… back at the place d’Armes is going to die of shock when he sees how much the kitchen that I want is going to cost him.
Yes, I went to IKEA this morning to have a good nosey around. And it’s only the second-ever occasion – I think – that I’ve been to an IKEA and come away empty-handed. But that was more down to the logistics question of carrying away the stuff than a lack of willingness or of money.
On my travels last night I was dealing with giant worm, or snakes or something. Or, rather, I wasn’t – someone else was. it was all happening at a small rural railway station and this snake in the grass was upsetting people so my reckoning was that the easiest way to tackle it was to send in Terry on The Beast of Beaugut, his ride-on lawnmower, to mow the grass and if possible shred the snake. But it proved much more difficult in practice because for one reason or another the snake was refusing to co-operate.
Having had breakfast and the usual morning rituals I walked up to the bus station and leapt aboard the 358 that took me all the way to IKEA. and eventually managing to buttonhole a salesman. We sat down, had a discussion, drew up a few plans and costed it all out, and it came to … errr … a couple of coppers short of €2,000.
But that’s including a fridge, an oven and one of these two-burner ceramic hobs.
It’s not the cheapest range that they had (you really don’t want to buy that) but it’s next to it. The only concession to what I might call luxury is that there’s a brown oak-coloured work surface rather than the horrible cheap and nasty white one.
But whether he will pay for that is another story, isn’t it?
There was a massive crowd at the restaurant for lunch and it took me hours to be served. And then I wandered off for the bus, horribly late (both me, and the bus).
With not knowing the route of the bus into Brussels I ended up going round the houses and had to take a metro to the Bank.
But here we came up once more against the staggering incompetence of the bankers that I have. And it’s not like the BNP Paribas to behave like a load of bankers but even they seem to be managing it now.
They hadn’t ordered the replacement card for me like they promised (twice now) and having had the issues with various forms of proofs of address, they didn’t like the electricity bill either. They reckon that there’s some complication from their point of view about me living in France with a British passport, but I’ve been doing it now for 11 years so it totally bewilders me.
I was so taken aback by all of this that I forgot to mention the two other things that I wanted to do.
Afterwards, I went for a good wander around the city centre. I had planned to finally make it to the railway museum at Schaerbeek but once more with having had all of this messing about I ran out of time.
There was a football match this evening in Tubize – a bottom-of-the-table relegation dogfight between AFC Tubize and Union St Gilles. And for once, the trains were running kindly for me.
At Tubize, having grabbed some cash, I grabbed a bag of fritjes from the fritkot opposite the station and wandered down to the ground where I picked up a ticket.
And here we had a complication that I had not foreseen – they wouldn’t let me in with my backpack. But after a good deal of negotiation and discussion a friendly, helpful (in Belgium???) security guard offered to guard it for me at the gate and with no other option available, I accepted and in I went.
For once, at Tubize, there was adecent crowd. None of this “crowd-changes to the teams” stuff as is usual. And most of the supporters seemed to be from Union St Gilles too, for if they win they are saved from relegation and Tubize go down.
The match itself was dreadful. We had the first foul right at the kick-off and the first yellow card after just 29 seconds. The final score was 12 (I think – I lost count) yellow cards and one red and I do have to say that I didn’t disagree with any of them.
But the game was woeful. Tubize were inept and despite having many good chances they couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument. Only one player, Jae-Gun Lee about whom I have commented before, looked to be of some good use, so of course they withdrew him after about 70 minutes.
And Union St Gilles were even worse. They had a couple of players whom I wouldn’t like to meet down a dark alley late at night, one of whom was the centre-forward – a big bustling, burly type. He looked quite useful as a battering ram but his team never had possession up front long enough to give him the ball. They managed just one shot on target all night – and scored!
Right at the death, Tubize won a penalty – and as is their usual form at moments like this, the St Gilles keeper saved it. Last kick of the game of course, and the jubilation from the players, officials and supporters as the ref blew for time told its own story.
It was a slow stopping train back to Leuven, packed as far as Brussels with St Gilles fans. But I eventually made it back here by about 00:45 and that’s my lot for now.
See you in the morning.
