Nestdrang

We decided to give the builders a hand and start with the painting this weekend. So armed with rollers, brushes and two massive buckets of paint we started on the ceiling of our love nest.



Yesterday we put on the first layer of special primer and today we did the first layer of latex. It still needs at least another layer of latex, but as you can see on the pictures above, it makes quite a difference already.

We finished the baby room, both toilets, the hall and both bedrooms and as soon as the builders have finished in the other rooms we can continue there. Or as soon as we manage to put our arms down again, since they seem to be stuck in the air from working above our heads for two days in a row! Whatever happens first...

Jigsaw tiles

As we are now approaching the final stages of reconfiguring and redesigning our house, the time has come to concentrate on the fun stuff: the final touches.

With the plastering done, the builders have now started tiling the bathroom and toilets. As you can see on the left, they first made a puzzle of Jugendstil tiles in the living room to get the pattern right before tiling.

The upstairs toilet has already been tiled and the patterned tiles work really well. It is so good to see our ideas materialise and our house come together. It is even better that it looks so great. I am sure many a pleasurable moment will be spent in there. Now we just need a magazine rack!

Garden coming on in leaps and bounds...

...but will it be finished before the end of the barbeque season?


The builder/landscape gardener has been working very hard! And he's had to, since it appears that the old owners simply covered the old garden with sand (pathing et al) and laid the "new" tiles straight on top of it! Since our garden requires a step down and some deep wall foundations to be laid, the old patio... and the old old garden all had to be removed. It took some 130 large plastic bags to remove all the old bricks and tiles that were concealed beneath the existing patio!


The laying of the tiles at the back of the garden, under the "veranda" is almost complete and as you can see from the picture above, we get some sun in the garden! It's this area where we plan to do our sitting and eating, but it now appears that Flo will be able to top up her tan; the gardeners report that the sun enters the garden here at approximately midday and remains until about 5pm. This will undoubtedly be the kitties (particularly Boris') favourite spot in the garden!


It turns out that the garden is slightly wider than anticipated (someone didn't measure it properly!) so the path running through the garden will be slightly wider than planned. As you can see form the pictures above, the low level walls are about finished and ready for plastering and painting.


Work has started on the remaining paving of the patio, which will be at a 35 degree angle to draw the eyes towards the flower beds and to make the garden feel a little wider. As you can see from the picture above, our builder/landscape gardener is not archetypical, since he sports a rather disappointing builder's crack. The other picture above is a detail of the step at the bottom of the garden and is especially for our garden designer... I hope it's to your high standards Harrie!?


Inside the house, the new, super-duper, all bells and whistles central heating and water boiler has been fitted. The building contractor ended up buying a high spec one with two independent boilers (one for the central heating and one for hot water, primarily to supply the rain shower at sufficient rate). Only problem is, it's a bit of a beast in terms of dimensions, so it's a bit bigger than the cupboard in which it's supposed to fit. So the cupboard now needs to be made a little deeper. Also, plastering has begun upstairs, as you can see from the picture above which is from the bathroom, with the fittings installed for the sink and wall lighting. Tiling of the bathroom should start by the end of this week (or early next week).


The majority of downstairs has now been plastered, as you can see from the pictures above. We can therefore start with the first coat of primer this weekend!

The kitchen was scheduled to be delivered this weekend also, but it turns out they need an extra week after the guys who are manufacting the end pieces made a mistake and therefore need to re-manufacture them. But this is fine, since the kitchen can't be installed until the floor has been finished, which probably won't be for another couple of weeks yet.

So things are moving along nicely and my confidence for being able to move in on September 1st is high... we might even have all the painting finished and the floors laid by then... but my main concern is whether or not we'll still be having the nice weather, since I'm desperately looking forward to that first barbeque in the garden!

Adventures in Otterlo

After Flo convinced me to take Friday off work (well, actually I forgot to book the day off as holiday), our weekend away got off to a typical start... stuck in traffic on the motorway after some Volvo driver decided to test out the famed car's safety features by driving the car into the back of a lorry. Stupid Volvo drivers!

Fortunately, we weren't delayed long and arrived at our splendid little hotel located just on the outskirts of Het Nationale Park De Hoge Veluwe. After quickly acclimatising to our hotel room, we realised that it's not pleasant staying in un-airconditioned rooms in the height of global warming powered summers and so ventured out straight to the National Park.

The park operates a "white bike" system, whereby lots and lots of white bikes are maintained within the park's grounds which visitors can utilise as and when they please, simply picking one up and dropping it at the designated area. Apparently this social scheme was tried out in Amsterdam one time, but failed miserably since everyone just knicked the bikes. However, I'm happy to report that in the park the system works great, although it's amusing to see how quickly people become attached to their chosen bikes... we actually saw people hiding them when they had to leave them behind to go off the cycle path to view a monument or garden.


The scenery in the park is surreal and varies from vast, sandy baron wastes (as above) to dense coniferous woodlands, complete with wild deer and boar (the grounds did once belong to the Kröller-Müller family as a hunting retreat, the reason that they built their meagre hunting lodge in the centre of the grounds, pictured below). Also located throughout the park are strange wooden cut-outs of little girls (also pictured below). This is presumably to entertain the many Belgian visitors to the park?



While cycling through the park, Flo rediscovered the delight of cycling zonder handen on the bars! The entire cycle back to the entrance of the park was to a sound-track of giggles and exclamations of "look, no hands!". The benefit of this behaviour was that we did get to spot lots of deer, since they were presumably so startled that they made an equal amount of noise as they scarpered deeper into the woodland. After a long day of driving and cycling, we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a well earned four course meal at the hotel, finishing off the night with Flo teaching me how to play the apparently popular game of Rummikub.

Saturday was spent... cycling. It was supposed to be a reasonable 45 kilometres, but probably ended up being more like 50 km. It showed us again how diverse the countryside is in this part of Nederland, through deciduous woodland and farmland along the Heidi route (I kept thinking of the classic TV programme with Heidi running through the grass with the alps in the background). We got very hot and sweaty and had lunch at a lovely refurbished castle, complete with ducks in the moat.

We returned to the National Park this morning to have a look around the Kröller-Müller Museum, located inside the park. They have a large garden at the museum in which there are a huge collection of statues and sculptures. It was very relaxing walking around and viewing the displays, but I admit that I started to get concerned as Flo began airing her thoughts and reactions to the art pieces...


...apparently this is a statue made of used hormone injection needles...


...these are follicles...


...and the title of this piece is how the Dutch refer to an ultra-sound scan.

It was at this point where I thought it best for us to return home, back to some daily routine, since our minds were obviously being given far too much time to wander!

You can see more pictures from our adventures in Otterlo here.

Barbeque bunk bed

Today the Netherlands feel like Dubai in the summer, including the humidity. Only difference is that in Dubai everything was air-conditioned: houses, offices, shops, restaurants; so to escape the scorching desert heat we used to avoid being outside as much as possible and run from the house to the car and from the car into the office and vice versa. A bit like we do here in the middle of the winter.

In the Dubai summer Boris and Boika used to lie in the door opening straight under the air-conditioning looking into the garden, enjoying the best of both worlds. As we have neither at the moment, they just sort of drop down somewhere and and try not to move too much. A very sensible thing to do.

When I enter the room that they are lying in they half lift their little heads and look at me, as to say: "please make this heat stop. We are Russian Blues and our coats are not designed for this."



I tried telling them about hot air going up and the attic really not being the best place to be in in this weather, but to little avail. To alleviate their misery a bit I moved the fan into the room. They seemed to like it.



However, they soon found an even better solution to withstand the heat:

Yoga and builders

There is an Iyengar yoga studio a couple of doors down from our new house. This is the same type of yoga I used to practise when we lived in Rotterdam. My then teacher used to say that yoga practise both relaxes and energizes the body and mind. What better way to start the day! Especially since it was too hot for outdoor activities today.

As the studio faces the same direction as our house, it was nice and cool inside and a gentle breeze was coming in through the opened back doors. Also coming in through the opened back doors was some loud noise: builders calling each other, drilling, banging and some more shouting. I was only too aware of the fact that it was our builders producing all that noise.

Of course all the people in the class were terribly grounded (they must be practising for years), so nobody as much as batted an eyelid. In a strange sort of way I thought the noise was a bit like yoga, both relaxing and energizing. Relaxing because hearing them getting on means we are closer to moving into our very own house and energizing for exactly the same reasons. :-)

Cycle

We've been attributing far too much stress and recently disappointment to cycles . Today, we thought we'd try and rectify this by enjoying the sun out in the countryside on our bi-cycles (I'm sorry... it's the best link I could think of).

 
Having decided that we were going to go cycling yesterday, we did not feel in the slightest bit guilty about starting off today with a hearty fry-up of eggs and bacon (they were organic at least). Afterwards, we decided on the route and having determined that we'd about exhausted all the cycle routes in the neighbourhood of Den Haag, we agreed to start off one stop down the motorway at Flo's birth town (sorry, city) of Delft.

 
One of the first things we saw on the route was a women's coxless four rowing on the Schie, which put us both in a positive and energetic frame of mind (despite stroke skying awfully and bow squaring her blade far too late).

 
We decided on the Delfland route, which took us through the wetlands between Delft and Rotterdam. It's real Nederlander heaven, with sail boats and bicycles in abundence; it was really no suprise that we weren't the only ones who'd woken up this morning and decided to venture out and enjoy the countryside in the sun!

 
A couple of our friends thought we were a bit mad cycling in today's heat, but there was a pleasant breeze, especially at the rate of knots that we were cycling (I could barely keep up with Flo!)! I was a bit disappointed that I didn't take my swimming shorts, since I would have loved to have cooled off by joining the group who were jumping off one of the many bridges that we crossed. Perhaps next time I'll just test the famous Nederlander tolerance and go skinny dipping?

So, cycles are back in our good books and we're looking forward to the next one! 

Thinking of thinking of other things

Sometimes you meet somebody by chance and you click. When I lived in London, which now feels like a lifetime ago, I met a girl from Germany. She was a friend of a friend of my flatmate and came over during the Christmas holidays. Although we had never met before, we talked and talked and sipped Baileys to keep us warm in that cold Brixton flat. She had such good energy! We exchanged email addresses, but did not really keep in contact other than the occasional short email to inform one another of big events such as me getting married, her getting married and when we moved to Dubai. Then we lost touch for some years until she sent me a really sweet email commenting on our blog and telling me that she and her husband had been through ICSI too. With success, since they now have a daughter and subsequently conceived their son naturally! One of the things she said in her email was "It's a really hard way. It's a big test for your relationship. You can't think of other things". Which is so true. All of it.

The strange thing about IVF is the preconception phase; it's broken up into quite a few steps which you normally don't really think about. As you enter the process, you are aware that something can go wrong at each step. So when we started with the injections of Decapeptyl (the drug that controls hormonal stimulation) last Thursday , we knew that it was the first step of many on a difficult and emotional journey. Yesterday, two injections later, we were back at the hospital. They check several things on the third day of the cycle to see if you have sufficient follicles of appropriate quality. To increase the chances of success for IVF, hormone injections are given that that stimulate the ovaries to develop multiple ovums (or is it ova? ;-)). During a normal cycle, only one of these small follicles grows and releases the egg after ovulation and if not fertilized, sheds it during menstruation.

It turned out that I did not have enough small follicles; there was a small(ish) cyst (on my other ovary this time) and the lining of my uterus was a bit too thick *. The fact that I did not have many follicles ready to develop (I had four to five visible ones where they aim for eight to ten for IVF) was probably an after-effect of the operation. And the cyst? They come and go. Hopefully nothing to worry about.

Disappointing? Yes, terribly, as it is going to be at least another month before we can start making our little Flonny. But on the upside it gives us another month to prepare ourselves. Mentally and physically. We are continuing our well-balanced diet and we are trying to reduce stress as much as possible. Anything to create the best possible environment for when conception actually happens! We are now going to concentrate on other things for a bit, like the house.

For the ones of you that don't speak Portuguese and could not read the comment from my friend Daniel, he suggested to have one door handle in each colour for the kitchen. Nice idea! But we have settled on red. To match the other (currently non-existent) red details in our new house. We are now thinking about all the other things that we still have to think about before we plan to move at the beginning of September!

* Techie explination of the possible reason for the thicker lining:
It probably had to do with the corpus luteum cyst that was removed during the laparoscopy now a month ago. The corpus luteum is the collapsed follicle which has produced an egg in any particular cycle. It produces progesterone and is essential for building and maintaining a lining of the uterus into which the fertilised egg can implant and continue to grow. Apparently it is quite a rare condition for the corpus luteum to continue to live beyond the normal 12-16 days after ovulation and to develop into a blood filled cyst like I had. This causes body temperature to remain higher than normal due to progesterone still being emitted from the corpus luteum. If the progesterone levels do not drop (this normally only happens when you are pregnant), the uterine lining is not shed during menstruation hence remaining thicker in the early stages of the next cycle.

Kitchen delivery

Flo's currently not working and instead concentrating on her thesis, the house project and spawning a Flonny* (or two).

Perhaps the house project is gently warming us up to parenthood? We're learning to deal with stress. We're becoming desensitised to mess. And now we're about to experience what is probably both the most painful but at the same time delightful experience of all... delivery!

Over the next month we will be rapidly building up our delivery experience repetoir, from wooden planks for the floors to radiators and doors. One of the highlights however, is delivery of the kitchen. I received an email this morning confirming that delivery is scheduled for the end of the month. All that's required from us is to decide on the colour of the cupboard door handles. A choice is pictured below, but anything is available really.


I've come to the conclusion that deliveries are a good thing. They symbolise the culmination of hard work, a decision and the climax of anticipation. Long live deliveries!

* A Flonny is what you get when you cross a Flo with a Jonny.

Canon memory card moments

The front of the house with the building contractor leaving. It is still a bit messy but the kitchen wall is built and we are now waiting for the English Rose kitchen to be delivered the end of this month:

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BAVA installed the spots in the ceiling yesterday and they work! They can be turned so they light a painting for example. We have not changed our minds about the colour for the walls, the yellow colour on the wall is primer for the plastering:



The entrance to the little hall with the cellar entrance and the downstairs toilet with Jonny admiring the spots. The entrance was an original feature that appeared when we knocked the wall out and we decided to keep it:



The living room is completely plastered and it makes such a difference already, so we can't wait to see it when there they are painted:



Scott the friendly Scott installed the stairs yesterday. This will help the builders to finish the bathroom upstairs since they did not manage to carry the monster boiler through the small stairwell:



Since our house has been an office for as least as long as television has been invented, we did not have a TV connection. So after a grueling two and a half hour wait where the cable guys tried to locate the cable outside the house and finally manage to pull it inside, we are now connected to the modern world:

Alles zonder met*

My old colleague Andrea had an ingenious method of being able to sleep at work. Rest your elbow on your desk, bend your head slightly towards the computer and point with your finger at the screen as if you are checking some immensely complicated Excel file or other similarly boring document. According to her a sure way of being able to take a short kip whilst hiding behind your computer. I don't know if the method is tried and tested by her personally, but if the fact that I have never seen her sleeping at work is anything to go by.....

Today was one of those days that I would have liked to point my finger at the computer, but since I am now officially a SAHW, there are better ways for a short nap. Being so tired must have to do with the yoga class I attended yesterday. The first since my operation. The first since a long time to be honest.... And it was really good, but resulted in a total lack of energy and a body screaming for carbohydrates. I was wanting to use this beautiful Wednesday for writing my thesis, taking pictures of the stuff that we want to sell on Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay) and lots of other really useful things. Instead I decided to make some dairy-free sugar-free muffins. Unfortunately they turned out like they sound: not very appealing. A woeful little pile of not-risen dough that does not come off the paper cup.



Mental note for the future: some things are not better without. Pizza without cheese, wine without alcohol, jam without sugar, cream without fat or muffins without anything. I think I should have invested my energy in an inspired dinner, especially since Jonny was telling my mum today (who popped by because she was in the neighbourhood- gezellig!) how he has been spoiled with nice dinners recently. Maybe I can persuade him to take me out for dinner tonight... :-)

* "Everything without with" - a song by the great Dutch artists Van Kooten en de Bie

Cool for cats

 
Boris has been a bit moody of late, mainly a function of the warm weather we've been having.

We're starting to find him in more and more unusual places. Today we found him lying in the book case, probably to escape the heat, although maybe he's just a smarty-cat trying to figure out who's moved his cheese? 

Let the gardening commence

After agreeing on the quote last week, Glen the builder has become Glen the gardener and started work on the back garden.

 
 
As you can see from the pictures above, most of the existing things in the garden have been cleared out, leaving a big sand pit. Our first impression on seeing everything cleared out was how much bigger it looks! But when we stepped outside we realised it was still the same size. Strange that.

 
Inside, not an awful lot appears to have happened this week. This may be a direct result of the building contractor being away on holiday, since it seems to be his ruthless efficiency and drive to get things done that keeps things ticking along at a decent rate when he's here. He's back next week though, so things should be back up to speed then.

In the picture above, you should be able to make out the half height wall that is going to enclose the new kitchen. Also, you'll see that the ceilings are all now in place, just requiring filling in of the joins between the plaster board before we can start painting them. They've also started cementing up all the gaps in the walls, making them flush before commencing with the plastering.

 
After spending most of the afternoon in the sun, we treated ourselves to a nice meal of salt encrusted sardines and salad. Sardines must be in season at the moment and well worth investigating... this dishful of sardines was a bargain at €3.50... that's 50 cents each! 

Sun is shining

We went back to the hospital yesterday for the follow-up after my operation and saw the same gynaecologist who did my laparoscopy. She asked me if the operation was better or worse than I expected. I could honestly say that the operation itself was okay really, pain was not too bad and it was only the after effects of the anaesthetic that have effected me. But luckily my short post-operative depression didn't last too long and last week I suddenly felt like the sun appeared from behind the clouds. In my head I mean, since I was really a bit dispirited. Coincidentally, it was also my last day at work last Friday and the real sun came out and hasn't stopped shining since. That will surely have something to do with it!

The gynaecologist showed us the picture of the cyst she removed and said that it was not an endometriosis cyst as they had thought. It turned out to be a corpus luteum filled with blood. I am not completely sure what this is, since she only explained it twice... What I do know is that I don't have endometriosis and I was just a bit unlucky. Oh, and last but certainly not least, we are declared fit to start with the treatment again. :-) Jonny and I are very relieved and happy at the prospect of having another go at the baby project so soon. In the end the delay will only have been one month. And I am happy that I don't have endometriosis and I certainly don't have to join the club of women who call it 'endo'. Apparently lots of sufferers do, but why would you give your disease a pet name? Unless you were Australian.

My first reaction was that I could now stop with my self-imposed anti-endometriosis no sugar and no dairy diet. Oh cafe au lait, cheese cakes, chocolates.... To be honest I have had no real cravings for any of those foods and to answer my cousin's question, yes, there is still a point in living. We just had a really nice dinner of Italian style antipasti and ratatouille with grilled polenta. So I will happily carry on with my diet, since it does make me feel good and another plus point is the two kilos I have lost so far. Which undoubtedly will come back if we do get pregnant this time around....

We will start our next IVF treatment next week, as soon as I start my next period. So yesterday I walked to the chemist with my two long lists of prescription drugs and we should be getting them tomorrow. And for some reason, Jonny seems to giggle every time we talk about him giving me a baby making injection.

Den Haag Sculptuur 2006

 
Given the beautiful weather that we're having of late, it seemed a shame to sit indoors this evening, so I decided to go out and play with my camera... and what better way than to take pictures of other people's art and then take credit for recreating it in picture form!

It was a bit dark and I really should have taken my tripod, but I suppose I'm still a little bit lazy. Regardless, here's a selection of pictures I took... maybe it's sufficient to spur others to go and look at the sculptures; they're located in the Lange Voorhout, it's free and it's called Den Haag Sculptuur.