Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

The washing-machine and dryer were delivered at 07:45 this morning. Needless to say, I was up at an ungodly hour to bike over to the new house in the pitch black in order to receive them. The attitude of the delivery men wasn’t anything to write home about; I must say; grumbling and complaining about having to disconnect the machines and move the dryer from next to the washing-machine to on top of it, when it became apparent that the right-hinged door of the dryer meant that it would open into the wall and be inaccessible. They would have simply left it in an unusable state, had I not been insistent.

The movers came at around 09:00, followed at 10:00 by the bloke from the furniture shop that is loaning us a dining-room table and chairs. Thanks to these new chairs and the arrival of our old couch from Mountain View, we now have somewhere comfortable to sit for the first time in over four months. Truly! You have to have experienced the shite in our six month rental to understand how uncomfortable furniture can be made. Sarah’s mum and dad know what I’m talking about.

Since all of our deliveries had been completed by midday, we were free to unpack some of our stuff. Hunger eventually got the better of us, though, so we left the house without achieving very much.

In the afternoon, we placed an order for a dining-room table and a couch. It’ll be many weeks before they are manufactured and delivered, but we can now start looking forward to their arrival. We need some dining-room chairs, too, but we haven’t quite decided what we want yet.

A couple of runs with Greenwheels of stuff from the old house finished off the day. I’m about to bike back over to the new house for our first night there.

With a little bit of luck, the phone line will be moved tomorrow and the DSL along with it. If not, oh well, I’ll be off-line until the problem is fixed.

Sarah flies to the US with Eloïse tomorrow afternoon. I’ll miss them, of course, but there will be plenty for me to do in their absence.

We went to Media Markt yesterday and bought a Senseo coffee-maker, plus a trio of phones for the new house.

Today, I felt weak and had a bad headache all day. As a result, the pace of the day was excruciatingly slow.

This morning, I was up early to head over to the new house and let the cleaners in. Sarah had to go to her Dutch class in the afternoon, so I was literally left holding the baby as I walked around, supervising the cleaners and the electrician who had come along to tell us what would be required to make cable television available across the house.

Sarah’s classmates from her Dutch class came along this evening for dinner, as today was the final lesson of her course. That was a great deal of fun and there are some colourful personalities amongst them.

Tomorrow, I’ll be up even earlier to supervise the movers and the delivery and installation of our new washing-machine and dryer. It’ll be very nice to be reunited with our stuff from Mountain View and actually have somewhere comfortable to sit down again.

I’m not sure how much actual unpacking we’ll accomplish tomorrow, as we won’t have much furniture in which to store things. One thing we will accomplish tomorrow, however, is spending our first night in our new house and new bed. That will be a welcome end to a very long day.

Another early day today and another case of not sleeping terribly well and feeling rough.

We had to be over at the new house by 10:00 to meet a guy from a furniture shop, who was coming to view the place and give us some advice. He’s now making some drawings for us and making suggestions about how to furnish the dining area and living room.

He’s returning next Tuesday with a dining room table and chairs, at which point we’ll probably order our own table and chairs from him. There’s a good chance we’ll also end up ordering our main couch through him, although that may have to wait until next year.

Anyway, after he had departed, we returned to the old house and, shortly thereafter, drove to IKEA in the Greenwheels car. We bought a bunch of small things, including some emergency lighting to compensate for the paucity of working light fittings in the house. At least we’ll now be able to find our way around in the evenings until we get some permanent lighting.

That’s all we really did today, but somehow it still took all day to do it. There’s nothing on the agenda for tomorrow, but next week will be very busy, so we’ll be enjoying the calm.

I’m knackered. I slept badly last night and awoke this morning, feeling quite under the weather. Of all the days to get a cold, the flu or whatever it is. Bloody typical!

The days are short here now, so we arose in the pitch black and prepared to bike over to the new house for the run-through. The heavens opened while I was sipping the smoothie that Sarah had made, boding ill for our plan to use the bikes. By the time we were ready to go, however, the rain had stopped, so off we went.

When we arrived, our estate agent was waiting for us at the door. The run-through went pretty much as expected. The current owner had kindly put together a pile of manuals for the kitchen appliances, thermostat, alarm, etc. That will make our life much easier as we get to grips with the new technology.

After the run-through, we drove over to the notary’s office with our estate-agent. The signing of the leveringsakte (deed of delivery) didn’t take anywhere near as long as the signing of the contract of sale. We were finished with everything in little more than half an hour, I’d say.

After the customary congratulations and handshakes, we were away. We had entered as renters, but were now officially home owners. Our estate agent dropped us back at the old house, where Sarah took Wiesje upstairs for a nap.

Around noon, we walked over to the new house through the Vondelpark and put the key in the door of our new home for the very first time. Sarah did the honours.

We didn’t have to wait long for our new bed to turn up. The two guys who assembled everything did a very nice job, in spite of the weather, which was switching back and forth between hard rain and a dry spell every few minutes.

Just as they were finishing up with the bed, the people for the alarm system arrived. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to finish the job, as we need a working telephone line for the system. They’ll be coming back next Thursday to finish the job.

Once they had left, the three of us strolled over to the stadsdeelkantoor to register our change of address with the population register, a chore that was completed surprisingly quickly.

Back at the new house, Sarah tried to get Wiesje to have a nap on the new 2000T, but she wasn’t having any of it. I went out to visit the local Albert Heijn, which really is a poor one: no in-house bakery (so no gevulde koeken, bread fresh from the oven, etc.), no large bottles of Coke and many other missing items. Woe is me!

We had planned to spend the first night in the new house, but I was feeling too groggy to want to stay any longer at this point. We had so few of our own things around us that I just wanted to go back to the old place, get some food and settle down for the evening.

Unfortunately for me, there was still the neighbour’s party to attend. We’d been invited to the Christmas party of our neighbours a while back, but Eloïse had missed so much sleep today that Sarah decided to remain at home with her. So, off I went, feeling really lousy by 20:30, to the Christmas party, just to be sociable and meet some people from the new neighbourhood.

As it turned out, the party was very animated. Most of the neighbourhood must have been present and I got talking to a good few people. I enjoyed myself and found myself feeling better when I left than I had when I arrived.

Now I’m back at the old house, writing this. We have to be back at the new place tomorrow morning to meet a guy from a furniture shop, who is coming to give us some advice on dining room table purchases (and who knows what else?). Apart from that, we have no other commitments tomorrow, something I’m feeling very happy about. Like I said, after today I’m knackered.

Since most of the light fittings have been stripped out, we’ll probably take a trip to IKEA tomorrow to purchase some emergency lamps, just to shed some light onto the place until we find some more permanent illumination for the place.

And that just about covers the events of this personally historic day. We’re home owners now and it’s a rather daunting thought. No more landlords to pay rent to, but also no more landlords to fix all of the problems. It’s all down to us now.