{"id":15978,"date":"2022-05-06T19:24:15","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T19:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=15978"},"modified":"2022-05-06T19:24:16","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T19:24:16","slug":"friday-6th-may-2022-one-thing-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=15978","title":{"rendered":"Friday 6th May 2022 – ONE THING THAT …"},"content":{"rendered":"

… disturbs me is when I walk into the pharmacy at the hospital to pick up the medication that they had to order for me yesterday, one of the cashiers recognises me and hands me my package without even asking for my name or any identification.<\/p>\n

So much for my idea of passing inaper\u00e7u<\/em> – “un-noticed” as I go round and round on my petit bonhomme de chemin<\/em>. I’m becoming far too well-known for my own good and for my own liking.<\/p>\n

Better news though was that I actually had a decent night’s sleep last night once I actually managed to drop off to sleep and there wasn’t a great deal of tossing and turning.<\/p>\n

Despite there being no alarm, I was wide-awake at 07:40 and up and about, wandering around at 08:30.<\/p>\n

After the medication, including the first of the new once; I had a listen to the dictaphone. And my sleep must have been so deep because there wasn’t as much on there as there has been of late.<\/p>\n

However we were at a fishing port or pleasure beach or harbour at Cornwall last night. A fire had broken out and the pier was completely burnt away. All of the waterside houses down one side of the estuary against which the pier was located, because the pier ran from the end of this estuary up alongside the banks of it. All of the houses and businesses on that side of it were burnt away. You could see up into the river that was there without any impediment whatsoever. everyone had moved away from this town because its livelihood was over. A couple of people had been to look and the stone pillars of the pier were still there. They reckoned that they could build a pier on these stone pillars that would be above water at low tide and under water at high tide and put a couple of wind turbines on there. They could still use it for anchoring ships etc. They were looking at it. Then they decided that they would have a collection around the town or everyone’s old ash because some of the stuff that they had burnt was really good quality coal. The ash in it had solidified and would make an ideal base for rebuilding the pier so they went round collecting everyone’s ash bins and checking the quality of the ash ready to use to start rebuilding the pier.<\/p>\n

Today I’ve been writing up more notes for my forthcoming radio programmes. With nothing much else to do today I’ve been doing my best to keep busy to stop my mind from wandering off into the deep and dark recesses full of cobwebs in my head where all kinds of different thoughts loiter around.<\/p>\n

But as well as that I’ve also had a very long conversation that went on for almost two hours this morning. Not with Rosemary, I hasten to add – she’s far too busy dealing with the family of Ukrainian refugees who have come to live in her little cottage – but in fact with Liz.<\/p>\n

That’s the first time that we’ve had such a chat since she moved away. There was a lot to say by both of us. There has been a lot of water that has flown under the bridge in that time.<\/p>\n

It was really nice to catch up with everything too. I miss having good friends around the place to whom I can pour out my heart. It’s lovely having Alison, for example, but it’s only for a couple of days per month and usually when things are going according to plan.<\/p>\n

\"rebuilt<\/a>After Liz and I finished I had to nip to the shops. I didn’t have any bread in the place.<\/p>\n

For a change I went the back way to the shop in the Tiensestraat. I’ve not been this way for quite some considerable time and the last time that I passed by they were replacing the roof on this buildins.<\/p>\n

But now, they have modernised the entire place and it looks totally different from HOW IT LOOKED<\/a> in October 2020.<\/p>\n

And now you can see the benefits of this photo index that I prepared over the last few months.
<\/p>\n

Back here I had lunch and then headed off into town and the hospital for my medication<\/p>\n

\"open<\/a>In the Herbert Hooverplein on Friday is the big open-air market.<\/p>\n

it finishes round about lunchtime and everyone would “fold their tents, like the Arabs and as silently steal away”<\/strong><\/em> like “the cares that infest the day”<\/strong><\/em> in Longfellow’s “The Day Is Done”.<\/p>\n

But there is one here who hasn’t folded his tent quite yet. He’s not yet hitched his lorry up to his trailer.<\/p>\n

But here I found out a little more about the megaphone. I had noticed that there was something written on it that said “Hearhere.be”. There were a few signs scattered around the park just here advertising it.<\/p>\n

It turns out that it’s some kind of acoustic artwork taking place all over Belgium and presumably the megaphone that we have seen is an example thereof.
<\/p>\n

\"open<\/a>And so I wandered off into the town centre and the megaphone at the Grote Markt to find out more<\/p>\n

But I couldn’t approach the megaphone because there was some kind of open-air theatre taking place. Two actors, complete with props, were reading a play to the watching public. All eight of us.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t what I would call a popular affair.<\/p>\n

So off I went through the town centre and down the hill towards the Brusselsestraat and the hospital to pick up my medication.
<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a>The mystery of the marquee at the velodrome in the Brusselsestraat is resolved as well.<\/p>\n

There’s a book fair taking place in there this weekend and they were busy filling up the shelves with books as I walked past.<\/p>\n

Someone had left the door open so I took full advantage and pointed my camera through it to take a photo – not that you could see all that much.<\/p>\n

The papier mach\u00e9 cow was quite impressive though, although what that has to do with a book fair I really don’t know.<\/p>\n

It was really quite hot this afternoon so it was something of a struggle up the hill this afternoon. I made it right the way to the top without stopping though, due almost entirely to the fact that I didn’t have anything to carry.
<\/p>\n

\"building<\/a>When we were here yesterday we saw all of the activity going on with the hospital car park.<\/p>\n

We’d seen a tarmac ripper having its claws installed, and today we could see that it’s been hard at work and much of the tarmac has already disappeared. It’s going to be quite a task by the looks of things.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned earlier, at the pharmacy the cashier gave me my missing medication and so I picked up my bag, turned tail and headed back down the hill again towards home in the heat<\/p>\n

At least the walk will do me some good.
<\/p>\n

\"house<\/a>When I was on my travels yesterday looking at that redevelopment site I’d seen in the distance some more building work.<\/p>\n

This is taking place in the Kruisstraat. It’s another one of these famous Belgian projects where they knock down everything of a building except the facade and rebuild an entirely new building behind it.<\/p>\n

There was quite a scandal about a similar situation in Brussels when I lived there. There was a beautiful building with a magnificent marble staircase that the authorities wanted to keep so there was some kind of preservation order on it.<\/p>\n

But that only covered the facade apparently so they kept the facade and swept everything else, including the staircase, away.
<\/p>\n

\"rubber<\/a>One thing that we noticed last month when we had a look at the bike rack in the kruisstraat was the strange propulsion system of a bicycle there.<\/p>\n

The bike was still there today so I took a better photo of it. And I do have to say that I’m not convinced by the wisdom of a toothed drivebelt rather than a proper chain drive.<\/p>\n

On the way back I popped into Delhaize. With not coming back for three months I’d better buy more vegan cheese and mayonnaise to keep me going. And then I went to the vegan ice cream shop only to find that it was closed down and up for sale.<\/p>\n

It’s just not my day is it?
<\/p>\n

Back here I crashed out yet again, but 120% of my daily activity on the fitbit will probably account for a lot of that.<\/p>\n

In order to revive myself I had a coffee and then finished off the notes for this radio programme<\/p>\n

Tea tonight was sausage beans and chips and now I’m going to tidy everything up ready to leave tomorrow and then I’ll be off to bed<\/p>\n

Its strange, but I can’t wait to go home. I miss my little apartment. It’s the first place where I’ve ever lived that has felt like home.<\/p>\n

0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… disturbs me is when I walk into the pharmacy at the hospital to pick up the medication that they had to order for me yesterday, one of the cashiers recognises me and hands me my package without even asking for my name or any identification. So much for my idea of passing inaper\u00e7u – […]<\/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-15978","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\/15978","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=15978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15979,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions\/15979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}