At the crack of dawn, wiping sleep from my eyes, I draw the grey curtains open in my room up on the fifth floor of an anonymous city centre business motel, to be greeted by a scene from a French movie on the street below.
An irate lady in a too-bright shell suit is stood on the pavement, craning her neck into the open door of a bendy-bus and loudly shouting the odds at the driver. Who is giving back in roughly equal measure.
I can see the other passengers on board, pretending not to care or even notice the encounter going on in front of them which is currently preventing them from going anywhere.
After a minute of yelling and shouting, the passengers bring themselves to a collective shrug, synchronised as if this were a Greek tragedy. Or possibly a Lille comedy.
Seconds later, I watch each party go their separate ways – heading in the same direction. Still shouting at the departed bus, the irate lady in the shell suit waves a clenched fist.
In the window of an apartment directly opposite my bedroom window, a cat slinks off, unimpressed.
Sitting at my business desk eating yesterday’s croissants, I eagerly anticipate Scene II, yet nothing of any interest happens other than a traffic warden slapping tickets on old French cars, which may well be abandoned.
Out on the spaghetti threads of the Lille peripherique, everyone jostles for position, swerving in and out of each other’s lives in calculated moves; estate cars and Renault 5s and dented SUVs dancing around the tarmac at 70kph.
In typical French style, changing lanes on the city ring road is done best with a nod, a wink and a sideways glance. This is high speed flirting – a Gallic take on speed dating.
Eventually I find my exit and suddenly I’m travelling along an arrow-straight autoroute towards Belgium, followed by a trip down picturesque country roads to Maredsous … an abbey, a brewery and a fromagerie all at the same time.
As I pull in to the otherwise deserted car park, three yellow school buses are gingerly making their way around the perimeter. Turns out the monks don’t have enough to do with praying for a living, brewing beer and making cheese, so now they’re all learning to drive buses.
I head into the stillness of the abbey, only for the silence to be shattered by cleaners noisily throwing glass bottles into carts. And all I can think is – that must have been one hell of a party last night.
To herald the cleaners moving on to the west wing, the bells above me start ringing and don’t seem to want to stop, so I head back outside to be met by an almighty avian chorus from up above in the trees.
Difficult to get any peace and quiet around here!
In an attempt to find some solitude, I head to the cafe. And of course it’s now full of several coach parties who have suddenly landed from who knows where.
I queue up to buy six bottles of ludicrously strong beer … which seems like the obvious thing to do, given the circumstances of the morning.
I load them into the boot of my car, and drive off to Maredret, in the hope it will be more peaceful there.
Yet sod’s law I park up in the otherwise empty car park at almost the exact same time as someone else arrives … and when the driver walks over to greet me as I’m stalling for time, I’m wondering if I should turn and run and give up on the day and to give up in my efforts to search for some kind of solitude.
The two of us, complete strangers, proceed to have a stop-start conversation about Volvos of all things. The elderly gent in front of me appears to be Belgium’s only Volvo aficionado, and very much likes the look of the one I’m driving.
We stumble around words for a few minutes until the point where I start pretending not to understand anything, in order to make good my escape into the sanctuary of the abbey right next to me.
Seconds later, I’m greeted in the porch of the church by a statue of a very grey-looking Saint Benoit, who seems to be put out by the fact that there are any visitors today.
My Belgian friend has scarpered, so I’m finally able to enjoy the silence I’ve been long-since promised.
Refreshed, I take a cross-country sprint along narrow winding roads, through scenic one-shop one-spire villages, which take me back to the autoroute, through Luxembourg and finally back into France, heading to my overnight stop at Metz.
It’s a city that was built before I arrived, so that when I do arrive it’s fully formed.
At my hotel check-in desk, a charming receptionist welcomes me and goes along cheerily with my newly updated version of Franglais, which neither of us understand.
Amazingly, I’m still given access to a room.
Following a quick pit stop, I’m heading back down to the lobby and as the exit can only be taken via the reception desk, I feel obliged to say something to the charming receptionist, so I blurt out “Bonjour! Pour aller a la gare?”
The charming receptionist doesn’t flinch but immediately places a street map on the counter, which immediately relaxes me, as it means we can point at things rather than have different conversations simultaneously with no clear outcome.
Suddenly fearing being mistaken for a trainspotter, I exclaim “le bar, pas la gare!” and proceed to make the internationally-recognised hand motion for having a drink.
So the charming receptionist now thinks I’m an alcoholic.
Taking it all in their stride, I’m pointed past the tabac and down the one-way street into the centre-ville. Where a Very Large Cathedral has been placed, at the top of the hill.
This one’s more attractive on the outside than it is pretty on the inside … more so for the lack of gargoyles and generally angry animals that they like to perch up high on French cathedrals, from the few I’ve seen.
I wander around for a brief minute, until my exit is hastened by encountering the sign demanding a few euros just to head down to the crypt.
Bah, humbug! I mumble, and I hope no-one can read my thoughts, is my thought as I tiptoe past the welcoming committee who only welcomed me into the sanctuary barely two minutes previously.
I walked in innocent and came out guilty. This is how it works.
I head out along the old city walls accompanied variously by joggers and mothers and alcies and druggies (possibly). Through the trees, an abandoned sleeping bag, a pair of jeans, a half-drunk bottle of vodka. Over on the other side of the river, a semi-collapsed tent.
To the Porte des Allemandes, a gatepost for medieval people. I walk straight through it.
The only solution at this point is to head to the pub, so I enter the first one I find, which appears to be either a museum or a relic. The whole interior is made up like an olde-worlde town centre street scene.
I take a pew on a reclaimed church bench, opposite the mock-up garage, underneath an art-deco street lamp.
After a few minutes a waiter appears and I do my best to hide my disappointment that they’ve not emerged from behind the garage doors in greasy overalls holding a spanner. They do at least take my order for a beer.
What a weird bar I’ve landed in … everyone is sat in a different street scene, some in different centuries … and yet every single person here is completely immersed in their smartphone.
I sink my beer and move on, dropping in to the Windsor pub for a raspberry beer, before moving on to the Arsenal where recent college graduates are emerging from the grand buildings, excitedly making plans for further celebrations in town, driving a flat-pack coach and horses through accepted conventions and the enormous square.
I head over to the Esplanade, an elevated viewpoint, to see what I can see – which is not very much, because it’s dark.
An Outside World 