… Looking forward to my good night’s sleep, having made a determined effort to have an early night. But it all went wrong round about 01:45 when I awoke with a severe attack of cramp. So severe was it that all of my usual methods of relaxing the muscles failed to work and I ended up hopping around the apartment in agony until I could reset the leg;
It didn’t take me long to go back to sleep either. And when I did, I was away with the fairies again. On board ship, yet again, but this time on the way to Whittlesea Bay where Mrs Povey was busy organising the support for the local carnival. I really must stop listening to all of these episodes of the Navy Lark.
The body clock was working fine and I was awake before the two alarms. As a fall-back I have configured an older mobile phone to work as an alarm clock when it’s important, in case we have another upgrade.
No breakfast – just to back up the computer onto the travel memory stick attached to the keyring. And then to make my sandwiches, pack my rucksack,take out the rubbish and do some cleaning up.
It was raining outside, so I sorted out my raincoat again and had a rather wet and weary trudge through the dampened streets.
The tide was in so there were several fishing boats tied up at the quay by the fish-processing plants, unloading last night’s catch.
This one here has a great set of lights for seeing what it’s doing. It might be the same brightly-lit one that we’ve seen on a couple of previous occasions just now.
The town was quite deserted, as you might expect at this time of a sunday morning.
I mentioned the other day that they had begun to install the Christmas lights and I’d noticed last night that some of them were illuminated.
And so I suppose that I had better take a photo of them illuminated while there is no-one abot.
At the station I reckon that whoever had used the coffee machine before me had had a hot chocolate, because my coffee didn’t half taste strange.
There was a very friendly cleaner on the railway station and we had a very interesting while waiting for my train to arrive. There are all kinds of changes happening on the railways with the Caen-Rennes trains being diverted to pass by Granville, the doubling of the line between Dol-de-Bretagne and Avranches and the reinforcement of the shuttle service between Pontorson and Mont St Michel.
This is all good news, because there has been some talk about the possibility of closing the railway station and putting everyone on buses. But here we have an example of stopping one of the buses here (the bus to Folligny station) and increasing the rail connection. I’m keen to see how this is going to develop.
The train wasn’t all that full at first, although I had a couple of people witting opposite me. But slowly, little by little, the train filled up as advanced towards Paris. By the time that we arrived at L’Aigle the train was packed.
Somewhere between L’Aigle and Verneuil sur Ayre we stampeded a herd of deer in a field by the railway line. It must be that time of the year now, with the hunters starting to come out.
As we pulled into Paris, I admired the courage of the lady opposite who started to reapply her lipstick as the train rattled over all of the sets of points. I didn’t get to see the finished job but it must really have been something
The station at Montparnasse-Vaugirard wasn’t quite the chaos that it has been for the last few Sundays but it was crowded all the same. The Metro was pretty crowded too and I had to stand all the way up to the Gare du Nord.
At Gare du Nord I was lucky to find a seat where I could eat my butties but we had a rather curious incident there.
Some woman pushed a goblet with money in it under my nose. Thanking her, I took the contents. It was several Moroccan coins and a British sixpence. I put them in my pocket.
She then made a gesture, pointing to her mouth, saying “money – eat”.
I told her that she would break her teeth, eating money.
She then pointed to her belly, saying – “eat – baby”
I replied that if she has eaten a whole baby she would get indigestion.
This kind of desultory conversation continued for a few minutes and then she wandered off elsewhere.
Our TGV was packed to the gunwhales. Not a spare seat anywhere.
Luckily I was one of the first on board so I didn’t have to scramble for my seat, which was right down at the far end of the coach.
I spent most of the journey in a deep and profound sleep – with just one awakening to let my seating companion out, and another one for me to visit the bathroom.
We were bang on time in Brussels but so was the 15:42 to Leuven, which meant that I missed it. But there was another one right behind – at 15:56 to Eupen
That was 5 minutes late so there was quite a crowd gathered for it. Luckily I was right at the front so I was able to grab a seat but those who boarded the train at the middle had to walk the whole length of the train before they could find somewhere.
Here in Leuven it was freezing cold and foggy and I had a bitter walk all the way to my digs.
I’m in a room at the top overlooking the courtyard – I’ve not been in one of these before.
Tonight is pizza night so I had a stroll into town in the rain to the place that does my special pizzas.
They’ve put up the Christmas lights in the Tiensestraat, although they seem to be somewhat feeble. I was expecting to see much more than this.
It’s a sign of the times, I suppose.
Back here, I had my tea, and then a shower and clothes wash.
And it seems that I’ve forgotten to bring a spare pair of trousers so I hope that these will dry for the morning.
With the computer locking up, I decided to have an early night. 121% of my daily activity is enough for any man and I have a busy day tomorrow?
rue lecampion granville manche normandy france
