Where's Boris?

Worm Power!

A couple of years ago, the local council here in Den Haag decided to stop enforcing that households separate their "green" waste. Turns out that it's just too expensive to process this green waste and that there's not sufficient need for the products that come from it.

This upset me a bit... I liked the idea of me making a difference and doing my bit for the environment, limiting my waste sent to landfill sites. I had settled into the routine of separating out bio-waste. This has been niggling in the back of my mind for some time, so the other week I decided to do something about it and ordered a worm composter!

So from now on, all our green waste will be collected again and fed to the worms! After a few weeks, the waste will have been eaten a few times by the worms and converted into compost and very nutrient fluid which can then be used to feed the plants in the garden. Well, that's the theory at least, but time will tell how well it works. But at the very least, it will have been an interesting experiment... I find the little fellas quite fastinating!

Birds in the Garden

Now that the builders and painters have just about packed up and are no longer in the garden every day, coupled with the better spring weather we're having, I've started to notice much more birds in the garden this year!

Just before the weekend, I came home and spotted my mother's favourite bird in the garden, a sweet little wren. And over the weekend, carrying on from last year and despite Boris catching and killing one, I spotted a number of blue tits. Then there's the usual suspects of black birds and sparrows (although unfortunately less and less of these) and the occasional starling. Oh and pigeons... I wish Boris would eat these instead.

I've also seen a few jays and a few crows, but more surprisingly we often see green paraquets (or rather hear them). It seems that a few of them escaped captivity some time ago and have been successfully breeding in Den Haag ever since, since a flock of them flies all around the city.

This evening I put a bit of left over rice in the garden and within minutes this had attracted a young robin onto the wall. Unfortunately, it seemed to sense three pairs of eyes staring at it (Flo's, mine and Boris') and it flew off before I could catch a picture of it.

Since the rain cleared up this afternoon and the sun came out it's really starting to feel like spring is in the air, so I'm on the look out for swallows and swifts back from their migration.

Homely

I've been promising peeps an update on the house for weeks now... and finally... here it is. Well, sort of. The house is currently in a bit of a state of flux, still unfinished in parts and still with lots of unpacked boxes from the move. Slowly but surely, we're getting there. Boxes are slowly disappearing as we either throw things away, find places to store them or Flo manages to sell them on Marktplaats.nl.

Thanks to my Dad, we officially have a garden, since it now has plants. And Boris and Boika love it! They particularly enjoy grass, which shows that they've integrated well into Dutch society.


My Daddy will be pleased to see that we've hung the bird table (quite literally, with a neat, tidy, thirteen wraps hangman knot) and we've attached trestles to the wall to assist the climbing plants.

Inside, we've managed to remove most of the rubbish that had collected at the front of the house, which leaves us with lots of space to park our bikes and store unpacked boxes. And it's now very light at the front of the house, since the newspaper has been finally been removed from the front window and replaced with some semi-transparent foil, which lets some light shine through, but prevents people from being able to see in. Boris is particularly fond of this new arrangement since it gives him the opportunity to keep an eye on the world... I suppose it's his equivalent to the world wide web.


There's not a whole lot to report for the rest of the house. A solution for the floor at the front is being chased and should be closed out by mid January, we're waiting for a quote for blinds and curtains and the stainless steel counter for the kitchen should have arrived within a couple of weeks, but has been delayed until January. So, looks like the house warming party will turn out to be a joint Jonny and Flo birthday party too.

Despite the house not being completely finished, it already feels much more homely than our previous rented house. Despite the clutter and mess, we're able to get on with our day to day lives and as we'd hoped, the layout of the new house feels much more sociable than before, since we're invariably within eye contact or at least audible range, which makes us feel like we're together, even when we're busy doing our separate things.


The kitties appear to be settling in and relaxing in the new home. They particularly seem to enjoy the floor heating, since it means they're happy to slump pretty much anywhere on the floor and feel warm. They sit and stay close to us... so we're one big happy family!

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!

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! 

The garden concepts

Harrie came around last Saturday with three concepts he had thought up for the garden:

The order as shown is the order he presented them and like all good artists, he had named all three of them. From left to right: F&J island, stairway to heaven and levels. Click on a picture to see a larger version.

Since the garden is long and small and located on the north east, it was not that easy to come up with a solution, but we thought he did really well... He explained the process he went through to come up with each one of the concepts and the ideas behind it.

He told us to think about it for a few days before we took a decision on the final concept that we'd like before he'd start on the definitive plan. There was no need though, since we both like the third concept he presented best. It only needed to be renamed, so from now on we'd like to call it F&J levels. Apparently the third idea was his first one! The idea is that there are two levels in the garden; your eyes follow the way the big concrete tiles are laid and the plants need to be able to do well with little direct sunlight. We thought the lay-out was great for a garden party and already started to imagine the way people would group together in the different sections.

Next step after the final plan, with details and plants in it, is to find a good gardener to execute it. We have some thoughts on the execution as well! We are really happy with the way Harrie talked us through the process and also with the final concepts. Wish all things went so smoothly....

Landscape gardening

Things are developing with the new house. Last night we had a long chat with one of Flo's old work colleagues Harrie, who is now a freelance landscape gardener. After discussing our likes and dislikes, what we want out of our garden and showing the latest plans for the inside of the house, Harrie is going to come up with some ideas and get back to us in a week or two.

How exciting!