I suppose that I must have at one point though, because I was off on my travels for a short while. And here’s a blast from the past. I was back playing in a rock group again and we had a booking lined up somewhere in West London. There was a girl from school whom I quite fancied (which I actually did all those years ago, funnily enough) and she was at University down there. She had suggested at one time that I should drop in and look her up. I’d suspected that this was just a little bit of flannel but nevertheless it was worth following up so as I was in the company of her brother (who coincidentally has sent me an e-mail just yesterday) I’d check up. His reply was that “she’s very popular with her fellow-students down there, you know”, which of course told me everything that I needed to know. Even I could read between those kind of lines.<\/p>\n
I was definitely awake at 05:20 and when the alarm went at 06:00 I leapt out of bed (well, sort-of) immediately.<\/p>\n
With most things already being packed, I just drank the rest of the contents of the drinks bottles and rinsed them out, gave the room a quick once-over, and was then out of the door well before 06:30.<\/p>\n
But I was on the station in time for the earlier train to Brussels. It was being pulled by one of the Siemens Serie 18<\/em> electric locomotives.<\/p>\n The SNCB owns 120 of these and, beleive it or not, despite their looks they are only about 8 years old. They get plenty of use. This gave me a good opportunity to go for a look around outside the station at the heavy snow was falling. It looked quite impressive this morning, illuminated with the flash on the camera.<\/p>\n And then off to the supermarket, which was now open, for my raisin buns for breakfast. It’s our old friend 4302, one of the PBKA (Paris-Brussels-K\u00f4ln-Amsterdam) series 43000 units of which there are 19 – built in the mid-90s when the service was launched<\/p>\n I was looking forward to having a good sleep to catch up with what I had missed during the night but it wasn’t to be.<\/p>\n Instead, because of all of the snow (it really was heavy) the train had to slow down because otherwise it might overrun signals. And so we crept along at a slow but steady 180kph instead of a flat-out 300kph.<\/p>\n We were warned that we would be at least 40 minutes late arriving in Paris. That meant that I had to go off and hunt down the train manager to have her sign my ticket. I have a feeling that I’m going to be horribly late in Paris and if I miss my connection, the next train is 3 hours later. I don’t fancy spending three hours sitting on a freezing cold, draughty platform and I certainly don’t want to have to pay for the privilege if there’s a way of avoiding it.<\/p>\n First off the train and along the platform – a long time since I moved so fast. And just as I arrived on the Metro platform a train pulled in. So I leapt aboard and it rattled off.<\/p>\n Arriving at Montparnasse, I was first off the train and off on the long walk to my platform right at the far end of the station miles away. I even took all of the travelators and even though they were rolling, I walked along them to speed things up.<\/p>\n And I was lucky I did. It’s about a 2km walk from the metro to my train, and I couldn’t afford to hang around.<\/p>\n I was so stressed out with all of this that it took me a while to regain my composure. Totally out of breath I was.<\/p>\n The snow eased off by the time we reached Surdon and we rattled along quite steadily. Somewhere round about Vire or so I fell asleep because I remember nothing whatever from then on until we arrived in Granville. Dead to the world. What with all of the effort I stopped to catch my breath half-way up the rue des Juifs and I could admire the harbour.<\/p>\n As well as Marit\u00e9<\/em> down there at her mooring too we have Thora<\/em> tied up at the quayside. I can’t see what her load is today, and there didn’t look as if there was anyone down there![\"1849](\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1901\/1901081.jpg\")
<\/a>There was snow and ice all over the place and it was a difficult walk up town.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/a>My train from Leuven brought me early into Brussels.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/a>The TGV was on time this morning.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/a>I turned up at my platform just as the guard was about to signal the departure. No sooner had I put my feet on board than he blew his whistle and the train pulled out.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n<\/a>It was another struggle back up to my apartment.<\/p>\n
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