… in my little studio in the Dekenstraat.

It’s smaller than the previous room, and what that means is that there is much less of it to heat and I’m all in favour of that.

And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a better room too. And considering that it’s a good few Euros cheaper, I’m more-than-satisfied with this.

I’ve been down to the Delhaize and bought some food, so tonight I had baked potatoes and a tin of Fajita beans for tea. Delicious it was too and now I’m alls et up for bed.

Talking of bed, I was bang awake this morning, right on the button at … errrr … 06:00. The old body clock seems to be doing just fine right now.

And that was something of a surprise seeing that I’d been on a rather unpleasant voyage. I was in my garden, back in Vine Tree Avenue of all places, doing some work there (not like me, is it?) and two boys came past. They started to throw coconuts up to the eaves of the house to see if they could knock down some more that were festooned across the front of the house (it all happens during the night, doesn’t it?) so I told them to clear off. They carried on doing it however and one of the coconuts fell down, missing me by about half an inch. So I told them yet again to clear off. They carried on and when yet another fell down right by me I manhandled … "PERSONhandled" – ed … them off the premises. They then started to mess about with the tyres of my car (a Ford Cortina mk III) and we ended up having something of what the French call a bagarre. I went to phone for the Police but they told me that I was wasting my time. There was one of me and two of them, I couldn’t prove anything and they would say that I attacked them in an unprovoked fashion.

So almost (but not quite – I wasn’t in THAT much of a hurry) beating the first alarm I set about making my sandwiches, preparing my … errr … samples (and I still can’t make this vacuum pump thing work no matter what I try) and SHOCK HORROR doing some cleaning up. That’s not something that happens every day, is it?

The rubbish went out to the bin outside and there was even some time left over to do a little work on the laptop.

On my way up the hill to the station I made an unexpected encounter of some very expansive woman who told me that she had booked to go to Tunisia and that her friend had let her down and would I like to go with her. And all the time I was thinking to myself “are they open already?

Even more of a surprise – although I arrived 25 minutes before the train was due to leave, it was actually waiting in the station and so grabbing a quick coffee, I grabbed my place on board and in the warmth.

And here I breakfasted on the coffee and the biscuits that I had brought with me from home (due to certain inconveniences, I don’t have my medication and breakfast at home when I’m setting out early on my travels).

And it was round about here that I realised that I had forgotten my headphones. I’ll have to use these earpieces and I hate those.

But at Avranches I perked up a little. Glancing out of my window I saw a “shed”, or “Wisconsin”, or “Red Death”, whichever nickname you prefer.

The notorious unreliability of British-built diesel locomotives caused the British railway operators to look elsewhere for their motive power and the “English, Welsh and Scottish” railfreight company went across the Atlantic to General Motors who supplied the EMD Class 66.

They proved to be so reliable in operation that more and more were brought over, leading to the scrapping to much of the native fleet. And as rail freight in the UK declined, some were sold abroad and regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few years ago that we saw one, still in its EWS livery, pulling a freight train in France.

They were so successful over here too that the SNCF ordered some for itself. these are called “Type 77” and they differ from the UK ones in that, inter alia, they are equipped with air conditioning, a microwave and fridge, and a comfortable (!) seat.

But don’t ask me if this a British import or a “77” because I can’t tell from here.

We were late leaving Granville but we arrived at Paris Montparnasse Vaugirard on time. And now I had to negotiate my way to Paris Gare du Nord via a new route, with the metro station on Route 4 being closed.

The new “revised” journey on the metro via the Porte d’Italie is rather longer – it takes about 50 minutes to go round instead of 42 or 43 minutes and I hope that that isn’t going to be crucial for the return journey. It is rather tight for time on the way back.

And there seems to be a change to SNCF policy too. We noticed the train being parked up at the platform at Granville station this morning instead of parked up in a siding and arriving with five minutes to go.

And here at Paris Gare du Nord the boarding gates were open for the TGV almost as soon as it pulled in, rather than 10 minutes prior to departure. That gave us ample time to take our seats and it was all quite comfortable.

But we had the “flying customs” patrol on the platform and true to stereotype they picked on a passenger of African descent. I would have bet the mortgage on that one, as I’m sure that you would have done too.

Despite having had a little doze on the way into Paris, that didn’t stop me from having another little doze on the way to Brussels. I’m really feeling it these days.

In Brussels, I missed the 15:52 train to Leuven due to issues with the ticket machine, so I had to wait for the one at 16:03.

That was an old-generation train with the plastic bench seats in a 3-plus-2 configuration so it wasn’t very comfortable. But it brought us here all the same, and at quite a rapid speed too so I didn’t complain too much..

And then the trudge up the road to the Condo Gardens

And so, here I am in my little room. I’ll have a good sleep, with a shower in the morning ready for my treatment. And I’m not looking forward to that.