Our home in Bingelder (= Bingelrade, Limburg, Netherlands)

01 february 2003:

010203; if this isn't a nice date to move in to a new home, what is?
We've been very hard at work today. At 9 am Boi was already on top of a ladder (see pic-series below). Nicole was busy as well, doing this and that.
At 11.30 am the phone rang: Boi's Dad and Mum wanted to come over and help, but didn't know how to get there yet. We met at the old address. Dad towed the U-Haul, so we could bring over a lot of stuff to Bingelder. Murphy could come as well.
The moment they arrived, Dad and Mum handed us bread and salt. This is an old Limburg tradition: when you go over to someone who's just moved, you give bread and salt. It's symbolic. It's a way of wishing the new home-owners that they'll never be short of anything. Thank you, Jean and Antoinette!
By the way, some comic relief: here's where you can see that the burgemeester (=mayor) of Bingelder, after all those years, has finally come back to the village, for an afternoon anyway (it's a list of Bingelder inhabitants in the year 1796. Topmost is the mayor, Jean Janssen, which happens to be the name of Boi's Dad as well).
Ma immediately started the storm-trooper thing: first she started with the bathroom downstairs, and then she did the kitchen. She was slightly annoyed by the phone in the living room. It rang several times, and every time she entered the living room, it stopped. Until she found out it was Murphy, who was just saying that he was lonely, in that large living room.....
Boi, by the way, just painted on.
Dad was busy upstairs. Nicole bought some curtains for all the windows upstairs, and Dad fitted them all. He also tried to fit a screen for the bath with Boi, at the end of the afternoon. They met some problems though; this needs attention of someone who knows what he's doing. It'll have to wait until next week.
Boi, by the way, just painted on.
Halfway through the afternoon we got our first visitors. Howard and Paquita were on their way to a nice hike, and thought: it must be nice to hike in Bingelder. And we can visit Nicole and Boi at the same time. Nice!
Boi, by the way, just painted on.
And Nicole, she vacuumed the second floor, and mopped it as well. She also had to make a trip to get fresh paint, because Boi just painted on.
At 5.30 pm we decided to call it a day. There's no lighting in the house as of yet, and working by the light of flashlights is not what we had in mind. Slippin' an' Slidin' (it had started to snow again) we went back to the old flat, glad Boi had finally done all of that immense wall....



Dad searching for screws for the curtains.


And Boi just painted,                                                             and painted,

and painted                                                                               on!


january 31, 2003       <home>        february 02, 2003