Weekend Chatterbox

I reckon that's exactly what the bloke on the other side is asking them.

I must level with you, my fellow Sabbelkistler. We are all worried that we will lose loved ones. Or our local pub.

Will mindless panic buying leave us with enough bogroll or even with enough food to be needing the bogroll?

I have had a leaflet from a neighbourhood initiative through my letterbox that is trying to offer help to the elderly and the vulnerable. Normally the neighbours only contact you to claim that your drain causes flooding in their garage even if there's none on your side and their house is situated further up the incline than yours, the laws of physics don't apply, water is flowing backwards, it's a miracle, Hallelujah! But these are unprecedented times.

Human civilisation as we know it could break down.

But now things have got serious. This is not a drill and no amount of preparation will help. I.. I don't know how to tell you this...


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My copy of Animal Crossing still hasn't arrived. I think that Dickpic Jeff might have classed it as "non-essential".

Thats low level banana. Mine has been in-situ since last morning and I thoroughly exercised it last night.

You should probably have ordered it to be fair.

what a load of poo!

I woke up with Kane-itis this morning, feeling very bloggie!
I wonder if there is a record for the most crap blogs in one go, "practice practice practice"!

Bruges has street urinals near the football ground. 
Just a post with 6 urinals attached to it.
Very practical, except you really must avoid making eye contact.

So is Jeff B out of action at the moment, or just prioritising certain things?

I got stuff delivered yesterday.
A couple of books.
I've ordered some stuff as well, but it does say longer delivery dates.

I'm probably going to go postal if I have to hear the Matilda stage show soundtrack one more time.

Saw a bumble bee in the garden earlier flying about. Felt like the end of Wall-E.

We're going to attempt a zoom chat with Mrs C's folks and her sister/fam in a bit.

She says I'm a miracle.

Following on from my previous post...

Sadly it sounds as if the Brasserie du Globe has declined a bit - a week or two of my life has been spent playing Bridge on the terrace outside and similarly inside... Like the once charmingly eccentric Hotel des Flandres, it was family owned.

Les Flandres was established in the late 19th century and by the late 1980s the three grandsons were running it. The youngest - charming, brilliant master of wine, was an alcoholic and used to serve breakfast, taking the opportunity to have another eau de prune every time he went back to the bar to get another jug of coffee. by 10 in the morning he would be upstairs sleeping off his breakfast. First the eldest brother sold out, he and the head waitress bought an upmarket err bric a brac shop: Un P'Tit Coin d'Paradis a few doors down the Rue d'Arras. (Some nice stuff, some awful...)

That left the middle son carrying the business and the alcoholic brother (who would disappear for the cure occasionally - trouble was on return he'd be back into temptation; it was like putting a 'cured' arsonist into a fireworks factory)... Eventually the middle brother (who by then had been bagged by his head waitress) and the irascible but excellent chef sold the place out to a chain, who cleaned it up, fixed all the long broken bits, replaced the yellowing wallpaper in the bedrooms with colour matched curtains etc.

It's now a Hypnos hotel, pleasant, but lacking the eccentric charm of its prior incarnation. And the best dining room in Hesdin is just a breakfast room, back in the 70s on a Saturday night you would get massive celebration meals of up to 40 people in there.  Most of this I gathered as I became very friendly with the middle brother as I used to chat to him in my broken but serviceable French. 

The rest I learned from a splendid chap who ran his international oil drill broking business from his astonishing house in Rue Jacquemont (see picture), complete with its own well. The massive door leads into about a half acre garden, that is all the space on the centre of four streets.  The box design was a relic of first Charles V's defensive fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands and its capture by Louis XIII during the Thirty Years War.  The design enabled the 'blocks' to be turned into mini-fortresses.  The central square of Hesdin is Place d'Armes. He had to move back to England to look after his parents.

Great story, eh?



If things had turned out differently I would have moved to Hesdin.


The best place to eat, for me, was Brasserie la Revanche. Fantastic food, but not very jolly - a chilly ambience.

Bloody hell... backing onto a different courtyard...  £136k gets you this place...

CHF13334 Charming 5 Bedroom Town House with Garage and Sunny Courtyard Garden, located within easy walking distance of shops, restaurants and the town centre of the historic market town of Hesdin. The property requires no work and offers 130 m² of habitable space over three floors.




Mind you I bet there are all sorts of fees taxes and covenants, but it's quite a bit less than half what my house was worth.  All bets are off...  still 5 bedrooms and the rooms are massive.  *sigh*... Such stuff as dreams are made on...