I went round the corner to the supermarket to buy my baguette for lunchtime. And the small woman who usually works on the till was stacking shelves round the back.

“Ohh hello!” she saud. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since the summer!” and then started to have a good long chat with me.

One thing that I’ve been trying to do while in Belgium is to passer inaperçu as the French say, to pass by unnoticed. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall all of the issues that I seem to have with Belgian authority as I pass by on my way, so I don’t need to be recognised by anyone while I’m here. But to be recognised – and missed – by someone with whom I haven’t exchanged any more than half a dozen banal words in the past is rather disconcerting.

But to go back to the start of our story, then last night, despite being early in bed, it took ages for me to go off to sleep. Long after midnight, I reckon. But apart from one trip down the corridor I had a really good sleep until the alarm went off.

During the night, I was on my travels with Percy Penguin – someone whom I haven’t see now for 4 years and who at the time didn’t feature in my ramblings anything like as often as she deserved – and we arrived at a boarding house in South Wales near the English border. Here, very much to my surprise we encountered my brother and a lady who was his wife (but who isn’t in real life) and a couple from the Wirral whom I know. We ended up having quite a chat that evening and next morning, when we met up for breakfast, we agreed to meet up at another boarding house further round the South Wales coast that night. Percy Penguin and I had things to do so off we went, but it took absolutely ages to do what needed to be done, and it was 23:00 by the time that we finished. This was far too late to meet up with the others and I was terribly disappointed by that.

Despite the influx of new people yesterday evening, I was on my own at breakfast , so I didn’t hang around. I was soon back in my little room.

And apart from going out for my baguette at lunchtime, what else have I done?

Most of the day, I’ve been working on my website. From somewhere, and I’ve no idea where, I’ve summoned up some motivation and I had a good day working on a page about the lighthouse at the Pointe des Monts in Quebec, Canada. And the page became so long that I’ve been obliged to split it into two – this one and this one.

Not only that, I’ve been working hard on another page too and although there is no amendment as yet to this page, when it’s finished it will need to be split into four because there are loads more stuff currently being added to it.

It’s all about the stuff that I did while I was around here in late September and early October, so you can imagine how this is all going to turn out when it’s finished.

I had a shower and a shave too, as well as a change of clothes. Alison was in Leuven so she came round and we went for a meal in the kebab house down the road and then a coffee round the corner. She turned up at about 19:45 and we spent so much time chatting that is was about 23:35 when she left. It’s good to have a long, healthy chat with friends.

When I was at the supermarket earlier today, I noticed that they had heaved a plastic lettuce box into the waste bin. It looked in good condition too so on the way back I went to have a look and
1) it was still there
2) it was in good condition
so I rescued it from the waste bin and it’s here in my room with the other two that I have rescued.

Now I need to go to bed but coffee late at night is never a good idea.

I’ll be here for hours, I reckon.