Completion
August 1, 2007
Well, obviously these words should have been written ages ago but an emigration involves a lot of work. So what happened after that last update in November 2006? The following events were rather special:
During the last week of November 2006 we undertook a trip to Skye with a hired van stocked with furniture and stuff we could spare from our house in Holland. It would give us some furniture and kitchen utensils for the first months to come. The weather was horrendous: gales and heavy rain and near Perth one of the windshield wipers broke. Luckily it wasn’t the driver side, so we carried on with just one…
The 15th of December I officially left The Netherlands. I entered the house while the painter (Murdo) was still busy finishing bits and pieces. This would take up to Christmas to complete. During that time there was limited heating as the floors and tiles had to get accustomed to the heating system and completely dry. It was bitter cold and I slept on the concrete floors for 2 weeks, waiting for the carpet layers.
I explained Murdo about a favorite Dutch lunch dish, consisting of ham layered with egg, fried together in a pan and eaten on a slice of bread. It’s called in Dutch an “uitsmijter” which literally translates to “a bouncer”. He probably did not appreciate the concept…
Tradesmen kept coming by to finish bits and pieces and correcting things which weren’t working as they should: the electrician, the painter, the joiner, the plumber, the people from SkyeHomes.
The slate floor - our pride and joy when we bought it - looked a mess. It was covered in sawdust, sand and dirt from outside. I thought cleaning would be impossible and considered the floor ruined. However, sturdy cleaning and hovering transformed the dirty slates back into the lovely floor we bought in the shop.
The landscaped area outside the house slowly turned from a muddy space to a nice little lawn. Somewhere end of March 2007 I sewed some grass seed. Grass is now everywhere!
More things happened, but it would take too much space to sum them all up here. After six months of hard work since December 2006, the house is now almost finished - will it ever be completely finished? - and we’re happy living here.
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