With a few weeks' gap before my final lot of injections, and Antoine back home in Brussels, it was time to get over and see him. Antoine and I had spent 6 months or so together on a permaculture farm in France, where I found his light-hearted nature and openness very endearing. Antoine is these days quite heavily involved in permaculture training in France/Belgium, and also in organising this year's permaculture festival in Belgium.
The journey to Brussels was pretty uneventful - I found the course of national highways that was most direct and followed them, stopping to camp roadside about 70 km before Brussels.
The next day I got going earlyish to try to beat the rain forecast, and almost succeeded. En route I stopped at a McD's to use the WiFi and it actually just worked, unlike in some other countries where it is now necessary to have a paid account with a national telco.
Right on arriving in the suburbs it rained really hard and naturally I took shelter, whimpering, under some trees ;)
When the rain eased I went in to the city and when he'd finished work Antoine met me there and took me to his home. The place was furnished with a garden some 10m or so wide and 30m long, with many fruit trees and wild and cultivated edibles, not to mention 5 beehives - not bad for a squat! A veritable inner-city oasis, you could say. The house itself was large, classic in style, spacious and well-equipped.
We dined in the garden with Murielle, who hails from Toulouse, and drank some fine Belgian beer before retiring. The next day I went into town with Murielle and we naughtily climbed the statue at the Palais de la Justice and toured the antique shops and the flea market, where she somewhat impulsively bought an old record player as a surprise gift for a friend. We then walked to where she was staying and I met the friendly crew who lived there and they invited me out to a party that night.
I had to turn down the 3rd whisky shot offered on the way to the party by Murielle's good friends, preferring to pace myself just a little, then I collected my bike and we all met at the venue. There was some great 3 guitar jazz going down for a while, very Django Reinhardt, and then a DJ came on and gave us a lot of 90s dance music which I started to boogie to despite it really not being my cuppa chai at all. I enjoyed dancing like a madman anyway, and when Antoine turned up a bit later in the evening after finishing work we had a lot of fun. As it was coming time to leave I noticed my pannier bag not being where I'd left it next to the speaker stack, and after an exhaustive search of the premises, with that sinking feeling I eventually had to accept that it had been stolen. I was gutted as that pannier and I had been many places together, and it had contained some very useful bits such as a few items of bike-wear, chargers, spare batteries and stuff for my phone.
The next day I set about researching replacements for some of the stuff nicked, but it took the better part of €100 by the time I'd done it. Antoine gave me a brief tour of the city at the same time. All that done, I set about tuning up Ant's bike and also installed the latest Ubuntu on his netbook, which he really appreciated.
Then it was time to move on as Antoine went south to Barcelona on holiday, and I decided to head into Germany and really get this voyage underway. I left refreshed, and very happy to have seen this sterling gentleman once again. Thanks Antoine, and I hope our paths will cross again in the not too distant future.
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