And so it begins.

Not that we’re wanting to get ahead of ourselves or anything,  but we’ll now start to slowly sort out some of the little jobs that we’ll need to take care of between now and Christmas,  and beyond.  

The likelihood that we’ll just get off the plane in the New Year and have to turn around and get right back on are pretty darned slim,  but it’s kind of fun to get in little tastes of that ‘going home’ excitement.  Helps to break up the boredom too.

There’s never any shortage of papers that get squirreled away in a drawer (or two, or more) that really and truly have no business hanging around.  The bag there,  with the exception of the egg carton and a couple catalogues (don’t think I’ll be going to Ikea too much any more)  is all the paper cr*p that can go.  There will be more I’m sure, and some of it we do have to hang on to,  like tax cr*p and such,  but old opera tickets,  notes from Travelling Companion’s foray into learning German….?

I even parted with all the wonderful type written summations from the lessons I had taken.  I either learned it or I didn’t,  and if I haven’t figured out how to say something one way by now,  I can always work my way around it.   Keeping notes isn’t going to help.

When you’re running an old processor like mine well,  you’re only going to get so much ‘random access memory’.   Just sayin’.

 

Then there are a couple other little issues.   The bikes (we have four of them)  have been down in the basement for a wee while.  It’s a bit of a hostile environment,  and although I know we could have the movers pack up and ship dirty bikes,  something about that bothers me.   So I’ll see if I can get them cleaned up over the next few days/weeks.   I started with the worst of the bunch.

I don’t know if you can see the filth on that thing,  and it’s probably just as well if you can’t.  This was the bike I thought I was going to ride once upon a time,  and had shipped over from Canada.   That was dumb. 

First of all,  it’s not really all that great a bike (I’m tempted to say it’s a piece of junk,  but I won’t go that far)  and I soon discovered after we moved to the Netherlands,  that the bloody thing was just too small.   Oy!  That was uncomfortable.  I’m not going to venture into any details here,  since I wouldn’t want to upset the sensibilities of any lady readers out there,  but let’s just say,  riding was not a pleasant experience.  We’ll leave it at that.

I initially thought I’d do the cleaning downstairs,  but then figured I’d try to get me and the bike in the elevator.  We managed.  It’ll be much easier to just wash it down out on the terrace.   I’m not overly concerned about any bits starting to get a little rusty.  That ship has sailed.

At some point in time,  and this will quite likely be in the New Year,  I’ll take down our light fixture over the dining room table (that’s a very loose definition of “dining room table”,  by the way)  cart it off to the place where we bought it and have them pack it for transport.   Should be fun!  We’re thinking we’ll do an “air shipment” in addition to having everything shoved in a container that ends up on a ship.  

I decided I wanted to include the Winnie-the-Pooh clock,  just for contrast.

We’ve had the option of using an “air shipment” for all of the moves we’ve ever done when it comes to the whole “Ex-Pat experience”,  but up until now, we’ve never really felt the need to.  We’re allowed something like 350 pounds. 

We have enough clothes and such at home,  that we’re not going to be in any hurry to have all our cr*p end up at the house right away.   Besides,  I remember how slightly overwhelming it was when we moved home from Puerto Rico.  And there was hardly ANY furniture,  since we had rented a furnished house.  This time around.  Oh boy.

Then along with the light fixture (OK fine, “chandelier” if you prefer),  there will be Travelling Companion’s sewing machine(s),  along with my guitar.  That’s all we could really think of that we wanted to have show up within days of our own arrival.  Whenever that may be. 

It’s all up in the air at this point,  but I’m still going to plug away at a few of these little tasks from time to time.

Starting with the bikes.  Which is why I probably should get out there.

 

Oh, I saw this in the store this morning.  Just thought it was a wee bit odd.  

I guess there’s no German word for “Marshmallow”?  Who knew it could be so easy to learn a foreign language?

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

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