… the early night for which I was hoping last night.
Just as I was planning to go off to bed, onto the radio came one of the “Saint” radio programmes. Not the 1950s Vincent Price offerings, but the much-more-modern hour-long Paul Rhys offerings.
Apart from the fact that the scripts are much more exciting and much more realistic than the TV series and the Vincent Price programmes, the voice of Paul Rhys is quite hypnotic and he has a marvellous way of building up the tension. I can’t go to bed when he starts up. I have to stay until the end.
No idea if the body-clock worked last night. It might have done but I was in no mood to look at the time anywhere. I’d switched off the telephone and was intending to sleep until I awoke. I reckoned that I needed it.
It was about 08:50 when I awoke. And even then, I just stayed flat-out until about 11:00. There’s nothing like having a nice breakfast at something like 11:30 is there?
By now though it was raining and so I had a rather damp walk down to the bus station. And here I found that I have forgotten my bus tickets too so I had to buy another 10-trip ticket. I’ll have quite a collection of these before I finish.
I didn’t have to wait too long for the bus – in fact, a matter of seconds. It took me longer to remember where I had put the bus ticket that I had just purchased.
And here’s a sticker that signifies the end of the western world, at least as far as Belgium is concerned. From now on, you are no longer allowed to bring your fritjes on board Belgian buses.
It’s another nail in the coffin of the traditional Belgian lifestyle. No longer do fritjes overcome everything.
There are roadworks in Everberg so the bus went a different way than usual. As a consequence I missed my stop and had a rather wet walk through the Flemish countryside to the English Shop.
The bad news here is that they are no longer stocking the cheap Waitrose Christmas produces, like mince pies and Christmas pudding. All that they are carrying this year is the more expensive stuff with all kinds of stuff that I can’t eat. Even the “Free From” mince pies have egg in them. So that’s ruled all of that out then, hasn’t it?
They only had two tubs of gravy browning too and that’s not really helpful either. I’ll get through those in no time flat.
It was something of a wet, weary trudge to the bus stop with all of the roadworks. And although I was on time, the bus wasn’t and I had to wait 10 minutes in the pouring rain.
Back at Leuven I nipped into the supermarket at the back of the station for a baguette and a tomato to take back to my room for a rather late lunch. I had some salad left from yesterday and some vegan cheese from The Loving Hut, as well as some fruit left over from my travels.
And then, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out yet again on the bed.
Later on, I was back out again to meet Alison.
We went to the Greenway Thai Restaurant in Parijsstraat where we both had a very nice coconut curry, although apparently not as nice as the one that Alison had had last time that we were there.
There was no hurry this evening so we stayed around for quite some time and had a good chat about this and that.
We followed that with a coffee by the fire in the bar at the Kloosters Hotel around the corner and then she drove me home.
With having an early start tomorrow, I did a quick lap round the room and did some of the packing, and now I’m off to bed. There’s a long way to go tomorrow and I can’t afford to hang around.
So I’ll leave you with a few photos of the evening just to show that the Nikon 1 can do it when it really wants to. Unfortunately, it’s not usually when I want it to or when it needs to.
The Tiensestraat in Leuven
The Muntstraat in Leuven
The Tiensestraat in Leuven again
The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Fourth Hotel in the background.
The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Town Hall in the background
The Martelarenplein in Leuven
