Driving into Haarlem after six and a half hours on the road, and such a long, lonely, boringly straight road at that, I was met with a view absolutely breath takingly beautiful, and I remembered why I preffered to stay in such a strange place instead of in my flat in town. It was quite overcast, and some heavy, white clouds were hanging like soft woolly blankets over the mountains, seemingly protecting the small village from the outside world.
My heart did sink a bitty when I saw how overgrown my garden was, as the kikuju grass is not at all stemmed by the cold winters they apparently have in Haarlem. Of course I never had a winter there, but my neigbors and kids told me every time I come back how lucky I was to skip the winters!
I should have been quite used to all the animals that move into my house the moment I move out, but it is still quite startling to open the front door, to be met with cob webs hanging from the rafters, and spiders, about five different species of them, scuttling like crazy to get to the safety of the thatch, their seven month long sojourn in my house rudely interrupted by the sudden flooding of the rooms with outside light.
As it was already late, I immediately started on my bedroom, vacuuming, dusting, and putting on clean bedding, so that I could at least sleep peacefully. Then i tackled the kitchen, as I was hungry, and it was quite impossible to get to the cooker or the pots, as the cobwebs were just everywhere, and they were unbelieveably thick and sticky.
It was Jan's birthday, but as he was still working and staying in George during the week, it would not be till the Friday before I would see him.
The next few days I was kept busy first with cleaning out the house, then trying to make sense of the neglected garden.
I think a batch of spiders had hatched, as that first night I couldn't sleep, small things crawling all over me, and the bally little mites could bite and all. I sprayed insectecide, but then had such a fit of sneezing that I sat up half the night, waiting for the smell to go away.
But I made it to the morning, and from then on it was just work, work, work, as I had to prepare the veggy beds, plant out the strawberries, prune the roses, and just generally try and fix the place to some kind of liveable habitat again.
But the summer sped by, and before I knew it I was on my way back to Scotland, ready and rested to pick up the threads of my job, and also my other life.