Tag Archives: melanie

Saturday 16th July 2016 – WELL THAT WAS A WASTE …

… of effort. OH Leuven had a match advertised tonight, playing at home against St Truiden. And even though I wasn’t feeling up to it, I decided to go anyway because it would do me good to get out and about for a while.

And so I set off and had a pleasant walk through the warm early evening down to the ground, only to find it locked up. The people in the fritkot on the car park knew absolutely nothing about it, which surprised me.

I had a walk around the stadium to see if I could see anything, or anyone who could tell me anything else but there seemed to be nothing happening. but at least I had an opportunity to look at some ruins that I had noticed last time that I was here.

The ring road around the city, in common with many ring roads around European cities, seems to be sited upon the line of the ancient fortifications of the city and I’m sure that I had noticed something that might have once been part of a water gate or even a mill over the river Dilje at one time.

The walk down to the football stadium wasn’t too bad but I struggled on the way back. I ended up having to sit for 20 minutes by the side of the river and relax, trying to recover some force but it didn’t really work.

In the end, I staggered back here and went off for an early night, totally played out.

And yes, the match had taken place, and OH Leuven had won 4-1. Kick-off was indeed at 19:30 and OH Leuven were definitely listed as the home team. So what happened there, I really do not know.

That wasn’t the only time that I had been out either. Round about lunchtime I’d gone into the town centre to buy some stuff for lunch. Not that I was feeling hungry right then, but there was always a possibility that I might do later in the day.

As it happens, I didn’t, but it wasn’t a wasted trip as I bumped into Melanie, one of my co-cottiers from the last place. We had quite a chat, which was very nice, and exchanged e-mail addresses.

Apart from that, I’d had a better sleep somewhat, and was awake reasonably early. At abut 10:00 I went to make some dry toast and orange juice because even when I’m being ill, I have to try my best to keep up some kind of calorie intake. Yes, you can tell when I’m ill when I’m off my food, and I’ve not had a coffee for a few days either.

One thing that has got on my wick, and quite seriously too, is that I’ve had not one person but two people come bursting into my room. I rather lost my temper with the second person who came in but it didn’t half annoy me. Good job I wasn’t dressing and adjusting my undercarriage like the time that I was burst in upon a day or two after I arrived here.

Liz was on the internet so we had a good chat too. She feels guilty about making me go running off to the Auvergne earlier in the week, but while it’s true that the trip down there didn’t help matters, it was something that had to be done and anyway I’m not going to abandon all of my life just because of this illness thing. I have to keep on going.

So having crashed out earlier, I drifted back awake a couple of times, the last time being someone who is intent upon entertaining his lady friend. As soon as they finish, we can all go back to sleep.

I mean – I did try to give them a round of applause, but you can’t clap with just one hand, can you?

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Wednesday 29th June 2016 – MY DOCTOR …

… at the hospital this evening came up with the best comment to date about the UK’s referendum result. he reckons that they should find all of the tugboats in Europe to tow the UK out into the middle of the Atlantic and dump it there. And I can’t say that I disagree with him either. We are both of the opinion that the UK’s method of negotiation is to send in a gunboat – tactics that might have worked 150 years ago but are quite simply laughable today. The last time that the UK fought a war on its own, it took them 3 years to defeat a handful of undisciplined and untrained Dutch farmers in South Africa.

So having put the world to rights, I had my body scan. They stuck me on a table, clamped some headphones on my ears and stuck some kind of diving helmet on my head. Claustrophobia wan’t in it. I had to undergo this scan for about half an hour and I spent all of this time in that time-travel portal with my eyes tight shut.

I left here at 19:00 and arrived back at just about 22:00, having grabbed a bag of chips on the way. And I won’t be going to that fritkot again. They weren’t so good and the service was a little chaotic.

This morning I was awake again quite early, 06:30 to be precise, having had one or two trips down the corridor. And I ended up chatting to someone on the internet which meant that I didn’t go down to breakfast until 09:15.

And despite the better day yesterday, we had a rainstorm through the night and a little bit during the day.I went off to do a little shopping at lunchtime – to the Delhaize in town where I bought my baguette, some bananas and a small bag of muesli seeing as how I’ve run out. I won’t buy a big bag until I know what the breakfast in this new place is like.

There’s a bio shop in the Vismarkt in the town centre and so I went for a recce while I was out. There’s a huge selection of vegan stuff in there, including the sliced vegan cheese of the type that I used to buy in Brussels. It’s useful to know that the stuff is quite handy in the neighbourhood.

Updating the blog, I’m now up to the 26th August 2010 – well-ahead of where I want to be. But I don’t expect that I’ll be doing much over the next couple of days while I clean up here and organise my moving to the new pad.

And on this subject, Melanie lent me a needle and thread so that I could sew my bag back together. I have a cheap green bag that I use for going shopping – a bag that I received as a free gift in the pharmacie in St Gervais d’Auvergne – and the stitching had started to come apart. Now it’s a bit more secure and I hope that it will hold out.

Now I’m off to bed to see how I sleep tonight. The long walk to the hospital and back might have done me some good in that respect and I hope that it’s tired me out enough.

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Saturday 18th June 2016 – WHAT A NICE EVENING …

… that was!

Tonight was the night that we had our little farewell party. The student exams are coming to a close and two of the students are leaving on Monday morning. And so they decided to have a little party, with each person contributing a course of the meal, and I was invited.

I went to the Asian fast food place and bought a biryani, and also a bottle of wine. Everyone else made something, much of which was vegan, so there was plenty to eat. We sat around the table chatting away for quite some time too and it was after midnight that I came up to my room. The people here are very nice indeed, very friendly, and I’m glad that some good has come from staying here.

But here’s a thing. I had a couple of trips down the corridor during the night but they didn’t inconvenience me too much, and went back to sleep each time. When the alarm went off, I simply turned over and dozed off again, and it was almost 08:30 when I finally awoke. That makes a pleasant change too, a little lie-in.

I was back on the Titanic public enquiry this morning, with Senator Alden Smith still stuck in this monomania that he had about the two wireless operators, Cottam and Bride, selling their stories to the Press. I can’t see an issue with it – after all, it’s their own personal story and they waited until they were on dry land before making contact with the Press, and yet to date, 12 days into the enquiry, Alden Smith has devoted about a third of the time into interviewing everyone from the Marconi company, wasting everyone’s time and even summoning Marconi himself not once but twice to a meeting in the USA to interrogate people over the issue as he thinks that it’s “improper practice”.

As I said, I don’t see an issue with it. It’s their own personal story and has nothing whatever to do with an issue involving Marconi, the White Star Line, the American public and Senator Alden Smith.

At lunchtime I braved the showers to go to do some shopping and passed by the market for some olives where I bumped into Melanie, one of the students here who was also doing some shopping. I’ve finished off my hummus so tomorrow I’ll be having cheese and tomato butties. I don’t want to buy anything perishable yet because on Monday I’m not here – in the hospital in fact, and out gallivanting on Tuesday lunchtime.

Back on the Titanic this afternoon and then off to the shops for the food for the party – and now I’m back here. I’ll have a nice lie-in tomorrow (I hope) with no alarm. High time that I had a good rest.

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