Category Archives: Weblog

Moving day

Friday 28/12/2012:

  • 7:00: today my dad + partner are going to move from the old house to the new house (the boerderette). I’m here to carry boxes and make cynical remarks. I’m not going to post them all, otherwise I’ll look like a grumpy old man, while in reality I’m just a grumpy man.
  • 7:30: nobody killed yet
  • 7:45: the Phillips screwdriver almost did the trick
  • 10:00: first truck is done
  • 12:30: second truck is done
  • 13:00: fire alarm is working too good, it already goes off when the bread is just about done, not when it is already too far.
  • 13:30: the sandwiches taste good
  • 14:00: see if we can get all books on the book shelves
  • 14:15: uh-oh another box with books
  • 14:30: and yet another one. This will not work out.
  • 14:45: arranging the chairs and tv, now we only need wine and we are set.
  • 15:00: the house is next to the street and people can just look inside. Maybe rearrange the curtains?
  • 15:15: when we are done this early I can just as well go a bit earlier as well.
  • 15:41: just made it to the train station on time, but now the train is late.
  • 15:45: oh yes, a train with wifi
  • 16:00: the weather was good today during the move, but it is raining again
  • 17:00: back in Leiden
  • 18:30: eating some left-overs from a Christmas dinner
  • 21:00: my sister and one of my best friends live in the same street in Rotterdam. What a joke, it feels like a small village



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    3rd Christmas Day

    Thursday 27/12/2012:

  • 7:30: grüetzi miteinand!
  • 8:30: uh-oh, only cheese for on bread
  • 9:30: more post-retro stuff is being chucked into moving boxes indiscriminately more moving boxes are being packed
  • 10:00: the Christmas special in The Economist has a rough guide to hell. Haha!
  • 10:30: a light in the sky, bright enough to read a non-backlit (i.e. a paper) book by. Is this the mythical sun?
  • 10:45: my eyes! My eyes! Where are my sunglasses?
  • 11:00: preparing to go into the void, i.e. Wageningen down town
  • 11:15: holy shit! Do they make an actual vacuum toilet? I mean one where the air is sucked out of the room? Could use it at the moment.
  • 12:15: exchanging €45 worth of lottery tickets for €35 of price money. That’s actually a good score!
  • 12:30: yay Hollandse Nieuwe (soused herring)!
  • 12:45: buying things at the supermarket for export to Switzerland. Stroopwafels and hagelslag.
  • 13:30: going from the old house to the new house
  • 13:45: going to the supermarket
  • 14:00: going to the new house to drop off some toilet paper
  • 14:15: back at the old house again
  • 14:30: going to the new-new house, which is actually the oldest of the three and bought before the new house was rented
  • 15:15: back at the old house, which is newer than the new-new house, but older than the new house
  • 15:30: Adding to the confusion is that the new house and the new-new house are in the same street
  • 16:00: again at the new house to clear some moving boxes
  • 16:15: I repeat my remark about the post-retro stuff
  • 16:30: the new house will be called “boerderette” (kitsch farm house). It looks positively stupid.
  • 17:00: a cup of tea
  • 19:00: boerenkool
  • 20:30: if I sound cynical about the moving house plan, it is because there is none I am…
  • 21:45: in all the confusion about the house I forgot to mention that I cycled uphill here in Wageningen. I had 26 gears less than usual and an almost flat tire but it was still hilariously easy.



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    2nd Christmas Day

    Wednesday 26/12/2012:

  • 7:30: Good morning moving boxes
  • 10:00: Lots of post-retro stuff in this house
  • 11:45: in the temporary house of my farther. Not very logically arranged.
  • 12:15: in the new house. What is the best arrangement of the kitchen? With so much space, you should be able to decide that, right?
  • 13:30: leaving for granddad
  • 14:00: still leaving for granddad
  • 14:15: the floodplains are flooded. The melting water from the snow in Zurich two weeks ago.
  • 14:30: at my grand dads place.
  • 14:45: my father drives home to get some extra baquettes and to get my sister from the train station.
  • 15:30: aunt arrives with two cakes
  • 15:45: brother and girlfriend arrive with another cake and a boat load of baquettes
  • 17:00: my father drives home yet again because he forgot the fondue set
  • 17:45: lit the fondue set – the whole set – on fire. No problem for a cold-blooded chemist, my granddad in this case
  • 18:00: cheese fondue
  • 18:15: wait, no meat?
  • 18:30: oh man, too much cheese
  • 20:15: massive amount of dish washing: done
  • 20:30: let’s make more dishes and eat some more: desert
  • 21:30: a last chocolate: will people explode Monthy-Python style?
  • 22:30: I think everybody survived
  • 22:45: yawn
  • 23:00: yawn
  • 23:15: back home again. Why not have more wine?
  • 23:30: big yawn
  • 23:45: oh dear, tv is on. Bedtime



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    1st Christmas Day

    Tuesday 25/12/2012:

  • 9:30: merry autumn Christmas!
  • 12:00: time for breakfast
  • 12:15: yay more turkey
  • 14:00: on my way to Amsterdam
  • 17:30: via-via we have some freshly shot wild pig (boar?). Nice ragout.
  • 18:00: more good meat
  • 19:00: a soup without meat?
  • 20:30: more meat. Second day in a row with Brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce.
  • 21:30: desert
  • 23:00: heading my dad’s place, Wageningen
  • 0:00: a house full of moving boxes…



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    0th Christmas Day

    Monday 24/12/2012:

  • In Dutch we have first and second Christmas Day, not Christmas Day and Boxing Day. This means we can also have zeroth and third Christmas Day.
  • 6:45: Awake early
  • 10:00: breakfast: done
  • 10:15: beer and booze: in the fridge, chocolate: on the table. Christmas dinner is a success already.
  • 12:00: brother arrived, with his girlfriend and the groceries for the dinner
  • 14:00: lasagna lunch
  • 15:00: turkey is done, now time to get the pants I bought on Saturday
  • 15:30: turkey in the oven, will stay there for the next few hours
  • 16:00: glass of wine
  • 17:00: turkey looks good
  • 18:00: turkey looks even better, doing some dish washing
  • 18:30: melon with Parma ham
  • 19:00: cutting the turkey, it looks beautiful

    • 20121231-111141.jpg

  • 19:15: and it tastes quite well as well
  • 19:30: our plates look like a war zone: bones, red (cranberry) sauce and just general chaos
  • 20:30: oops, while cleaning the dishes earlier, we accidentally threw away most preparations for the desert: egg white (unbeaten) and citron zest. The seed for a family feud is planted. Separating some more eggs
  • 21:30: yay for kitchen improvisation, pity about the meringue on the citron-meringue-cake
  • 22:30: coffee with some liquor and a chocolate
  • 23:30: knock-out in bed


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