{"id":7582,"date":"2017-02-18T20:39:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T20:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=7582"},"modified":"2017-02-19T11:24:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T11:24:23","slug":"saturday-18th-february-2017-youre-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/?p=7582","title":{"rendered":"Saturday 18th February 2017 &#8211; YOU&#8217;RE LUCKY &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; that you are reading this today. Had I been more organised and more patient, I would possibly not have been here to write it.<\/p>\n<p>Just for a change, I had a good night&#8217;s sleep last night. Asleep reasonably early &#8211; woke up just once to switch off the laptop, and slept right through until the alarm at 07:00. With it being weekend, there are no workmen about at ridiculous hours of the morning. <\/p>\n<p>I had company at breakfast &#8211; a new arrival in the building, and that meant that my Russian friend (he&#8217;s not actually Russian, he&#8217;s Dutch who lives in Russia with a Russian wife) had someone else to talk to at breakfast so I could be my usual quiet self.<\/p>\n<p>Back down here, I had a play around with my 3D program, something that I haven&#8217;t done for quite a while. And then I had a good wash and scrub to get myself clean ready for my day out.<\/p>\n<p>OH Leuven are playing at Brugge to day against Cercle Brugge. This is an important match as Cercle Brugge are 3rd bottom and OH Leuven are second-bottom. OH Leuven must win this to avoid relegation &#8211; a spectre that has been staring them in the face for a good few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that, I&#8217;ve never been to Cercle Brugge&#8217;s ground. It&#8217;s a hell of a long walk away from the station &#8211; the second-longest after Royal Antwerp &#8211; so I needed to be on form.<\/p>\n<p>With the beautiful weather, I walked up to the station and bought my ticket for the train. And then I was presented with a conundrum. There was a choice of two trains &#8211; one at 13:19 which is a stopping train, and one at 13:34 which is an express and actually arrived first. <\/p>\n<p>So having had nothing to eat for lunch, I decided on the second train and went to the bakery in the basement to buy some bread and coffee to eat on the train.<\/p>\n<p>Back on the platform with my lunch, my train pulled in and I clambered aboard. And then we waited. And waited. eventually we were all asked to alight as the train would not be leaving &#8211; there was an &#8220;obstruction on the line&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I blagged my way onto an Antwerp train where I could change for Brugge. But then, that wasn&#8217;t leaving either, even though it takes a different line out of the city.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, they closed the station, saying that no trains would be leaving for the rest of the day. A fleet of buses was laid on to take everyone to Brussels-Nord railway station where they could catch a train and continue their journeys but it was pointless for me. I&#8217;d never make it to Brugge for the match so I walked home.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1702\/traincrash.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.erichall.eu\/images\/1702\/traincrash.jpg\" alt=\"train derailment leuven belgium 18 february fevrier 2017\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\"\/><\/a>Back here, I found out the reason why everything had gone to pot. A train had left Leuven station and had derailed itself, falling off the rails at the points, fallen over onto its side, and there had been deaths and injuries. <\/p>\n<p>Further enquiries revealed that it was the 13:19 to De Panne &#8211; the train that I would have caught had I not gone downstairs to buy some bread and coffee.<\/p>\n<p>This reminds me of that famous incident many years ago when someone said that some woman &#8220;had been badly injured in a rail accident but had survived, and all of her friends expressed their regret&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, looks as if I have had a narrow escape.<br clear=\"both\"><\/p>\n<p>Back here, I crashed out for a while and then watched some football on the internet. I even missed my afternoon coffee due to sleep issues.<\/p>\n<p>For tea tonight I had pizza and garlic bread. I&#8217;m out tomorrow evening so I reckoned that I would catch it today. And my garrulous Russian friend was up there making his tea. He wanted to chat. And I&#8217;m sure that someone else has been nibbling away at my pineapples and ice cream.<\/p>\n<p>Another early night and a good clean up tomorrow, as I&#8217;m out with Alison. I&#8217;ll need all of my strength.<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style1 like-7582 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='like' data-post_id='7582' data-nonce='eb71725199' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-7582 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style1 unlike-7582 jlk' href='javascript:void(0)' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='7582' data-nonce='eb71725199' rel='nofollow'><img class='wti-pixel' src='https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-7582 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div> <div class='status-7582 status align-left'><\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; that you are reading this today. Had I been more organised and more patient, I would possibly not have been here to write it. Just for a change, I had a good night&#8217;s sleep last night. Asleep reasonably early &#8211; woke up just once to switch off the laptop, and slept right through until [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,4507,3371],"tags":[5920,1673,1998,7957,7970,1302,2630,8356,2560,5287,7608,5918,5249,4106,1392,7937,7936,2113,2764,2212],"class_list":["post-7582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belgium","category-eric-hall-2","category-leuven","tag-alison-weihe","tag-belgium-2","tag-brugge-2","tag-bruxelles-nord","tag-cercle-brugge","tag-crash-out","tag-daz-3d","tag-de-panne","tag-eric-hall","tag-football","tag-garlic-bread","tag-leuven","tag-oh-leuven","tag-railway-accident","tag-railway-station","tag-royal-antwerp","tag-royal-antwerp-football-club","tag-russian","tag-vegan-ice-cream","tag-vegetarian-pizza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7582","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=7582"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7588,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7582\/revisions\/7588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesguis.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}