Spring, Boats, Campers and good people

Spring, a beautiful time of the year where your "blood itches" as we say in Holland.
The grass is green again, the trees blossom, the fish in the pont are back (all of them survived the winter!) and the duck is sitting on top of her eggs in the basket we put up last year.
She isn't bothered by the dogs and winks at us if we take a peep to say hello.

Living in the countryside, you do not only see Spring, you also smell it in all its facets and it feels great.

Tjep moved here from Hilversum and is enjoying every minute of his Frieslian life.
I live here since 1999 and still appreciate it tremendously.
The marvelous skies, we can see for miles and miles. Beautiful sunsets. Or as today, heavy clouds spitting rain. The wind is blowing. The garden is covered in blossom.
We keep our fingers crossed; the blossom was promising a lot of pears like last year. We'll see if they produce as much chutney, marmalade, pickled pears again.

Spring is also a good time for cleaning boats and campers and planning holidays. Our holiday was planned some while ago and soon we will be off with the camper to good old Yorkshire and beautiful Scotland.
But first we took care of our boat (for boat lovers: it is an "Oranjebloesem"). For many reasons it stayed ashore for 2 years and the first year uncovered.
We never managed to visit te boat in those two years.
The state it was in was quite a shock. Although the woodwork was taken care of, the rest of the boat was covered in a black and green substance (or what ever you may call it).

The inside was even worse, no ventilation made the ceiling drip. Brown stalactites, even the paint is hanging down!
The woodwork covered in moult. We had tears in our eyes but not for long; there was work to do!
We first cleaned the outside, this took us two days. We planned waxing on Saturday but unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs. It is now planned for next Friday.

We left on Thusrday evening because our camper, in which we stayed near the harbour, had to go for a few minor repairs and modernistations to get it ready for the big trip.
The company who is going to build in the LPG bottles (the ususal gas bottles can't be exchanged in every country and from now on we can get gas at every petrol station) is called Jasicamp (Leek - Groningen). They are also going to do the minor repairs.
Because it felt we are running out of time, I called them yesterday and received the shocking news that they could not move the camper due to a broken gearbox!! What a 'great' news with the Ferry booked, an invitation for a wedding in Edinborough and hardly any time to clean the camper!
Mr. Neef of Jasciamp understood our problem and promised to talk to his mechanics, getting back to us in half an hour.
So he did and told us that two of his mechanics don't mind doing overtime to help us out, starting tonight (Wednesday evening) and working all day Friday.
If all goes well (keep everything possible crossed!) we can collect the camper on Friday afternoon/everning.
Not only with a functional gearbox but also all other repairs and features done.

Super! There are still wonderful people! Hurray for Jasicamp!

England and Scotland, here we come.........

Leilinden

Most of our Dutch readers will know these trees. For our other readers I will try to explain what Lei-Lindes are.

A Linde is a lime-tree, on proper British also called “Linden” or “Lindentree” and often used as a espalier. The branches growing the wrong way will be pruned. This way the branches stay horizontal and grow parallel with each other. Often seen in front of old farmhouses to shelter them from the sun.

Yes, we do live in old renovated farmhouse but the sun is warming the house at the back, the front is viewing the north.

When we moved in, not only the house but also the gardens at both sides were a mess.
After being empty and hardly looked after for 5 years, it definitely needed a make over.

But because you can’t do all at the same time, the house got renovated first; the heavy work before we moved in and the last nasty bits when we loved there. Therefore we are experts in battling dust, spiders, rubble and much more. An experience we will never forget!
The house is almost ready (still some paintwork to do) and the garden is getting there.

Two years ago we bought on the internet two big iron vases “in case of” De people I bought them from, Theunis and Alie van der Meer, turned out to be young, energetic, innovative and full if energy with their rather new “Garden and Landscape” company.
Of course we asked them how much it would cost to do our front garden. We must have been hard to deal with; not about the price though because it was a very fair one but because we knew exactly how it was going to look like, including Power Point presentation.
Fortunately Theunis van der Meer didn’t mind and within one day the front garden changed from a heap of grass lumps, unidentified plants and weeds, into a more appropriate one with buxus, lavender, roses and gravel!

We replaced the stone path (we used it in the back garden) for a large gravel path.
But it was not until this Spring that we removed the derelict fence between the neighbours’ and our garden. It looked awful and totally out of place.

Theunis also made an offer for three Lei-linden and arrived in March with poles, trees and beeches to replace the old fence. He and his colleague worked extremely hard, regularly distracted from their job by neighbours, passer-by’s and us with “Oooh’s” and “Aaaah’s” and compliments.
After a days work we were astonished by the transformation.

You might not like the poles to support the Linden (they are only temporary) but gosh, did it improve!

Slowly but surely the house is regaining its dignity. And being such a nice and friendly house, it truly deserves it!