I'm on my own ...

... for the next day or two, and so what i'll be doing is to try to catch up with my sleep. At just 200m from the University and with a tram line just around the corner it's really noisy here and last night, with the neighbours arguing until 03:00 there was no chance of any real sleep, especially as the trams start up at 06:00.

I solved the baguette problem by the way. There's a mini-Carrefour supermarket just a few hundred metres away and they have baguettes at 95 cents. Only twice as much as in a Carrefour in France but it's a step in the right direction. I did my week's shopping in there too, and regular readers will recall that in France, that comes to round about €20:00. Here (admittedly with a light bulb included) it came to €38 and something. Highlight has to be the tomatoes, 99 cents per kilo in the Auchan, that cost €2:59 for 800 grams here. No wonder I left the country when I retired.

Most of the time I've spent here, I've been doing odd jobs around the apartment but I managed to get out and about. Primarily to go to the bank to arrange a transfer or some money to France. However of course, as you might expect, the bank chose today of all days to be closed for repainting and decorating. Nevertheless I did manage to visit a few other shops for a few other things, including a tack of my 12-volt LED warning lights.

On the way back here I stopped off at the Palace to see how the King was getting on, and I noticed a group of Japanese tourists talking to everyone else in the crowd. My curiosity having been aroused, I sneaked up behind then and listened to what they had to say. It was really quite illuminating -  a question of "who's that up there on the balcony of the Palace - you know - the guy standing next to Eric Hall?"

So this evening I'm on my own with Strawberry Moose. We've had a pizza and we've watched the footy and now I'm having an early night while he's off to the Bois de la Cambre to look for a few ladyfriends