Life in Houten continued

The family have finally moved into their new home. It took seven trips in the car to move everybody and everything from the flat in Utrecht to the house in Houten. Walter became very familiar with the route, which took roughly half an hour each way.

So on the night of Saturday 29th January we all slept in the new house, amongst the dust, renovations and seemingly hundreds of boxes. It was bliss and we all slept late on Sunday morning.

Since then Aaron, Kylie and Walter have worked constantly to get the house in order. I was in charge of food, meals and children so was excused from the job! The two workmen, Aldert and Hans (who is also an estate agent) are doing a grand job on the renovations. There is now a bath in the bathroom - we had to wash in the little basin in the downstairs toilet for four days, and Mia's room (used to be part of the bathroom) is nearly finished.

The loungeroom, minus most of the boxes. The back wall will be extended by 2 1/2 metres.
The kitchen and dining room looking very organised. The lights will be changed!
Mia and Abi are more settled in school now they do not have to travel a huge distance to it each day. They received their first reports and Aaron and Kylie have attended parent/teacher interviews, which were very positive.

The school is now a three minute bike ride away or a seven minute walk. Dropping off and collecting children at the school is so easy. You arrive ten minutes before school starts and take your children in and help with coats etc, then you leave immediately and go to work or home. At hometime you arrive one or two minutes before school finishes (there are no parents there earlier than 5 to 3) and collect the children. It is expected that parents get on with their lives rather than hanging around the school! Bliss from an ex Headteacher's point of view.

The girls forgot their bags one morning and I brought them back half an hour later. I walked into the school and left them by their large cotton school bags. I did not have to report to anyone either. In fact there is no secretary as primary schools in Holland do not have a front office or secretarial staff. The staff room in de Brug school is a servery in the infant area, and you can smell good coffee (Senseo machine) when you enter the school. There are always a few teachers there having coffee and talking to parents at the same time. Het is veel gezillig!

Out of school care is provided by children centres in the community and the children are collected from the school by the staff of the centres. Most of the children also go home for lunch. If children stay at school for lunch, then parents have to pay for them to be look after at school.

I also found that I was not the tallest female in the playground. Many Dutch women (and men) are very tall!

Houten in the mist!