A last update before the summer holidays

Some routine has settled in the Lambregts household now, and after a busy and stressful time we are ready for a long summer break. School will finish next Wednesday, and we will drive straight to France. Mary and the girls will stay for some 7 weeks, and Piet will be there for 4 weeks, split into 3 sessions. So what else has happened the last few weeks?

The court case (see post of June 5th): our downstairs neighbour finally signed the agreed compromise, and Mary went back to Utrecht on a peace mission. Both the neighbour and we had arranged our own contractor to inspect the leakage problem. All met at the house, and both contactors had a good look, and will come up with a joint proposal. The work should be initialised as soon as possible and paid for 50-50. We are now one step closer to a solution and can go on holiday with some peace of mind.

The house in The Hague: Mary has been very, very busy; she has fixed up Paula’s attic room (with some help from all of us). The walls are clean and whitewashed; all Paula’s things are up there, including photographs of our Egyptian horses Adham and Mirinda. It is a nice teenager room now, and the next big project is to get the windows extended to make the room larger (the famous Dutch “dakkapel”). Dorien was less lucky, her attic room needs to be extended first, otherwise it is not possible to stand upright in most of it. She has been stuck in a small (future guest-) room on the first floor, which just fits her bed, a desk and a bookshelf. But she is perfectly happy there. Our bedroom was done as well, the walls were whitewashed, the sideboards replaced and a large 5-piece wardrobe installed. With our bed and a rug it looks just like new!

Almost all boxes have been unpacked now and most things have found their own place. It is starting to be possible again to move around the garage and the cellar and the house really feels like home.

Horse riding: Mary and the girls managed to wriggle themselves into the riding lessons at the stable across the road “De Wildhoef”. Like with a lot of things in The Netherlands there was a waiting list, but with some flexibility and persistence they got in. On Saturday afternoon Paula is riding with the teenage advanced group, and on Monday Dorien is riding with the advanced group of her age. Thursday evening all three together join an adult group, and they have been riding on the beach a few times, although most lessons are inside in the paddock. Although they miss the freedom from Egypt they are enjoying the riding very much. And that it is just a 5 minute walk from the house makes it only better.

The beach: one of the best things with the location of the house is the short distance to the beach. Just a 10 minute walk or a 5 minute bike ride and we are there, and all our visitors end up there as well. Every weekend we go for a walk, to test the seawater temperature, to swim (! Piet and Dorien on a windless, sunny day) or to try out our kite. There are always people on the beach, but because there is no parking area nearby it lacks the busy resort atmosphere of nearby Scheveningen. And that we also like!

Paula in her attic room

Paula and Passoa are ready for a lesson

Lining up for a lesson in the paddock of "De Wildhoef"

Dorien flying her kite

A hectic period – including a court case

It has been quiet for a while, as we have been swamped with many things. The most important one was the arrival of our sea freight, about 2 weeks ago. We are slowly working our way through the boxes, trying to fit all our furniture and possessions in a much smaller house. We’re getting there!

For his job Piet went to London three times last month, to look at data of a number of business opportunities. He learned the route from our house to The Hague Central Station to Schiphol Airport and London City Airport by heart. These were busy days, just work-eat-sleep and no sightseeing.

However, all the stress during this period came from a completely different angle. A few years ago we bought an apartment (“bovenhuis”) in Piet’s hometown Utrecht, with the plan to use it as a home base for future postings, or possibly as a place for the girls if they would study at university there. In the mean time we have rented it out. On the ground floor apartment a notorious complainer is living, permanently living on health benefit and a real “pain in the ass” according to the previous owner. A few months ago he started to communicate to us via his lawyer, demanding that we remove the existing roof terrace, which is on top of his kitchen / garden parlour. According to him it is illegal and causing severe leakage during rain. Anyway we have been politely answering him with counter arguments and, as he was getting nowhere, he dismissed the lawyer and got a new one.

The new lawyer sent us a similar letter, which we received during our last week in Egypt. We replied that our files were packed and in transit from Egypt to The Netherlands, so any detailed answers would have to wait a while. This was an obvious mistake! Suddenly all was accelerated, and before we knew it we received a short note that a trial (“kort geding”) was set for the 1st of June. Three days after receiving our container we got a very thick file, the input to the court case from our neighbour with an outrageous claim of 40.000 EUR. Mary dropped everything, and spent the next 6 days putting our defence together; luckily we found the box with all the files quickly. She spent at least 12 hours a day going though these files, finding counterarguments to almost everything in the trial document. We talked to the previous owner, and the owner before him; both helped us a lot and were ready to testify at any moment. She also spoke to a lawyer in The Hague, who helped her with suggestions on how to construct our defence. On Friday Mary handed in our documents to the court in Utrecht, and a copy to the neighbour’s lawyer. On Tuesday morning we were sitting outside the courtroom, as nervous as for our first ever job interview. The session took more than 3 hours in the end. In short the arguments of the neighbour were almost all invalidated and the judge directed us to a compromise, which was our position from the beginning. Our proposal was basically to get a contractor in as quickly as possible and get the leakage problem fixed, with both parties paying half of the costs. All other issues would be dealt with at a later stage. This was verbally agreed by us and the neighbour’s lawyer and turned into a final statement by the judge, to be signed by both parties. At that moment our opponent (conveniently?) fainted, and had to be wheeled out of the session. The judge left the statement, signed by us, with his lawyer, and gave him a few days to get it signed as well. In case it wasn’t signed all his claims would be dismissed. There are many more details to be told, but we better do that over a beer!

In any case this was a very stressful week, with little sleep and lot’s of worries. The main issue we have is how someone without an income, who is taking no responsibility for his own living conditions, can go from lawyer to lawyer to harass honest, hardworking people to fix and pay his problems for him, over a period of nearly 20 years. And we are pretty sure this is not the end of it.

Luckily there were some good things as well, Mary’s mom helped the first few days with unpacking, Piet’s mother, sister and family visited on the best day yet; we went to the beach without swimming gear, which was a mistake. Wet clothes galore.... The following weekend Piet’s best friend and family came to check out the house and beach, and then the weather was already much cooler, but not stopping a 5 and 2 year old to get soaking wet!

Paula's sunset photography

Mary and Britt enjoying the beach