Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Mardi, 30 aout. Je vais en Belgique



It felt like a good day to go to Belgium today, a flatter and much less challenging version of Mallory’s “because it’s there.” Nevertheless, I donned my urban strolling equivalent of tweed trousers and a corduroy jacket (long shorts and a sleeveless top, plus running shoes), went through the front door and turned right. That was about it in terms of route-finding: all I needed to do was keep going until I crossed the border. There are other bits of Belgium which are closer, if you could go direct, but the roads seem to get close, then wimp out, running parallel with the border before plucking up courage and going across.

I know the first mile or so. There’s an interesting church and some houses with unusual tiling but otherwise nothing special. I’m relieved to see that it’s market day in St Saulve: it’ll distract me from the road for a while. As I walk along the line of stalls, I hear the usual “Bonjour, madame” from a vendor trying to attract my attention. He succeeds when it’s followed by “Good morning.” It’s one of our usual suppliers, known in our family as Le Prof because he helps me with pronunciation wrong. Another regular is there too. He’s privately called Eeyore, a reference to his usual air of gloom, though we suspect that this is a façade. He catches my eye, looks questioningly and I tell him what I’m doing. He tells me it’s quite a long way. Maybe I should have looked at the map more closely.

I stop for a coffee at Onnaing, where the bar has the usual clientele of men over 50, one of whom comes over and shakes me by the hand. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this sort of extreme politeness and worry that if I don’t do it I’m seeming rude. I turn round after I’ve crossed over the road and see the church.  I have chosen the less interesting direction, I think, as I could easily have missed this.




More houses, mostly redbrick, terraces with no gardens. The shops are nearly all closed. The thought of lunch is like the light at the end of the tunnel, the carrot on the stick: I have in mind a lunch of moules frites with a beer in a pavement café in a square, warmed by the sun but shaded by a parasol.  Nearer the motorway, there are views of fields in the distance, then one field of maize next to the road but not much else. Another maize field appears and as I look, I have a glimpse of something bright orange: a field planted with vivid orange marigolds. It’s lovely and is one of the last fields I see before I finally reach Quievrechain.

Golden arches tell me that the town is two minutes away, though I guess that’s as the car drives but eventually I see “Bienvenue a Quievrechain” and know I’m there. All I need to do is continue until I reach the Belgian side of town, across a river. 

I walk on, then realise that the shop across the road is called “Le Premier Magasin Belge,” the one next to it is a tabac with a painted Belgian flag, there is a Coiffure de la frontière and I am, it seems in the Belgian town of Quievrain.
I go back to find the border. There it is: a small river just over a metre wide. I must have blinked.

Most of the stores seem to be tabacs. Some sell beer to take out as well as serving it at the bar and they all sell cigarettes – lots of them, in large quantities (bucket of fags, anyone?). There is a large beer-and –tobacco store so I go and look for my favourite beer. I buy that and a couple of others as a souvenir of my trip to another country. The cost is 4.48€, including ten cents deposit on each bottle, just under £4.

It’s lunchtime and I’m hungry. I look for my pavement cafe but the only food on offer seems to be pizza so I cross the road and turn back towards France, looking in the shop windows as I go. There is a mind-boggling display of ash-trays, shisha pipes, bongs and buckets of cigarettes.  I find the Café de Paris, eat, relax and then, eventually, find the bus stop. 

By the time I get home, I’ve walked about ten miles and am feeling tired: it's about twice as far as I've walked for quite a while. I have time to reflect upon the day: not the most exciting walk in any way but I've saved myself a lot of research time if I ever want to have a life which revolves around drinking beer, cigarettes and drugs.

Yet another pretty roundabout.


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