Homesickness
I wish I'd taken a picture of it, but I didn't. My Sydney instincts kicked in and I tossed it over the fence to allow our new neighbors to enjoy its beauty.
Homesickness can come in all shapes and sizes and it has come thick and fast in the last couple of days as moving into our new house makes our return to the Netherlands feel very permanent.
The first two are maybe obvious.
1: Reading Are We There Yet by Alison Lester to the kids last night.
2: I turned on our portable stereo this morning. It had languished for four months, along with all our other belongings, in our container before finally being reunited with us on Tuesday. I played a couple of CDs _ Missy Higgins was painfull _ before flicking the switch to the radio and seeing the numbers 702 appear. For anybody reading this who doesn't live, or hasn't lived, in Sydney, that is the frequency of the local Australian Broadcasting Corporation station. It was a sort of soundtrack to our lives in Beecroft - news in the morning, James Valentine in the afternoon, James O'Loghlin's quiz in the evening. Even the idiotic building/gardening advice shows on Saturday mornings - and to hear just fuzzy static on that wavelength here in Voorburg was somehow heart-rending.
The third, to which I allude above is possibly slightly less obvious.
Stuck, dead, at the bottom of one of our moving boxes was a good old Sydney cockroach.
I've never really taken the time to admire roaches, preferring instead to stomp, torch, gas and generally kill the bastards as fast as possible. But for those of you still in Sydney, take a while to admire one before you stomp, burn or nuke it.
As unpleasant insects go, they're pretty big - this one was about the size of a 50 cent (two euro) coin, excluding legs. I've seen plenty bigger, but I guess big ones are wily enough not to get sealed into a box along with my golf clubs and bicycle pump. But check out the color of these critters - it's a sort of burnished mohogany. It's the color and slightly matt shinyness I'd like our new wooden floor to be. Plus, look at the muscles on those bugs. I'm not even sure insects have muscles, but Sydney cockies undoubtedly look buff. If you turn one over, I'd expect to see a bulging six pack. Is it possible all roaches are gay? By their number and the speed with which they reproduce, I'm guessing not. They can't all be adopting baby roaches from third world countries, can they? I don't think Australian quarantine regulations would allow that.
Anyway, I wish I'd actually kept and framed the roach.
Apart from my homesickness, we're loving it here in our new place. Yesterday we all walked through two parks to the Voorburg market, bought cheese and vegetables and headed home. There were even parrots flying wild in one of the parks to make us feel slightly Sydneyish.
Homesickness can come in all shapes and sizes and it has come thick and fast in the last couple of days as moving into our new house makes our return to the Netherlands feel very permanent.
The first two are maybe obvious.
1: Reading Are We There Yet by Alison Lester to the kids last night.
2: I turned on our portable stereo this morning. It had languished for four months, along with all our other belongings, in our container before finally being reunited with us on Tuesday. I played a couple of CDs _ Missy Higgins was painfull _ before flicking the switch to the radio and seeing the numbers 702 appear. For anybody reading this who doesn't live, or hasn't lived, in Sydney, that is the frequency of the local Australian Broadcasting Corporation station. It was a sort of soundtrack to our lives in Beecroft - news in the morning, James Valentine in the afternoon, James O'Loghlin's quiz in the evening. Even the idiotic building/gardening advice shows on Saturday mornings - and to hear just fuzzy static on that wavelength here in Voorburg was somehow heart-rending.
The third, to which I allude above is possibly slightly less obvious.
Stuck, dead, at the bottom of one of our moving boxes was a good old Sydney cockroach.
I've never really taken the time to admire roaches, preferring instead to stomp, torch, gas and generally kill the bastards as fast as possible. But for those of you still in Sydney, take a while to admire one before you stomp, burn or nuke it.
As unpleasant insects go, they're pretty big - this one was about the size of a 50 cent (two euro) coin, excluding legs. I've seen plenty bigger, but I guess big ones are wily enough not to get sealed into a box along with my golf clubs and bicycle pump. But check out the color of these critters - it's a sort of burnished mohogany. It's the color and slightly matt shinyness I'd like our new wooden floor to be. Plus, look at the muscles on those bugs. I'm not even sure insects have muscles, but Sydney cockies undoubtedly look buff. If you turn one over, I'd expect to see a bulging six pack. Is it possible all roaches are gay? By their number and the speed with which they reproduce, I'm guessing not. They can't all be adopting baby roaches from third world countries, can they? I don't think Australian quarantine regulations would allow that.
Anyway, I wish I'd actually kept and framed the roach.
Apart from my homesickness, we're loving it here in our new place. Yesterday we all walked through two parks to the Voorburg market, bought cheese and vegetables and headed home. There were even parrots flying wild in one of the parks to make us feel slightly Sydneyish.
posted by corders | 2:28 PM
3 Comments:
Mike, Would you prefer the granite or slate finish for the kitchen..... ; )
Cheers, Tim (& Meraiah)
I was thinking more along the lines of plywood...
can do! now... about those first class tickets.
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