It’s been quite a week. The only way to deal with it was to spread one’s arms, surrender to the oncoming wave and attempt to ride atop it.
After the hectic phone calls and final arrangements for the move last Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday was a relatively calm day with little to do but contemplate the days ahead.
Thursday morning, the removal company arrived at 08:00 sharp to pack all of our stuff. It was the first time we’d ever had someone else pack us instead of doing it ourselves.
This process scarcely needed any management from us, so we went out to breakfast and then on to the new house to meet with a garden architect and discuss plans for a new garden.
By 16:00, all of our stuff was ready to go, including disassembled bookcases and shelving from the cellar. Those units originally took hours to put together, so this was no mean feat. I couldn’t believe that two blokes had accomplished in just 8 hours (including lunch and fag breaks) what usually takes us weeks of stress and fatigue.
They achieve this by not pausing to examine each item and not stopping to consider whether something should be thrown or given away. Everything upon which their gaze falls is mercilessly packed, whether it be a television set or bin-liner full of vacuum-cleaner dust. They also do this work every day, so they’re a lot more skilled at packing, anyway.
Well, the television, couch and bed were mercifully left unpacked, so we enjoyed a relatively normal Thursday evening.
The painters in the new house had also finished their work on Thursday, as had the man who came to spruce up the parquet flooring. So, with the workmen gone, the house was now ready to receive us and our belongings.
Friday morning, the removal company was back, this time at 07:45 and now with five men in tow. All week, I’d been going to bed several hours earlier than normal, knowing how much energy would be required in the days ahead. I don’t know how I found the self-discipline, but I’m very glad I did.
With five burly geezers managing the move, things progressed quickly. Amazingly, the entire contents of our house had been loaded into the van by 11:15. Minutes later, the van was pulling up 200m around the corner at our new house.
The second half of the move naturally took longer. Not only did everything have to be unloaded, but it wasn’t clear where some of the larger items should go and the disassembled items of furniture now had to be reassembled.
Nevertheless, everything was completed by 17:00 and so, after thanking the movers profusely, we said goodbye and closed our new front door behind us for the first time.
That evening, Sarah went out to relax with friends, while I stayed at home and unpacked some boxes. I noticed that our phone line, which had been moved by the KPN that same morning and converted to ISDN, was giving an engaged signal to incoming calls. We could make outgoing calls with no problem.
Saturday was a day spent unpacking boxes, a seemingly never-ending sequence of them. There’s not much else to say about Saturday, other than that I took Eloïse to the Little Gym in the morning and the cleaners came in the afternoon to help us get the house ship-shape. I also found time to go out and buy a few nice things for our lovely new bathroom.
Sunday took us back to the old house, where we washed a few remaining dishes that had been left unpacked for us to eat off. The removal company had missed a thin rack drawer of spices, so Sarah packed that and I disappeared into the cellar to break down loads of old boxes and dismantle our computer equipment.
We’d also brought in a cleaner to help us clear up at the old house, as we wanted to leave it in a respectable state for our buyers. That afternoon, I turned the key and locked the front door for the very last time.
Sarah continued to unpack the kitchen boxes, while I got started on my office. I have less bookshelf space in the new office than in the old one, so I’m probably going to have to consign some less useful books to deeper storage elsewhere in the house.
Monday was another early day. It was the day of the transfer of the old house. The three of us took a final walk around the house and made our peace with parting with it. Outside, the Prins Hendriklaan was being dug up by the council in preparation for the deep sewage system that has been making its way down the Sophialaan for well over a year. We had got out in the nick of time, because within a day, the entire section of the street would be inaccessible to traffic, including removal company vans.
After the walkthrough, we drove to the notary’s office, where we signed the leveringsakte and transferred ownership of the house to the buyers. They seemed a little nervous and apprehensive, as I’m sure I did on both occasions that I bought a house. I think they were also first-time buyers, which adds to the anxiety, as your head is buzzing with dozens of questions and concerns.
And, just like that, it was over. We were no longer the owners of the house we had still been living in until just three days earlier. I shed a tear in the car park of the notary’s office on the way out. It was the end of a very significant era.
In the afternoon, a guy came over to fix a broken curtain rod in the new house, which I’ll now stop calling our new house, since it’s now our only house. I didn’t get much done in the afternoon, because Sarah was off at inburgering, so I was left literally holding the baby.
Today, an engineer from the electrical installation company came over to reprogram the telephone exchange and perform routine maintenance on the alarm system, including replacing some standby power battery units.
Happily, our land-line is now reachable from the outside world once again and our alarm system is functional and programmed with our new codes.
The curtain rod guy came back to paint over his wall repair from yesterday and that pretty much marks the end of Tuesday. Not much unpacking got done, because Sarah was once again at inburgering in the afternoon, but the money from the sale of the old house did come through, which was very satisfying. That really does close the most recent chapter in our lives.
The new owners of our old house have already moved in. I caught a glimpse of their move in action earlier this afternoon, with a lift hoisting their possessions up to the first floor window.
It’s not ideal to move into a house that you bought just 24 hours earlier, because you typically want to have some work done whilst the place is still empty, but they had no choice. With the local council literally digging away the ground from under them, it was all they could do to hold back the council from uprooting the last few metres of that section of the street for 24 hours, just to give themselves enough time to move in. Otherwise, with the street turned into a building site for several months, they wouldn’t have been able to move in until early 2008.
If the first casualty of war is the truth, then the first casualty of a move in The Netherlands is one’s DSL line. Sure enough, the KPN has royally fucked up everything once again and it’s as yet unknown when our line will be up and running again.
So, how am I writing this?
Fortune has smiled upon us once more and someone in the neighbourhood isn’t too particular about his network security, so I’m gratefully receiving a piggy-back ride from this generous soul. This is a welcome stopgap until the KPN pull their bloody finger out and get our own line back up and running.