The Wrong Curtains, and why it is important to know where you live

So… yesterday I went to the home of Mara of Weighty Matters. I had never met Mara, we only know each other through our blogs, but she needed help and I offered to come to the rescue. You’ll have to read her post here, to see why she needed help. I’ll leave you some time to follow the link and read that post (very important that you do)…

pom pompom pompom pom pom pompom pompom (is what I say out loud while waiting patiently for you to return here)

 

 

 

 

….and now you know why on Sunday afternoon I gathered about all my garden tools, stuck them into Bob (and before you think I abused some poor guy named Bob by sticking a rake into him; Bob is our car) and instructed Truus (the GPS system Bob has on board) to lead me to Mara’s home, somewhere in the Netherlands. About an hour and 15 minutes drive from my home. Truus has a loose connection somewhere, so every bump in the road causes her to quit her job. A light tap on the head (her head, not mine) often suffices to get her back to work again, but sometimes that means you’ve missed a turn or two. And Mara lives in one of those neighbourhoods that resembles some kind of maze with all streets interlinking and not in a logical way. But at some point I parked my car where I thought Mara’s house could very well be. I saw a streetname sign that was correct, although it was located at a cycle path and pointed in the wrong direction but that does not have to mean anything in those kind of mazes, and I saw a house number that was the same as she had given me. So I hopped out of the car (Bob is the ridiculously high Landrover Defender that needs climbing into and hopping out of) and walked towards the house with the correct number. But it looked wrong to me. As if nobody lived there, or if somebody lived there they weren’t of Dutch origin, because they had the wrong curtains.

I know. “The wrong curtains?”, you’re thinking. “What?”

But you see, we Dutch have a particular way of dressing our windows (I need to do a ‘100 things-post about that). We don’t usually have pelmets and draped heavy curtains, like you often see in Great Britain. We don’t have net curtains with every pleat in the right place and covering almost the entire window, except for a 15 centimetre gap at the bottom, like the Germans do. We have tidy net curtains, either hanging on both sides of the windows leaving a big gap in the middle, so you can see in and you can see out. Or we have what we call a ‘valletje’; a strip of neatly pleated net curtains at the top of the window. Still leaving most of the window clear of curtains. ‘Valletjes’ are very popular in a certain age group. With all kinds of different coloured azaleas in different pots on the window-sill. And chairs that help you stand up again.

We Dutch do not generally close our draw-curtains at night, except in the colder months and in the bedroom, and we open them as soon as we get out of bed. This isn’t the RULE of course; hubs and I do not have net curtains nor do we have draw-curtains. We do have Roman blinds that are always up. And most of our friends don’t have ‘normal’ curtains, come to think of it. Most have either Roman blinds or only draw curtains that are always open.

ANYWAY, why ‘the wrong curtains’ at the right house number in perhaps the right street.

Well… they were still drawn. They were sort of hanging in a… what shall we say… creative way and looked to be sort of a dull grey colour. I just didn’t expect Mara to have those curtains.

So I went back to Bob, climbed in and phoned Mara.

“Mara.”
”Hi, Carolina here. I’m at the Community Centre (a big brick building that had great BIG letters on it saying “COMMUNITY CENTRE” and was located right in front of the suspiciously curtained house).”
”Oh! That’s not right. That’s at the other end of the neighbourhood.”
”Ah. So the house with the ugly grey curtains isn’t yours”, I laughed.
”No. My curtains are green or yellow.”
”See. I thought those hideous curtains couldn’t belong to you. So, tell me, how do I get from the Community Centre to your house?”
”Uhm, well, uhm, that’s difficult to explain. I don’t even know where the Community Centre is. What colour are the houses in the street where you are?”, Mara asked.
”Well, I can see yellow houses in front of me, and the one with the ugly grey curtains is in a row of pink houses.”
”I live in a pink house”, Mara said.
”Okay, so I’ll go drive around looking for a pink house with yellow curtains. And when I find it, I’ll tell you where your Community Centre is. Could be important to know, because there is a police station too.”
A short silence fell and then Mara shouted: “Ooooohhhh thát Community Centre! In that case you áre at the right place. And the house with the ugly grey curtains is mine. But they are yellow. And the ones in the bedroom are green! Not grey!”

And when I looked towards the house, Mara came out the front door. She’s very forgiving and kind, because she even invited me in after I had so insulted her taste in curtains.

She made us a cup of tea, I insulted her curtains some more, gave her a big Chrysanthemum in a basket to put in the garden after we’d finished tidying it up, and we started work.

Now you’ll háve to go over to Mara’s place again to see the before and after pictures. You’ll be stunned, I promise you. We were amazed too about the result of an afternoon’s hard work.

And Mara made a delicious courgette-cake with red pepper-sauce for dinner.

Thanks Mara! I really enjoyed meeting you and your sweet cats. And I had a fun afternoon ;-)