There is a rat in my kitchen

Oh joy, yesterday it was the final day to get my kitchen ordered for the new house. I have been delaying it for weeks cos I seem to be rather stupid in designing it. It just doesn’t appeal to me and a choice a good but too many choices makes my simple kitchen brain go into game over mood. But with some very skilful Aster help I mentioned to get on a paper what I think will be the coolest kitchen on the planet… well of Seborga. Lots of open space and plenty of drawers to stock whatever tool you need in a modern kitchen.

In order to get the thing ordered a visit to the famous Swedish friends was imposed. The friendly meatballs to get some courage and than…off to the kitchen unit. Fransesco, the Mr Kitchen and as it looked like a habitual user of the Aperitivi Anal, sorry bad joke. Was very skilled in English and guided me through seemingly endless calculations and orders until the final part, the one that hurts the most …the price! Well, it is an important part of the house so I better go for it. Got all the papers printed off and continued the journey to HomeFurnitureLand by adding some more furniture and 2 cupboards, which are second on my hate list of things to organise, before the visit to the till was there.

It was close to 20.00 and having spend almost 7 hours to get all this far, this hurdle was the easy one. Oh dear, all was scanned and my card refused! 3 employees later and many different tries they notified me that they needed to cancel it all and I do it again when I come back! You are joking! My blood was reaching a temperature ready for some good shouting but I continued explaining to them that there must be a mistake. Nevermind all the other people observing a stranger that is not even be able to pay for Ikea.

We moved over to the delivery department where one lady speaks French and explained that Italy has a maximum amount on credit card to be spend on a daily, weekly AND monthly base ! Which makes it difficult to pay for things since this maximum is rather low. Oh great, well I now need to pay a part and than drive back next week (3rd time in a month) to pay for the rest!

At 20.15 I was pushing the trolley on the deserted parking of Ikea that counted just one car ( as nice one, MINE) and all the other 10.000 cars were at home talking about that strange Dutch guy that could afford shopping there…

Why speeding is cool!

The sleepy town of Bordighera has little crime figures and according to those little figures all seems to be small. The policemen and women are all SMALL, the fines are all SMALL (the paper not the amount), the police office is SMALL and as of yesterday I can add the above featured police car that is seriously SMALL. At first when I saw it I thought it was a joke, but that I noticed the two serious looking policemen in it. For them it was not a joke! Maybe one of the superior officers has taken the Team bonding exercise a little to far…

But the best thing of all is that it cannot do more than 45km per hour ! Try to catch me with that if you can ! It is of course environmentally friendly and entirely made out of a light plastic like material and it does have the all important blue flashing thingy on the top.
I do think that the local government deserves a prize for this initiative and the policemen driving it even more. In the country where you need to be seen, small is again beautiful!

Something different for a chance

At my local espresso bar they serves (as mentioned before) not only coffee but also healthy drinks and even small sandwiches. Very handy when you are in a hurry and they are light too.

But today I had difficulties deciding and the place was full of people. The lady that was serving me suggested to take a look at the new sign that indicated all the varieties of food & beverages. As you can see they serve quiet a few things that are appealing but the Aperitivi Anal I think should be avoided at all costs! I stick to a coffee with an apple pie!

In the garden of Erwin - Part2

Yesterday I introduced the readers to the exiting World of gardening but unfortunately I was not be able to find help from Rob&Nico, however I came across another person that might just do the trick. He looks like Sinterklaas with glasses and is probably just over 100 years old, but he is THE Garden Guru I need. His name? Hendrik Jan the Tuinman. He has written more books than Lou de Jong (well at least about gardening) and he created a range of tools that will make our lives easier and our wallets emptier.

As you can see on the picture, there is just no way you cannot trust the guy, he is like your grandfather and got the Nobel prize for Gardening… But it turns out that he is retired and only does guest speakers things for a huge fee to sponsor his green Hummer and 7 houses and not to forget his children. I reckon there is the key to success and yesterday I was contacted by an illegitimate child of Hendrik-Jan. She is called A.M. and offered her green fingers and apparently knows more about grass than Rob&Nico combined. It is quiet an honour of course but since Seborga is a Principality, it deserves an almost royal treatment.

The garden problem is solved I just need to get Intratuin to do a little bit of product placement in my garden to get some freebies. Now there is a challenge !

In the garden of Erwin

Soon I will be launching myself in a new adventure together with my dad. We are going to take care of the garden design and make it look like we know what we are doing. My dad is of course the person who knows all about even the tree names in Latin so this is a good start.

However yesterday evening I thought that we might need some extra advise and thought about an illustrious Dutch duo that haunted my television for years; Rob & Nico. The were the presenters of a program that was called (translated) Own House and Garden. The one with the moustache was called Rob and he liked to get his hands dirty by sticking them in Gods earth. Nico was the handy man that always knew a solution but rather had a cup of coffee.

They were great at giving you advise about gardening and renovating but there was always a brand somewhere lurking around which made me feel like I was watching a product placement infomercial. Anyway, I thought let’s Google them. My first result gave me Rob. He has spend the last 5 years doing the same thing with at least 5 different co presenters (not Nico but a lady) shaved of his moustache and looks like he is now interested in women.

The second result was far more interesting. Nico was caught up in two law suits that in the end made it impossible for the Dynamic Duo to continue presenting the program and he left to live in Spain. What happened? Well, Nico took the handyman thing a little bit to literally and he could keep his hands of the women that were on the set. During the court case he provided evidence that this was not the case but lost dramatically when the lawyer showed up with his contract in which it was stated that he was not allowed to touch women, make sexual orientated jokes, fart (!) nor drink alcohol. Well, I guess I won’t get much help from them, but I have to say it makes gardening a lot less boring than I could imagine!

Vintage is Cool

This afternoon I dropped by the petrol station to get...some petrol but I was quickly distracted when my eye caught the sight of a row of brightly coloured 'bubbles'. The petrol station owner is also a big car fan and in his free time he restores car and he had just finished 4 little Fiat 500 cars. They were all lined up and looking accross the street in search for an owner that would treat them well and feed them some petrol now and than and take them for a ride.

When taking a closer look it I really fell in love with them, so cute! They were all painted in colours that you dont see anymore nowadays and each of them is at least 40years old ! It is all very tiny inside and I felt like I entered a tin of Bonduelle beans but it just well more tastier. I didnt have time to really drive one of them to experience a car that changes gear only when you force it and goes as fast as your granny on a Rolator. Fully restored they dont come cheap up to 5.000 euros but they look a Million ! Oldtimers are really sending out a different message, a message that spells cool and laid back. The new version of the Fiat 500 is really well done but I still think it is far more cooler to have the original.

For the moment I will drive by them everyday to say hello and maybe one day, one of them will decide to join me and become cool again.

Cross town traffic

Although Bordighera is rather small it is a melting pot of nationalities. This because many people that work in Monaco and surroundings prefer to live over here. When you really wish to meet them all than the best thing to do is go outside at around 19.00 when everybody arrives back from work and there is a line of big cars from Ventimiglia until Sanremo through Bordighera. Mixed in with these big cars there is the usual variety of funky looking Fiat 500, old and new and plenty of white taxis. Taxi are the same in each country, they drive very fast, have often drivers that speak many different languages apart from the ones you speak and either have crappy old Mercedes cars or brand spanking new ones, that I always seem to miss out on and of course they are all expensive.

However Bordighera is different and likes to make a difference. As you can see on the enclosed picture, Stelios eat your heart out, this is serious low budget taxi service with a difference. Try to squeeze yourself in the little basket or on the backseat (beware of the marriage material) and enjoy an environmental friendly trip back home. Don’t worry about the traffic jams, you will not be slowed down by this, maybe by the rather corpulent, sweaty Italian guy that is peddling…
Interested? Well, check out picture number two. This is the highly sophisticated reservation service. If the line is busy than you always have the little handset at your disposal.

And you were still wondering why I have chosen to live in Bordighera ?