as “Carnaval” in the French-speaking areas of the country, you can see why it has its name around here in Flanders, can’t you?

On my travels and I had a walk back from Caliburn through the Kruidtuin – the Botanical Gardens here in Leuven and the flowers are well and truly blooming today, aren’t they?

If you ask me what kind of flowers they are, I would say that they were mauve ones, because I know nothing whatever abut flowers, so they might not even be crocuses at all, but whatever they are, they are quite prettu.

So what was I doing at Caliburn then? And not once today but twice too.

In fact, I’ve made a start on emptying my room out reading for (hopefully) leaving on Tuesday if all goes according to plan.

But first surprise of the day was that the crane on the corner of the Brusselsestraat and the Kruisstraat has now disappeared. Work seems to have finished on the facade of the building across the road.

And what a good job they seem to have made of it too. I imagine that they’ve re-pointed the brickwork and sealed the joints underneath the roof, and now they’ve added some tiles to the wall to weatherproof it.

All in all, it loks very impressive from here

And so after yet another bad night, I was once more alone at breakfast (which suite me fine) although my garrulous Dutch/Russian friend did stick his head around the corner to make himself a coffee – I really am not up to social conversation at 07:00.

But after a relax downstairs in my room, I set to work.

It was a case of going through everything that I have here and deciding upon its priority – am I likely to be using it between now and a week on Tuesday (and there are reasons for this particular date)? And if not, I started to load it up into a couple of IKEA bags that I had lying around. That includes most of the food for a start – no reason for most of that to be hanging around for a start. And books, and bottles of pop and the like. I remember thinking when I was in Sedan back in November that I would buy just enough stuff for the first month of my stay. Here I am, three months in, and I haven’t eaten half of it.

Once I was loaded up, I set off to Caliburn to deposit it all, and then down to the Carfefour by the football ground for the stuff for pizza night tomorrow.

A little deviation (and I’m always up for a little deviation as you know) through the Kruidtuin to see the crocuses and then back here, via the Supermarket on the corner. And there’s a thing – there were plenty of black plastic boxes of the sort that I had been liberating, but all stacked up neatly at the back of the warehouse. My response is that if they don’t want people to liberate them, they shouldn’t leave them outside by the bins.

After lunch, we had another session of loading up the IKEA bags, and then after a brief pause I went back down to Caliburn with the stuff and deposited it there.

While I had been having a relax just now, I was idly scanning the internet. And something that I saw gave me an idea – I have plenty of ideas, don’t I? Furthermore, a little research on the internet proved that it was a feasible proposition too. Thus I had a quick coffee, and hit the streets.

Here I am, at the Antwerp Berchem railway station on the south side of the city, waiting for the train to Gent and Oostende which is just a-cumen in.

But I’m not going to either of these places.

Somewhere just after St Niklaas is the small town of Lokeren. It’s a place that I’ve never ever visited before and seeing as how I’m hoping to be on my way in early course, now seemed to be the right kind of time to deal with that issue

No derailments today – we were in luck – but we had to take a different track out of the station. My luck was in, for this one took us close to the carriage sidings and I had a good view of something that had caught my eye away in the distance on several occasions.

It’s actually a very sorry example of the first-generation Continental multiple units, one of the ones that you used to see painted red and cream that used to wander over the French SNCF and presumably Belgian SNCB rail networks in the &950s

Mind you, this is just one of the driving carriages of a multiple unit set and it has long-since lost the colours that it might have carried on the SNCB. But it’s beautiful all the same and I wonder what it’s doing here.

And more to the point, why no-one has seen fit to rescue it. I’d take it home with me in a heartbeat.

No prizes for guessing why I’ve come to Lokeren, is there?

I owe myself a football match from last weekend, what with the train derailment in Leuven, this match is a Belgian Jupiler Pro League (the equivalent of a Premier League match).

I’ve never been to Lokeren, never seen either of the clubs play, and KAS Eupen was on of the teams on my list of clubs to see

The ground is only a 20-minute walk from the railway station, and that means that if I exert myself and the game finishes on time, I could catch the 22:17 to St Niklaas, change for a train to Mechelen, and then catch a train from there to Brussels and then on to Leuven.

If I missed it, there is a train at 23:11 in the other direction to Gent St Pieters and then the last train from there to Leuven, getting me back to the railway station at Leuven at about 01:00.

That sounded like a plan.

I found the Daknamstadion easily enough – it was quite straightforward, rather like the walk that we have made so often to het Lisp at Lier. And the stadium resembled that at Lier too. They must order them off the peg or something like that, I reckon.

I had a cheap seat (€18:00 for a Premier League match) behind the goal, but in a corner where I wouldn’t be hemmed in by chanting supporters.

But they were up at the far end in the standing bit, with the away supporters right next to them. That’s bizarre crowd segregation, I can say.

But … tragedy! We had the mascot, not that he was up to very much of course, but there were no cheerleaders!

All this way on the train and not a single cheerleader to be seen anywhere. how disappointing is that? I had a good mind to go and ask for my money back.

But at least it’s a Premier League match, so entertainment and excitement was sure to be guaranteed, wasn’t it?

But right from the kick-off, I could tell that this match was going to be something completely different.

Because if ever there are two more inept teams as these playing anywhere in the top flight of any football league anywhere else in the world (and I include Rockall and the Lofoten Islands in this) I just wouldn’t believe it.

These two teams were totally clueless from start to finish, and I mean every word of that. If this was a Premier League match, then God help them all

KAS eupen had a player sent off after about 20 minutes – what for, I couldn’t really see. And KSC Lokeren scored a penalty during the match – a rather strict penalty if you ask me.

But KAS Eupen scored two goals, even being 1 man down. And that’s not an idication of how good they were, it’s an indication of how totally inept KSC Lokeren were.

KAS Eupen’s two goals were a breakaway down the wing, a cross into the centre and a rather hopeful volley from about 20 yards out, and a ricochet off the referee that dropped nicely for an Eupen player to hoist over the wall into space where there was a team-mate running on
.

KAS Eupen hit the post too, and their keeper made five or six magnificent saves too.

In fact, the KAS Eupen keeper, Hendrik Van Crombrugge, was by far and away the best player on the pitch. The KSC Lokeren n°14, Mehdi Terki, had a good game, but I wouldn’t have given you twopence for the remainder.

And if you want to see the … errr … highlights of the match, they are now on-line. But it beats me how they managed to find 8 minutes of them. I’m on the far right of the screen at 04:34 – in the bright yellow coat.

Despite the late start ond the 4 minutes of injury time, I put on such a turn of speed that not only was I comortably in time for the 22:17, the earlier 22:11 for Gent St Pieters. I hopped on board – and wasn’t that a fatal mistake?

Yes, everyone would expect that with almost all trains running at one-hour intervals, then all trains would run at one-hour intervals. That is almost true, and the only exception is the express train from Oostende across to Welkenraedt (that goes through Leuven), and that runs at 90-minute intervals. And so the train that I had caught arrived in Gent 20 minutes after the previous one had left, and the next one was the one that I would have caught had I come here on the 23:11 from Lokeren. In other words, being early at Lokeren station had made me as late as it is possible to be.

So here I was in Gent, stranded yet again with well over an hour to wait for the train. At least it gave me an opportunity to go for a stroll around in the late evening.

The station really does look magnificent in the urban light, like most of these beautiful Victorian piles, except that it isn’t a Victorian pile. The railway station that was here was nothing spectacular, apparently, but when they announced that they would be holding the 1913 World’s Fair here, they designed and built a railway station building to suit the aims and the ambitions of the Fair

The interior is fairly spectacular, had it been allowed to settle in its own surroundings, but it was partitioned off into shops, full of coin machines and people sleeping all over the place. I was rather disappointed.

I sat there with the bag of fritjes that I had bought from the fritkot across the square until my train arrived.

It was almost 01:00 when I arrived at the station here, and about 01:45 when I returned here. Cold, tired and exhausted.

I went straight to bed, and straight to sleep too. It was late.

Tuesday 7th February 2017 – THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL …

… tea, that was!

The second helping of my lentil and potato curry was delicious. Rice and carrots in a pan, with the portion of curry reheated in the microwave. Then the rice and carrots were rinsed thoroughly in boiling water, and the whole lot was then steamed for 90 seconds in the microwave.

It was cooked to perfection too. I’ve never ever tasted rice so well-cooked and I shall be doing that again.

Last night was a bad night. It took me ages to drop off to sleep and then we had a bunch or early risers at 06:00 who made enough noise to awaken the dead. And just as I was dropping off, we had another bunch of early risers at 06:30. And then, just as I was dropping off again, the alarm went off.

Breakfast was crowded this morning – four other people in there with me and it’s been a while since I’ve had a breakfast quite like that.

This morning I took it easy. I was meaning to have a shower but somehow I forgot. And by the time that I remembered, the bathroom was cold. The heating switches off here at 09:30 and doesn’t come back on until 17:00/

Later on, I went out for my baguette and came back with a carton of soya milk an another black plastic storage box. There must be 20 in here now and I shall have to consider taking a pile of them down to Caliburn romorrow when I go out to the shops.

Now remember on Sunday that I told you about the crane that has mysteriously appeared on the corner of the Kruisstraat and the Brusselsestraat?

Seeing as how I was going out for the baguette, I went for a short stroll along the Brusselsestraat to see if I could see the reason for the machine – I’m moving a little easier too today. And sure enough, I was lucky enough to catch it in action.

There’s a scaffolding up at the side of the house that they are renovating opposite my hostel. That’s been there for a week or so, but it’s now swathed in netting.

Down below in a parking space outside the building are a couple of skips. There are some men up there on the scaffolding working on the parapet underneath the roof, loading the debris into the bucket on the crane, which is then descending the debris down to the skip.

I imagine that in a few days time, they’ll be bringing bricks and cement up in the bucket and reconstructing the side wall of the house and the parapet.

This afternoon, I had a chat to Liz on the internet, had a crash out and then started to read Carl Christian Rafn’s papers from 1838 – his presentation of the Antiquitates Americanae.

I’ve not gone too far into them at present, but although Rafn’s calculations are somewhat exaggerated, if not thoroughly optimistic, his arguments up to as far as I have read do make some kind of sense and he can justify to some degree (in fact to a great degree for 1838) his propositions. he certainly didn’t deserve the abuse and vitriol that Reeves heaped upon him 50 or 60 years later, some 20 years before Munn, in his book “Wineland voyages Location of Helluland Markland and Vinland” proposed L’Anse aux Meadows as the site for Vinland.

Tea was nice, as I have said, and now it’s an early night again.

And the temperature is dropping. Minus 4°C is promised for the next few days.

Sunday 5th February 2017 – NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK …

… these men are doing in here?

Yes, well done that man! This is indeed a public urinal and it’s the first one that I have ever seen that has glass doors – never mind glass doors from the outside so that everyone passing by can see what is going on inside. It’s the kind of thing that you will only ever see in Belgium.

Of course, I refrained from using it. I didn’t want to give everyone here at the Schiervelde an inferiority complex.

It made me think, which is a rare event of course. Do you remember the time that we were at a football match at Breda in the Netherlands and we encountered the P155-house? It seems that football clubs in the Low Countries have these eccentric arrangements.

And while we are on the subject of the Schiervelde, I wonder if you can guess what this apparatus is, out here on the car park.

I did ask on my social networking page and eventually someone, Josée in Montreal, came up with the answer. It’s a couple of bicycle racks. Bicycles are the big thing in Flanders and in the Netherlands (the idea that cycling in the Netherlands is so popular because it means that you don’t have to pay bus fare is totally wide of the mark) and the facilities for them are overwhelming.

And while we are on the subject of bicycles, I saw an electric unicycle with the rider perched thereupon. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera for that, which is a shame, but that has set the wheels in my mind going round and round. How easy would one of those be to carry on a bus, train or even an aeroplane?

having had my curiosity aroused, I had a look around on the internet for them, and I could be seriously tempted by one of these.

But let’s all start with last night. And this was one of the worst nights that I have had for a while. I went to sleep fairly early which was a surprise, but I kept on waking up, and for no good reason too. Just after 04:00, I had another sit-bolt-upright awakening, and couldn’t go back to sleep for ages after that.

I’d been on a lengthy travel too, and so being wide awake at that time of the morning, I switched on the laptop and typed it out. And when I came to read it later in the day, I had quite a difficult job of understanding the gibberish that I had written.

But here goes, and I hope that you can understand it all better than I can. I’d started off by being involved in quite a serious wrestling bout which went on for ages – and although no-one was hurt, it was quite intense and overpowering experience.
From here the action cuts to Percy Penguin who was going on and on about how she had to be in Italy today – a Friday. And then the penny dropped – there was a music concert taking place and I’d invited her to come with me. However I couldn’t go so I’d asked a friend to take her but I’m not sure he had remembered. However, in the end off she set. I couldn’t now remember where she had to go but it ended up being somewhere in the Plains of the USA (which looked to me as if it was right on the edge of the Denver plateau but that didn’t click with me at the time while I was asleep). Where she thought that she needed to go turned out to be a kind of small saloon with just a handful of people and no music concert either, so it was clearly the wrong place to be. My friend who took her couldn’t hang around and needed to be on his way but he couldn’t leave Percy Penguin there. While he was trying to resolve this issue in his own mind, he was hit on the head with a bottle. Nearby, Matt Dillon, the marshall from Dodge City in Gunsmoke (I’ve very recently downloaded all of the Gunsmoke radio episodes and been listening to them) was investigating and he suddenly realised that the venue where Percy Penguin needed to be was UNDERNEATH where she had been dropped her. He therefore had to get there to take her to the correct place but he was caught up in some kind of work of his own meaning he couldn’t go quite at that moment. And so in the meantime Percy Penguin was effectively on her own in this place.

And if you can make head or tail of all of this, then good luck to you.

After breakfast, I had a relaxing first part of the morning, and then hit the streets.

On Saturday there had been quite a bit of noise in the Kruisstraat round the side of the building and I’d been meaning to pop outside and see what they were up. But somehow I’d never got quite round to doing it.

But you can’t miss it now, can you? It’s a huge crane. And I wonder what it’s doing here. I suppose that I’ll have to wait until Monday to find out. I hope that they aren’t going to start pulling the roof of this building and leaving me out in the cold.

Once I’d organised the photograph I set off for the railway station at the other end of town, passing the electric unicycle (that I mentioned earlier) on the way.

At the station I picked up my ticket for Roeselare, and set out on my most adventurous SNCB rail trip to date. The first leg of my journey took me from Leuven to Brussels, and thence to the Gent St Pieters railway station.

It was a beautiful, comfortable modern train with carriages that are on lease from a railway company in Stuttgart, Germany. And the equipment puts British railways to shame. Rail travel is certainly the way to go in mainland Europe. I mean – it’s the popular Oostende train, and yet there were seats for everyone.

As we pulled into Gent we were held up by signals, and looking out of the window where we were stopped, I noticed a pile of people having an outdoor barbecue in the street.

This is the kind of thing that you can do in Europe (if you obtain a licence from the local council and you are brave enough to confront the weather) and this is why living in the real Europe is so attractive to me.

I couldn’t ever imagine returning to the UK, that’s for sure. If this ridiculous national suicide called “Brexit” starts to affect my residence position here, I’ll be applying for French nationality, that’s for sure.

I’ve been through Gent St Pieters on the train a few times, and changed trains here once too, but I’d never been outside to actually see the railway station building.

There was a brief 10 minutes before the Antwerp – De Panne train came in and so I went outside to take a photograph of the building. This is the best that I can do because I was in quite a rush as you can imagine, and in fact as I climbed back up to my platform, my train was already pulling in.

I’ll have to go back for a prowl around inside the building some other time

At Lichtervelde, as my train in, a train was pulling in at the opposite platform from the other direction. I knew that there was no time to waste here and so as the guard alighted from the train, I asker her is this was the train to Roosendaal. “Platform 5” she said – but I’m sure that that wasn’t right so we had quite an argument about it.

And while we were arguing, I noticed that the train was displaying a list of subsequent stops, one of which was mine. So not bothering to argue any loner, I leapt aboard and the train almost immediately set off.

There was a scrolling display inside the train too (it was a big, ultra-modern double-decker train) and there was my destination as clear as day. And so the guard came up to me, to presumably check my ticket.

“Look – there you are” I said. “This IS my train!”
She had a look at my ticket. “But you said Roosendaal, not Roeselare. Roosendaal is the Antwerp train”.

It’s a good job that there wasn’t a dining car on board – I would have ordered a portion of Humble Pie.

At the railway station, I noticed that there was a fritkot across the Square. I hadn’t had lunch and so a packet of fritjes sounded like a good plan. I could eat them as I trudged out to the football ground.

The football ground is miles outside the town, the opposite side to where the railway station is.

I peered through the doom and gloom of the rain as I walked. We have the usual walled, moated city with the walls all demolished and the moat mostly filled in, but there was some of what I imagined the moat to be, and it was on my way out to the ground.

It’s certainly impressive, and I wouldn’t mind one of the apartments over there overlooking the water. I could be quite happy there.

I eventually made it over to the football ground, and found myself at the Visitors’ end, which is the far end of the terrace over there.

I didn’t fancy that end, and so I had to carry on with my trudging because it’s quite a hike to reach the other side of the ground. It involved passing through the Exposition Centre’s car park and there was something going on in that building so there were hordes of people around

Hordes of people outside there might have been, but this was another ground where they ended up by announcing the crowd changes to the teams before the kick-off.

And the ground brings back many happy memories of the 1970s in British football. The ground has only been party modernised and there are still a few open, uncovered standing terraces. But there was no-one on them, which is hardly a surprise in this weather.

The grandstand behind the goal, which was where I was going to sit, was a huge affair with plenty of room in there for a large crowd. Rather a waste of effort if you ask me – but never mind.

One corner of the stand was full of kids – aged between about 8 years old and 12 years old. It looked quite strange to me, but as the players left the field after the warm-up, the purpose of the presence of these kids became clear.

Once the footballers had left the field, the girls sitting in the corner of the grandstand took to the field. It seems that Lierse SK isn’t the only team in the Belgian Second Division to have cheerleaders. They have them here at KSV Roeselare too.

Not the sort that would drag me out halfway across Belgium of course, but I’m all in favour of engaging the youth of the community in activities of the local football club, and more teams should take advantage of the opportunities available, to provide entertainment for the fans and to engage with the kids.

And, much to my surprise, they could dance too!

That makes a change because cheerleading has gone right downhill since the halcyon days of American college sport in the 1950s and the standard of dancing has dropped dramatically. These girls here at Roeselare could give seven or eight years to college cheerleading teams in the USA back in those days, but they certainly wouldn’t be out of place or let themselves down.

The boys from the corner then put in an appearance on the field and formed up with the cheerleaders into a guard of honour to welcome the teams onto the field ready for the start of the match.

The players’ changing rooms by the way are underneath the grandstand where I was sitting.

In case you are wondering, by the way, KSV Roeselare play in black and white. OH Leuven were in their change strip of all red

KSV Roeselare have a mascot too, but I’m not quite sure of what he is supposed to be. I wasn’t sure whether or not he was a snow leopard. It felt cold enough for him to be out and about on the prowl.

Further enquiries of the locals revealed that he is in fact a snow tiger and he’s new to the club, having arrived in December. There’s a competition being run to give him a name, and I’m sure that many visiting supporters could think of a few that might be appropriate

So having dealt with all the preliminaries, we could then turn our attention to the football.

And this was yet another match that was really exciting. For the first 60 minutes OH Leuven were well on top and looked as if they would win this match at a canter. For once, their two wingers were creating havoc down the wings and the KSV Roeselare full-backs didn’t have much answer to them. With Kostovski ploughing his way through the centre of the defence like a tank, the result should never ever have been in doubt. Had the surface not been so slippery and had the wingers been able to keep their feet, we should have had a cricket score before half-time.

And so with all of the play being up in the KSV Roeselare half, it comes as no surprise to anyone to learn that it’s the home side that takes the lead.

A poor clearance from the new OH Leuven finds a KSV Roeselare attacker who traps the ball and volleys it back over the keeper into the net.

As simple as that.

But ten minutes later the OH Leuven side equalise. And as I predicted, it came from an attack down the wing and the ball played quickly into the centre, right into the path of the onrushing Kostovski. Kostovski completely mishit his shot, which is probably why the ball went into exactly the opposite corner of the goal towards which the KSV Roeselare goalkeeper was diving. But they all count.

At half-time, the boy and girls came out again- the girls dancing in the centre circle and the boys playing a 6-a-side football match. The snow tiger appeared on the pitch too, to go round and wave to the OH Leuven supporters.

I went off to have a coffee in the bar underneath the grandstand that runs down the side of the pitch.

And much to my surprise, it was pretty good coffee too. I’m not used to good coffee at a football match, that’s for sure.

The second half got back under way again and we were treated to more of the same – at least for the first 15 minutes or so. And then two substitutions swung the game around.

Firstly, for some reason that I have yet to understand, OH Leuven took off one of the wingers. And from then on, their attack became rather aimless.

Secondly, KSV Roeselare brought on a new striker. Judging by the reception that he received, he must have been something of a local folk-hero. And he lived up to his reputation too. We had a ball into the penalty area from the KSV Roeselare right-winger, a bit of football tennis in the OH Leuven penalty area between the attackers and the defenders, and this substitute guy stuck out a foot to poke it into the net.

And that’s how it stayed. The best that I have seen OH Leuven play, and still they manage to lose.

I don’t usually like to comment on the refereeing of a football match if I can help it, but in this match there were quite a few bizarre decisions (or non-decisions). And for once, OH Leuven was on the beneficial end of the majority.

We had a blatant push in the penalty area from an OH Leuven defender, we had a blatant back-pass to the OH Leuven goalkeeper that went unpunished, a throw-in that was clearly given the wrong way, a few dubious free-kicks awarded and all of that. And still they couldn’t win.

They can be very disappointed with that.

I trudged back through the driving rain to the railway station. And much to my surprise, I was early.

There was a direct train to Brussels (via Kortrijk) due imminently and so I decided to take it, even though the itinerary proposed by the SNCB was to go back the way I had come.

It was an old slow, uncomfortable train but at least I had a good seat where I could relax, read my book and listen to the music on my telephone.

There are four trains per hour out to Leuven from Brussels Gare du Midi on a Sunday night. They are at something like 56, 04, 12 and 14 minutes past the hour (don’t ask me why) and my train arrived at 16 minutes past. That meant a wait around of 40 minutes. I went off to the Carrefour and bought some raisin buns, a can of ginger beer and a pear for tea, and had an argument with a couple of young boys who were trying to push down the check-out queue.

When the train pulled into the station, I found that it was the train that I would have caught had I gone in the other direction from Roeselare to Lichtervelde – a nice clean and comfortable modern train – so I can see why it was preferred. My early train had saved me nothing.

I ate my bread and pear, and drank my ginger beer in comfort, and that took me all the way to Leuven where we were decanted into the rain.

As I walked back to the hostel in the pouring rain, I reflected on my journey today.

If you look at a map, you’ll see the distance that I travelled on the railway today. It’s a good half-way, if not more, across the country and the travelling (not the waiting) time was in the region of two and a half hours each way – 5 hours in total.

And if you look at the ticket, you’ll see the price that I paid for the privilege of my journey. €21:20 – or about £19:00. It makes a total mockery of the price that you have to pay to travel on British trains.

I couldn’t even make a saving just by buying diesel to travel by Caliburn out to Roeselare. No wonder that Caliburn has hardly moved since I came back here from France in December.

And so that’s your lot. I’m off to bed.

Now if you’ve made it right down to the end of what is easily a new world-record 3300 or so words of where I got to today, you deserve some kind of compensation. I’ve told you that I really enjoyed the excellent dancing of the young KSV Roeselare cheerleaders.

What I’ll do then is to post you a little video of them dancing so that you can enjoy it yourself. This is what real dancing is all about.

I’m pleased that the football club is engaging with the youth of the community, and encouraging the youth to engage with the spectators. Attach a kid to your football club and you have him or her for life.

Too many of these organisations forget that kids have different ideals and aspirations, and fail to engage with them. And when the old fogeys die out, they find that there is no-one to take their place.

How many times have we seen that in an organisation?

So hats off to KSV Roeselare for giving me a good day out, to the brats for giving me such entertainment, and to you for having read all of these 3330 words.

Saturday 28th January 2017 – PANIC AT THE SCOUT HUT!

Here I was, sitting in my little room this afternoon when I heard the sirens.

Two emergency ambulances in fact, one a proper full-sized thing and the other was one of these rapid response estate car things. And they came roaring up the Kruisstraat, the wrong way of course as you might expect, and shuddered to a halt at the scout hut, which is at the rear of this building.

There was some kind of commotion there, and then the big ambulance departed in a hurry, with the little one following on behind with its lights and siren switched off.

The wrong way up the Kruisstraat, of course.

I didn’t have much of a sleep last night and although I was away on my travels everything evaporated as soon as I awoke, which was long before the alarm went off. In other words, I was whacked this morning.

My German housemates were in there for breakfast and it’s a fact that I couldn’t eat mine. Half of it ended up in the bin. I don’t know what’s the matter with me these days. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t do anything.

Seeing as I’m out tomorrow, I hope, I went for a shower and a shave and a change of clothes. I may as well, even if they haven’t been this week to change my linen despite the promise that they made on Monday. Can’t say that I’m too impressed with the housekeeping. But then again, the price that I’m paying to stay here, I’m not complaining.

The Carrefour was on the agenda too. I walked down there via Caliburn, giving him a start and a little warm-up for five minutes. I bought a few bits and pieces for lunch and for Sunday tea. No hummus though as I have a pile of vegan cheese. I’ll go for cheese butties instead.

My path down to the Carrefour took me past the Botanical Gardens in the Kapucijnenvoer. And I was arrested by this bizarre sight.

Although it is comparatively warm for the time of year right now, it’s been freezing for quite a few days. And the fountain by the entrance to the Botanic Gardens is still partly-frozen.

I should have come down to see it in the middle of the cold spell, I suppose, but it was still quite photogenic. I wasn’t the only person photographing it today.

This afternoon, in between a little snooze, someone “shared” a football match on their Social networking site. Caernarfon Town against Rhyl in the Welsh Cup. If they simply link to it, I can’t see it as there’s a block on transmission but “sharing” it means that I can watch it, which I did. That was a nice change.

For tea I had more of my kidney bean stuff with pasta. And it was just as delicious as Thursday too. It was followed by pineapple slices and sorbet, which was even nicer.

I’ll try now to have a good long sleep ready for tomorrow. I’m hoping to have an afternoon out tomorrow.

Saturday 7th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… afternoon out this afternoon. But before I tell you about that, let me tell you a little about the morning.

And it was a morning too because although I had an early night, I couldn’t drop off to sleep again. In the end I put on one of the films that I had downloaded from archive.org and as you might expect, that did the trick. In fact it did so well that I can’t now remember which film it was.

Nevertheless, I was awake before the alarm and although it took a good while to find the strength to leave the bed, I was up there quite early. And I wasn’t alone either because my housemate came up there. She left the house shortky afterwards and it seems that I am now on my own again.

After breakfast I had a peek out of the window and sure enough, we did have another fall of snow during the night and early morning. It’s not a lot but just about half an inch or so and it’s freezing cold.

Minus 3°C in fact and heavily overcast. I was planning on going to watch the football this evening at Brussels, OH Leuven against Union St Gilles, but it didn’t look as if it would be hopeful.

But I did have a nice surprise. A message from Alison. She’s in town and so did I fancy a coffee?

Accordingly I went and had a shave and shower, and changed my undies. After all, I have to look my best and smell nice. And having accomplished that, I went off uptown in the freezing sleet to do my shopping.

The town was empty and there were only a few stalls on the market. And that wasn’t a surprise as the weather was thoroughly dreadful. I did my shopping at the Delhaize and that was all that I could stand. Freezing cold, with freezing hands, I came back here.

Alison and I had a coffee (or two) and then adjourned across the road to the fritkot for lunch. A bag of chips each did us proud, and then Alison came forward with a proposition. She needs a new ski-suit for a trip she’s planning and did I fancy going with her to help her choose?

We hit the road and headed for Wavre and the huge Decathlon sports shop. It was crowded with people, mainly kids preparing for the classe de neige. Although there was a huge selection of clothes, there was some kind of issues about sizes. Either very small or very large and very little in between, which was a disappointment for her.

There’s another big sports shop, the Intersport, at Herent on the other side of Leuven and so we headed off there, calling at the English Shop on the way where I could buy some more Dandelion and Burdock, some more Linda McCartney pies and, at long last, some vegan sausages. We stashed the pies and sausages in the freezer in the kitchen with the left-over croquettes, and then headed out to Herent.

They had some beautiful clothes there but as you might expect, the stuff that I liked and that Alison liked was by far the most expensive, and the more affordable ski clothes were, well, of …shall we say … lesser quality. Entertainment was provided by a two-year-old boy trying on a ski-suit and trying out the toboggans.

We went for a coffee afterwards and then Alison brought me home. By now it was too late, and too cold to think about going out to the football. I warmed up instead and then went for tea.

I’d remembered to buy the pasta so I had a second lot of my kidney bean stuff and, as I predicted, it was even nicer tonight. And now I’m going to have an early night and take advantage of the fact that I’m on my own.

But it was a really nice afternoon out – all in favour of a “change of ideas” every now and again and it’s always nice to be with friends. If I had more friends, I’d do this more often.

Saturday 24th December 2016 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

… the city of Leuven and its Christmas illuminations, I’ll tell you about the day that I’ve had today.

Most importantly, I went out for a walk this evening. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been for a stroll out at night – probably since I was in Montreal in October, and seeing as it’s Christmas Eve tonight, it seemed to be a good-enough opportunity.

One thing that I haven’t done since I’ve been in Leuven to show you where I’m staying.

It’s in the Brusselsestraat, which used to be the main way out of the city before the Motorway link road was built, and on the corner of the Kruisstraat. And that’s the building just down there on the left, on the corner after the third street light.

My room is on the first floor, on the left hand corner at the rear, with a window at the rear overlooking the garden.

And so as for last night – a total disaster.

Someone in here was “entertaining” and the beds creak like nobody’s business, as I might have mentioned before. I was all for giving them a round of applause but of course it’s impossible to clap with just one hand as you know.

And then we had the party.

About 02:00 they started, and it wasn’t until about 04:00 that they finished.

I’d been asleep, having had an early night until they started, and I gave up any idea of going back there once they had started. By 02:30 I was working on the laptop. I may as well make the most of all of my discomfort. No point in missing out on the time that I had unexpectedly been given

I went back to sleep shortly afterwards and that was that until the alarm went off. And rather petulantly, I didn’t turn off the alarm for quite a while. And likewise with the reminder. I let it ring for a few minutes

After breakfast I went and had a shower. I didn’t wait until everyone was awake like I usually do – I went straight in regardless of the noise that the shower makes in the bathroom.

I was in something of a bad mood, wasn’t I?

For much of the morning I was researching stuff again for my stuff on Labrador. And I came across some work by a certain Rudy Mauro, someone who had gone out (in a helicopter) to the site of where Leonidas Hubbard, about whom we’ve talked on many occasions, had died during his ridiculous “exploration” of Labrador’s interior where he had starved to death after being “out” for only a few weeks.

He also had amongst his papers some notes by Dillon Wallace, he who accompanied Hubbard and who went back to complete his work, and which were previously unpublished.

Later on I went out to the shops and to the market. I bought everything that I had written down on my list, but something that I had subsequently remembered that I needed, I even more subsequently forgot.

And worse was yet to come, because the vegan shop had sold out of the spray-on vegan cream. It means that I’m going to have to eat my mince pies “dry” and that’s a tragedy. I was rather looking forward to my special little treat.

I carried on working this afternoon, as well as having a little doze too (which I reckoned that I needed), as well as keeping up-to-date with Morton’s game with Queen of the South.

That all took me up to tea time when i finished off the last of my curry. But it was rather difficult making my tea tonight as my current lot of housemates don’t seem to understand the necessity of cleaning up and washing up after them.

The sooner I can find a place of my own the better.

But then I went off for my walk up town in the evening.

What surprised me was that there was no-one about. Well – that’s not necessarily true. What I mean was that in most other cities the centre would be heaving and there woud be all kinds of things going on – and that was what I was hoping – carol singers and all of that.

But as you can see from a photo of the Grote Markt – there are very few people wandering around here and nothing in the way of entertainment. It was all rather disappointing.

And so instead I came back home.

It’s now Christmas Day and I’m celebrating with a can of alcohol-free raspberry beer that I bought from Noz in Montlucon the other week.

And now I’m off to bed, if my housemates will let me, and I’ll show you the rest of my photos tomorrow.

Friday 16th December 2016 – TODAY WAS A LITTLE …

… more exciting than yesterday.

What probably made a difference was that I was on my travels during the night. And not just upstairs to the bathroom either (I knew that I would have to do that, didn’t I?).

I was driving down the M1 to London in an E-type Jaguar and the range wasn’t enough to reach there so I had to pull off somewhere round by Luton or Dunstable to fuel up. I knew just the place but when I arrived, it was abandoned and all of the pumps were broken. I enquired of a yokel where there might be a fuel station, and he pointed me in the direction of the Motorway service station. But later on I had to go for food and this involved walking down a long corridor past various hatches to receive various items of the menu. Part of the route took us downstairs to a hatch and there I noticed that some people also had mugs of pea soup. I fancied a mug of that and so I made enquiries – to be told that the pea soup was at a hatch a few positions further back so if I wanted pea soup I would have to retrace my steps.

It was difficult to crawl out of bed this morning, but even so, I was all done and dusted and back down here before 08:00.

We had yet more excitement in the Kruisstraat this morning after the police trap the other day.

It’s a police barrage, this time with the aim of issuing alcotests to the drivers. They can do random breath tests here in Belgium. And they caught a couple too.

They also caught a couple of motorists trying to drive the wrong way up the one-way street too

A little later I went outside. They are doing some work in the building opposite and this really caught my eye.

It’s a little mini-tractor like my Kubota B1220 and you can see how they are moving the breeze blocks – on a pallet being used as a skid hoisted up at one end on the tri-point lift. I’ll have to try this one day.

I went down the the bank around the corner and drew out the next month’s supply of money, and then down to Caliburn where I brought another pile of stuff back up here. Food mostly, but some clothes too.

Fetching the baguette was next, and then a coffee. I deserved it.

I was disturbed later by someone who wanted to check the plumbing again. But at least the shower room is now finished and we can use that again. Saves me staggering up the stairs at silly hours in the morning.

This afternoon I spent some time on the website again – and I’m still stuck in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I hope that I can move on some day soon.

Tea tonight finished off the last of the kidney bean stuff that I made the other day, and now I’m going to try yet again for another early night. I had a little crash-out this afternoon but I’mstill quite tired.

Tomorrow it’s market day so I may well go for a little stroll up town.

Tuesday 13th December 2016 – I’M NOT BUYING …

…any of these burgers and schnitzels.

They might be on sale in the Bio range of the Delhaize supermarket in the centre of Leuven, but they don’t look as if the are vegetarian, never mind vegan, do they?

Yes, I went up to town today to do some shopping. A baguette, some hummus, some rice and a carton of iced tea, and that’s me fixed up for the next few days.

Not only that, I was browsing around in the HEMA on the corner, and that had a mini-wok on sale, reasonably good quality, for just €10:00. It’s just the thing for cooking while I’m here, and with this I can do some fried onions and all that kind of thing.

My curries will take on a new dimension with this machine.

With my early night last night, I was wide awake by 06:30. I’d been on my travels during the night, but don’t ask me where I’d been now, because it’s all gone out of my head.

By the time that the alarm went off, I was already eating my breakfast and that is something that hasn’t happened for a long time, has it?

And then I came back to my room to witness the excitement.

They’ve turned the Kruisstraat, the street at the side of the building, into a one-way street but not too many people have taken much notice of it.

Consequently, they sent a police van and a police patrol out to ambush the motorists. But if you notice, you’ll see that the police van is parked the wrong way round in the one-way street, and that’s the kind of thing that can only ever happen in Belgium.

After lunch, I carried on with some work on the website, with a little bit of rest here and there, and then I went for my tea and an extremely lengthy chat with my housemate.

It’s late now, and so I won’t have much of a decent sleep unfortunately. But that’s the kind of thing that happens when you socialize, and that’s a new experience for me.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: kruisstraat

Thursday 7th April 2022 – MY BLOOD PRESSURE …

Friday 16th July 2021 – HOW LONG IS IT …

Thursday 17th June 2021 – THEY DIDN’T KEEP …

Thursday 20th May 2021 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

Saturday 25th February 2017 – IT’S THE START …

Tuesday 7th February 2017 – THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL …

Sunday 5th February 2017 – NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK …

Saturday 28th January 2017 – PANIC AT THE SCOUT HUT!

Saturday 7th January 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

Saturday 24th December 2016 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

Friday 16th December 2016 – TODAY WAS A LITTLE …

Tuesday 13th December 2016 – I’M NOT BUYING …

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