When La Meridiana came to life
With a full van to Italy, a bunch of keys, and a moving truck from the Netherlands. The moment when La Meridiana was no longer just a name, but began to come to life.
6/29/20264 min read
You may have noticed: there was no new blog last week.
The reason? I was in Italy. And the time I had there turned out a little differently than planned. Despite all the lovely support, the blog is still one of the first things I tend to postpone.
This time, I was there to wait for the moving truck from the Netherlands. And with that came another one of those decision moments: how are we going to do this?
Ideally, you want to experience that as a family. Arriving together. Unpacking together. Shaping a house into the home you imagine it to be.
But yes. Children versus school. A dog who does not exactly love travelling. And a schedule that left very little room for romance. So the decision was quickly made: I would drive there and back “quickly”.
The moving truck was already full, but we still came to the conclusion that quite a lot of things were left in the house. Things that certainly would not fit in the car later. It may sound strange, but it almost seemed as if the moving boxes had spontaneously grown over the past few weeks.
So there I was on Friday, at the desk in Eindhoven, picking up the key to my temporary transport vehicle: a Ford Transit Custom with five cubic metres of loading space. Enough, we thought, to get everything over there.
That evening, we started loading. And although the loading space looked generous at first glance, reality once again proved otherwise. Before long, this van was full too.
Under the motto if it fits, it goes, the Transit and I were ready to leave.
Saturday morning. 4:00 a.m.
By now, I can almost dream the road to Italy. Along the way, there are those fixed markers. Places that tell you how far you have come. The Swiss border is one of them.
And that was exactly where I hit the jackpot.
Inspection.
A man alone in a delivery van. Suspicious by definition, of course.
I was pulled over for a check. The question was simple: what was I doing?
An open question. Dangerous.
In my head, the most wonderfully humorous answers immediately came to mind. But judging by the serious expression of the man in front of me, it seemed wiser to stick to the truth.
“I’m on my way to Italy with furniture, because we’re moving.”
He looked at me, simply said “okay”, turned around and walked away.
No “you can go”. No “wait here”. Just: “okay”.
Taking my chances, I gently pressed the accelerator to see what kind of reaction that would trigger.
No reaction.
So I decided to drive on, while checking my mirrors to see whether a chase would still be launched after all. Nothing happened. And so I cruised on towards Italy.
Meanwhile, I was in contact with the key holder. This was someone appointed by the seller, because the seller himself no longer lived in the house. The agreement was that I would receive the key on Sunday.
That felt logical. I would arrive, get into the house, prepare things, and start work straight away on Monday.
But the formal key holder saw things differently. A passage from the contract was referred to. So instead of arriving at my own home on Sunday, it became Monday.
With the long list of jobs waiting for me, that was honestly quite a disappointment. In the end, we managed to agree that the keys would be handed over on Monday morning at half past eight.
That mainly meant one thing: I could take my foot off the gas.
No more rushing to get everything arranged on Sunday. No more trying to win back time that simply was not there.
I had to let go of the planning, park the disappointment, and simply let the surroundings sink in.
Monday was the big day. At half past eight, I was handed the keys to our house. A bunch of keys that would make many a prison guard jealous. A bunch that had me standing there for at least ten minutes, trying keys in my own house like an amateur burglar.
Eventually, one of them turned.
And then I was inside.
In our house.
For the first time, I was there alone. Without an estate agent. Without the seller. Without the key holder. Without other people around me. Just me, in a house that suddenly was no longer something we talked about, negotiated over, or dreamed of.
It was ours.
Because there were still quite a few things in the house, which had by then become ours as well, it did not feel completely as if I was alone. Something of the previous phase still lingered in the rooms.
I used that day to clear rooms, unload the van, and above all, to land. Because the next day, Tuesday, the movers would arrive.
When I lay in bed that evening, I experienced the silence. And precisely in that silence, I realised once again what a special adventure we are part of.
And perhaps even more importantly: the realisation that this house is now truly our new home.
On Tuesday, the mover arrived around midday. He decided to get started straight away. It was actually bizarre how smoothly everything went. By 6:00 p.m., we concluded that only three things still needed to be brought inside: a sideboard, consisting of two parts, and our beloved tree-trunk table.
Whether the movers loved the table quite as much, I do not know.
The thing, weighing over three hundred kilos and measuring three metres long, is so awkward that at such a moment you would rather turn it into firewood than carry the tabletop up to the first floor.
In the end, it took two and a half hours, several strong words, and a few moments when I thought: just leave it downstairs.
But it made it up.
On Wednesday morning, the movers were gone. As much as possible was in place. Time to close everything up again and get ready for the return journey later that day.
A trip during which a house suddenly became our house.
A trip during which La Meridiana was no longer just a name, but began to come to life.
By now, I am back in the Netherlands. Our belongings are in Italy.
Just a few more weeks, and then we get to go again.
Only this time, we will not be going there and back.
This time, it will be a one-way journey.
We cannot wait.