zzzzzzzzzz.........

 

A weekend of domestic bliss! Even a Sunday night spent wading through the spillage of the blocked downstairs toilet doesn't seem to shake us. We just watch the football with our wellies on.

During the past few weeks Mr S. and I have had our ups and downs. Yes, we are getting used to living in the Netherlands again, but it definitely doesn't feel like we've arrived. I am sort of kidding myself that I am loving it here and that we should buy a house, make a pact to stay here for a least a decade and buy tons of new furniture to cement the deal.
Mr S. on the other hand is not so sure about the whole living in the Netherlands thing, so doesn't want to buy a house yet, let alone think about how long he is going to stay. Needless to say, furniture never even enters his head.
However hard I try not to push Mr S. - and I honestly do try - most weekends start with me wanting to discuss buying a house and more often than not telling him which one I would like to make an offer on. This weekend of course is no exception.
To my surprise however Mr S. is not only willing to discuss houses (as long as we don't have to decide), but he also agrees to look at some furniture with me. Now! So we decide that after fifteen years, two home births and four moves we will treat ourselves to a new bed. And not that we're pining for our lovely place in the Alps, but we head straight for 'Swiss Sense', a Dutch chain of bed & mattress stores that, as we are about to find out, have nothing to do with Switzerland whatsoever. According to the sales guy the 'Swiss' in 'Swiss Sense', is purely for marketing purposes. It just sounds nice. The beds are in fact produced in the Philippines.
He is not too bad this guy, until he starts jotting figures on a piece of paper. Although 'every bed in the store can be combined with every mattress and top layer', when we do suggest a different combination, it all of a sudden seems to get a.very complicated and b.very expensive. But we do like the bed. We do however  definitely do not trust the salesman, so we leave.
But then we find an even bigger 'Swiss Sense' store that is open on a Sunday as well. The weather is absolutely gorgeous as we head out around two. Which is just as well as the store (one of fifty furniture stores in a massive arcade, which is pretty much how I would picture hell if I believed there was one) is very quiet. As soon as we enter the store,  the manager dives upon us.
Before we have had the time for such much as a cursory look around, this guy is bombarding us with information. He talks about pocket springs, bonnell springs, foam mattresses, memory foam, latex foam and different seams. He also talks about different zoning in mattresses and shows us five booklets of different upholstery fabrics. All I want to do is lay down. At the rate that this guy keeps going, I would be able to sleep anywhere. 
I soon realise that bringing an engineer to a bed and mattress store is a very bad idea. Mr S. actually seems to enjoy talking about different types of coils. 'Let's buy this one here', I mutter under my breath to Mr S. when the sales guy finally draws breath.
Luckily my husband agrees and an hour and a half later of testing different mattresses and top layers ('toppers' in bed & mattress store jargon) he too is willing to pay the guy extra if only he would shut up. Although I now know everything about Talalay natural foam latex and have laid down on a 'topper' made of camel and horse hair, which is more expensive than my car.
When at the end of the process the guy is willing to 'do us a deal', we just nod.Whatever, we're buying the bed. Three hours after we entered the shop, we are finally set free. The sun have never shone brighter!
We have the best time ever driving back. Hours later we are still in high spirits. So when the water from from the downstairs toilet floods our hallway, we just laugh. Who cares? We have just spent the best couple of thousand euro's in our lives. Not only did the money buy us a very nice bed, but more important, it bought us fifteen years of not having to set foot in another bed & mattress store again!

BBQ

 
May be inviting 20 plus people for a BBQ, without owning a BBQ, wasn't the best idea. And may be, just may be, planning this BBQ on a Sunday, whilst at the same time being out from dusk till dawn on the Saturday before, wasn't such a great idea either. Our worst mistake however, was feeling invincible and certain we were going to pull it of.

It wasn't until last Monday, weeks after I invited both our families for a Whitsun BBQ, that Mr S. casually mentioned that we do in fact no longer own a BBQ. Apparently we (well Mr S of course) threw it out whilst we were living in Italy. We were way too polite to try and light the BBQ on our Italian balcony and smoke out the neighbours, so by the time we left Italy the unused and unloved BBQ was covered in rust (according to Mr S) and not worth taking with us to the new destination.
In Switzerland we had one of those lovely brick built fire places, complete with its own chimney. BBQing became our second nature. We (well actually Mr S) loved charring  burgers, or grilling the hell out of some ribs. Lovely.
Luckily our rental place in the Netherlands doesn't come with a build in BBQ, because Mr S. long since dreams of buying himself a 'proper' gas BBQ. And not just any old gas BBQ, but a really, really big one. As this is an important purchase, he decides to take a day off.
After he had a nice little lie in and three cappuccino's, Mr S is ready for some serious online investigating. For a while he is completely lost to the world, but then the 12yo, who doesn't need to be in school until ten on a Friday morning, decides to take a look as well. Within minutes both the boys have a in depth conversation about 'flavourisers', titanium, extra burners and are watching promotional films of outdoor kitchen with lovely names like the QR4200, or PL250A.
Time to hit the shops, or shop, because apparently our rather large village, only has one shop that sells half decent BBQ's. With the warmest weekend so far this year upon us, it is eerily quiet in BBQ Land. After long humming and hoeing and looking at various 'outdoor kitchens', we find out why. Most of the BBQ's are out of stock. And although forty pallets of BBQ's and BBQ accessories are due to arrive any minute, the sales guy has no idea whether or not Mr S's desired model will be in this shipment. He thinks it 'likely', or even 'highly likely', but can't be sure.
Mmm, time to come up with a plan B. After some frantic browsing on the net, I find a shop, about half an hour's drive from our home. According to their website the '3000 titanium pro', should be in stock.
An hour and a half later, Mr S triumphantly walks in with a box, the size of our kitchen. The only thing between him and total happiness is a gas bottle, but that will be easy to fix later on. First he needs to piece together the monster BBQ, which Ikea fashion, comes in exactly 271 different pieces.
I decide to keep my distance and hide behind a magazine at the back of the garden. Mr S is whistling. Assembling is FUN!
But then it gets quiet. All I hear are some sighs and whispers. I am probably just imagining Mr. S is muttering swear words under his breath.  swearing.  Any time now the whistling will start again.
But of course it doesn't. Loud swearing and some throwing around of screwdrivers follows. As it turns out, the very expensive BBQ that Mr S just bought, is probably a display model that someone assembled and then disassembled a while back. And just like Ikea furniture, once disassembled, you can never put it back together again.
With clenched teeth and loads and loads of counting till ten, Mr S. manages to get the 'titanium pro' back in the box again. Silently we lift the box and carry it to my car, where it just about fits, if we pull the seats down. Of course customer service closed 5 minutes ago and the shop isn't open on a Saturday, so there is nothing we can do.
We've got tons of meat, garlic butter, potato salad, corn on the cob, a special BBQ cook book, a rain cover, beautiful stainless steel thongs, but no BBQ. It takes Mr S about six cans of beer and myself a bottle of Chardonnay before we see the funny side of the BBQ fiasco (there isn't a funny side of course, but who cares after six cans of beer and a bottle of Chardonnay).
On the morning of the party we decide to just play it cool and pretend we completely planned a BBQ-less BBQ event.And it works! It honestly turns out to be one of the best BBQ's ever, with Mr S in an orange 'I love BBQ-ing' apron presiding over the hob, frying everything he manages to get his hands on. It is utterly brilliant. Who needs a BBQ?
It isn't until I need my car the next morning to go to work, that I realise the downside of the 'hob-be-cue' being such a success. Knowing Mr S., the urgency now gone, probably means he won't take another day off to return the faulty BBQ. I will probably have to drive around with the blasted thing filling every inch of my car, the caption BBQ Land visible from almost every angle.
So we're throwing another BBQ party and all 17 or so members of Mr S's field hockey team and their families are invited. I doubt we can pull it off without an outdoor kitchen.Oh and did I mention the party is next Saturday?