Never finished, almost done

A Wednesday in May, 14:03 hrs., outside on the terrace. Flies are harassing and attack from every side. The weather is warm, dry, thunder lingers in the air every afternoon but never arrives. We need water and freshness. We means also the plants in the garden, the fruit trees in the orchard, the berry bushes along the fence. Herman the olive tree, the tomatoes, strawberries, courgettis, fennel, basil, anemones, oleander, and rhododendrons. Even the chopped off parts of the brambles seek for water so they can take revenge.

A week off? Back to work!

The afternoon lunch dip is nibbling at my brain. Shall I continue pulling weeds? Or read a book in the hammock? Clean the endless windows. Go for a swim. Or write another blog? I have a week off. So what do I do?

On the double! As if there has not yet been done enough on this spot. Where the boss, chief architecture, manager of the building site and constructor is about to relax from all the building chores, his new profession is calling and activates a series of new obligations. Weeding, pruning, trellising, watering. A plow creates waterways between the rows of fruit trees. Their roots need to grow sideways as well. They must be reinforced with poles against the winds. The strawberry field must be covered on all sides to keep early foodies out. The pool needs a continuous clean-up, as dust is blown in all the time. Our little pool robot Wall-E id doing most of the work but he also needs to be nurtured and relieved from trash. The grass does not grow evenly. The lavenders are covered with new weeds as soon as you turned your back and thought you were done. The wife is racing tirelessly her way between two countries for her daytime job. The flow of visitors is coming our way, our agenda is full now, sorry guys, next year, or, winter is also nice here! And then there is the Dutch home base that needs regular attention, where there are more chores, cleaning, and business to attend to. It’s a true act of balance, but so far, so good.

Icing on the cake

The building is never finished but nearly done. For months now. We are still waiting for what they promised us ages ago. We try not to get upset anymore. The issues are not show stoppers, just the necessary icing on the cake, here and there. For which we need certain guys to come over with certain tooling and expertise. Who do not come.

We do the laundry, ironing, charging vacuuming, pumping, blow drying, computing etcetera as much as possible during the day on sun power. The battery keeps the fridge and all other stand by apparatuses alive during the night. Our electricity bill will not be zero, but the cost for energy from the grid have dropped enormously. We learn how to manage the apps that keep us informed, on track, and allow us to operate from a distance. We can switch off the lights when we are anywhere else. Quite handy, don’t you think? 😉 But, you have to keep up with the digital world, you have to keep learning!

Steps

But what a lovely life. To be able to walk straight into the garden when your work day is done. Getting dirty and race a little with the wheelbarrow. Instead of going to the gym we torment our bodies working this land. Those 10.000 steps a day are done in a jiffy here. Every sun salutation equals one pull of weed. We are mindful in our own bubble. Here we can forget for a little while how the world around us is being ruined by our species. And pretend there is something of a future for the plants we have just put in the ground. Arie, the eagle is hovering in the air. The neighbors come with advice and instructions for our growing veggies. The lady delivering bread every morning also brings some small town gossip. The boss is baking krentenbollen, cooks mango chutney, fabricates paté en croûte, and plows his land. Guards his strawberries and shallots. Watches the courgettis grow. Serves the first cherry tomatoes for lunch.

We sit and stare at this lovely landscape and still can not imagine that this is our spot under the sun. Every time we come back here from the Netherlands we are so glad we took the challenge. And this was also the last huge building project in our lives. Now we just need to get ourselves back in one piece and simply enjoy every minute we can spend here……