{"id":15974,"date":"2022-05-04T21:07:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T21:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=15974"},"modified":"2022-05-04T21:07:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T21:07:10","slug":"wednesday-4th-may-2022-happy-star-wars-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=15974","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday 4th May 2022 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

May the fourth be with you!<\/p>\n

As for me, I’m not suite sure what was with me today but I’ve been a very busy boy. The only cure for what’s wrong with me at the moment is, as I said yesterday, plenty of work to take my mind off things and so I’ve buckled down and done a pile of stuff.<\/p>\n

For a change I had a reasonable night last night. Probably having taken one of my night-time pills before going to bed might have contributed to that. But even so, it was still quite interesting because I’d been off on my travels during the night.<\/p>\n

World War II was being fought. The armies were opposite each other in a trench each. From our side, whichever side that was, someone held up a huge red square type of banner that looked like a Manchester United type of banner when you were close to it. Someone held it up and the firing stopped. A troop of soldiers and cavalry went over into no-man’s land where they met someone coming from the enemy’s side. They had a long conference while we were still in the trenches. Slowly people got up from the trenches and started to move around on top. One group went over to inspect this huge orange bunker that was just in front of the trenches. We noticed that it had several holes like miniature golf holes in it. One of them was so much deeper than the others but that was like a supply hole. People would drop things into this little hole and it would go down out of harm’s reach into this thing so that someone could then open it from underneath and take out whatever was in there. Gradually the news percolated around that an armistice had been signed so we all slowly left the trenches. We found some water, rain water that was full of pulverised brick dust and cement dust s we washed our hands together in this hoping that the action of the dust would grind out all of the dirt and everything that was ingrained into our hands but no matter how I tried, I just could not get my hands clean no matter how many times I washed them.<\/p>\n

And then there was some kind of football tournament taking place at Wistaston Green. It involved a girl who was playing against a team. She was out in the street and they were in their gardens. She had to kick the ball towards them and they kicked it back. The big team scored a goal by kicking the ball into the garden of the house next door. I was there and I asked the name of the guy who had kicked it. They told me so I made a note. They carried on playing and he did the same again, or someone else did it. They told me who it was who had done it and they said “Clarke with an H” so I imagined that it was spelt “KHlarke”. Then he said that they had changed now and had un front a “Clarke with an L” so I was trying to think how you would spell that “Clarke with an H because that also has an L”? This girl took a kick and almost scored a goal with it. One of them pointed to the river valley behind her and said “you don’t want to try to win because in that valley is all swamp and everything. You’ll have a hell of a time down there with everything rusting. She replied that she’d seen some places down there that were waterlogged.<\/p>\n

Finally I’d been in the English shop or some kind of shop and bought a packet of traditional English butter biscuits, don’t ask me how. I was sitting there eating them. A discussion started about all different kinds of things and something came round about waste, how everything ought to be re-used. Nothing should be thrown away. I pointed to my biscuits and said that the crumbs from these would go to make apple cider vinegar and that’s the way that I’d bought them from this shop that would do this kind of thing. Someone made a remark about me with some of these biscuits but I didn’t pay that much attention. Just then my brother and one of his friends came past. My brother saw these biscuits and just put his hand in my bag and helped himself to one. There were only about half a dozen. Then one of his friends started to make extremely broad hints about the biscuits do I had to give him one as well. Then I found that someone had only eaten half of one as well and put the other half on the dashboard of my car which annoyed me somewhat. I got into the car to start. They had been playing with my music and it wasn’t the music that I’d been listening to. I had to scroll through all the different channels and different storages to try to find the music that I’d been listening to but I couldn’t find it. I was in such a bad mood. My car had actually been driven into a parking space instead of reversing in. That annoyed me intensely. I had to reverse out into the street. There was a whole line of traffic. I started to reverse thinking that someone would stop and let me out but they all carried on. In the end we ended up in a log-jam where I couldn’t move because I was at the wrong angle to go back in again and cars going past me couldn’t go past because I was in the way. It was all total chaos now.<\/p>\n

So no TOTGA last night. That was a disappointment and no mistake.<\/p>\n

So having dealt with the dictaphone (which took long enough, as you can tell) I sat down to start work.<\/p>\n

WHat I’ve done is to write out the notes for the radio programme that I’ll be preparing on Monday. It’s not easy to do that on the laptop with steam-driven internet. I’m used to 64GB of RAM, a 4.7Ghz processor and hard-wired internet.<\/p>\n

As a result that took me right up to a late lunch. But at least it’s done and dusted.<\/p>\n

Having had a late lunch I wandered off out for my afternoon walk.<\/p>\n

\"disco<\/a>And this afternoon I hadn’t gone far before I ground to a halt.<\/p>\n

Just down the road in the Brusselsestraat is one of the Halls of Residence for the University and it looked as if they were having a party this afternoon.<\/p>\n

They had marquees and beer tents, a bouncy castle, all kinds of sideshows and a disco bashing out the music oud enough to awaken the dead in the cemetery across the road.<\/p>\n

There was someone at the entrance collecting admission money and issuing tickets but I fooled them. I went in through the exit.<\/p>\n

And I did too. Quite seriously.
<\/p>\n

In town I went into FNAC to see what was happening but there was nothing whatever of any interest so I tried my luck in the Diestsestraat. But with the same result.<\/p>\n

At Origin’O I bought some vegan sausages for back home and a can of that fiery ginger beer to drink as I walked round. They had a pile of it in a cold display and it was quite warm outside.<\/p>\n

\"river<\/a>My walk took me down the street to the bridge in the Brouwerstraat.<\/p>\n

It’s here that the River Dijle – or is it the River Leie? – flows underneath the bridge here. There’s a path, the Handbooghof, that runs down alongside it. It was looking quite nice this afternoon in the sun so I took a photograph of it.<\/p>\n

But it’s one of these places that needs a good tidy-up. There is so much more that they could do with the place to make it look quite attractive. I’m sure that the people who live in those modern apartments across the river would appreciate it.
<\/p>\n

\"medieval<\/a>Maybe they will do something when they have finished restoring the medieval city walls.<\/p>\n

There’s a length of wall that runs down here alongside the footpath and they have been restoring it for a couple of years. Although they don’t seem to be going quickly, it’s quite a skilful job involving a lot of precision manual labour and it isn’t easy to do it.<\/p>\n

When I rebuild my collapsed wall, I didn’t have any artistic design to follow.<\/p>\n

As I walked past I noticed that the door onto the site was open so I stuck my head in, only to find myself nose-to-nose with a security guard.<\/p>\n

And so in the best traditions of the News of the Screws, I “made my excuses and left”.
<\/p>\n

\"disco<\/a>Further on down the path I turned into the Brusselsestraat.<\/p>\n

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the back of the velodrome here they had laid out a hardstanding that they use for events. Today though they have put a marquee on the site.<\/p>\n

It’s quite a substantial erection too with proper sides and doors, so it looks as if it’s going to be something important.<\/p>\n

That’s something else that I’ll have to inspect when I’m out and about on my way home from the hospital – if they let me out tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Who knows what they have in store for me tomorrow?
<\/p>\n

\"disco<\/a>There was another racket coming from nearby too so I went to have a look as I was passing by.<\/p>\n

It looks as if some people have set up a disco at the velodrome and they are having a little dancing session.<\/p>\n

So what’s going on in the town today with all of the music and all of the students having a good dance? I can’t recall anything special happening today that would merit all of this.<\/p>\n

But while we’re on the subject of the velodrome, when was the last time we actually saw someone taking advantage of it with a bicycle?
<\/p>\n

\"kid<\/a>And while we’re on the subject of bicycles … “well, one of us is” – ed<\/em> … here’s an interesting photo.<\/p>\n

That bike there is what they call in Dutch and Flemish a bakfiets<\/em> and they are used for transporting small goods. But they also have another use too, as you can see in this photo. Taking the kids around in the bakfiets<\/em> is quite a common pastime in Leuven.<\/p>\n

At Delhaize I remembered the coffee (because I’d run out) and the baked beans and then headed for home.<\/p>\n

Back here I had a nice shower and a good clothes-washing session and then regrettably I crashed out good and proper in the middle of a Paul Temple episode on the computer.
<\/p>\n

Later on I carried on with the work in order to distract me from my woes. I’ve now paired off two weeks’ worth of music for the radio programmes.<\/p>\n

And that wasn’t easy with the small screen and using a pen and paper instead of a whiteboard and washable marker. I couldn’t see anything very much at all of what I was doing<\/p>\n

That took me up to the time for my Welsh conversation class revision and as a result I didn’t have my tea until after 21:30.<\/p>\n

That’s what I call “working” – and it’s just as well because it keeps me busy and stops me dwelling on what might have been over the last 22 – or was it 30? – years had the time have been right and things have been different.<\/p>\n

At least tomorrow I’ll have far too much to worry about than to think about anything else.<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
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May the fourth be with you! As for me, I’m not suite sure what was with me today but I’ve been a very busy boy. The only cure for what’s wrong with me at the moment is, as I said yesterday, plenty of work to take my mind off things and so I’ve buckled down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4507],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eric-hall-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15975,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15974\/revisions\/15975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}