Narrow stairs lead to Tulips by candle light

So here I am! Right by the canal with Peiterskirk bells in earshot , not a bad way to wake up on a lazy Sunday morning ,in my little attic apartment overseeing the rooftops of a very old and very picturesque Dutch city – Leiden.

After arriving at 9pm on Wednesday evening, excited but terrified at the prospect of moving into a flat that I had a vague idea about in terms of it's location ( with help from Google earth) but absolutely no idea about it in terms of contents, layout ,or any other identifying details....I also had to prepare for starting my new job the very next morning. Problem? No problem! Nothing a good doze of blind optimism, or blissful ignorance, couldn't handle.

My wee flat, a little attic conversion, is really quite beautiful. Just now a little sparse but once the boxes arrive with all my little bits and pieces, it will be a lovely little place and very homely. Not knowing what the Dutch definition of 'fully furnished with appliances' actually meant, I was very happy to find that such 'appliances' included , among many others , mugs and a kettle – I had optimistically packed some tea bags in hopeful anticipation of there being, at the very least, a kettle awaiting. You see, during my trawl, at a distance may I add, through the rental market in Leiden there were quite a few places listed as a 'shell' while others 'partly furnished' which, by the pictures, also looked like 'shells' so I really wasn't too sure what to expect.

Fortunately, my wee flat was not the shell that I feared it would be! However the stairs....oh the stairs are quiet the climb! Like a most Dutch apartment blocks, they key is to make as much use of as little space as possible. Efficiency and use of space means that things like staircases and corridors, landings and entrances – purely instrumental components, rather than actual inhabitable living spaces, of an apartment are as narrow or steep (usually both) as possible – forget health and safety, these staircases while making you healthier after many a climb, will not necessarily make you feel safe, especially on decent, even more so in a pair of heels....So my first handy tip as an expatriate – when in heels do not under any circumstances attempt to walk down the stairs, rather, wait until you're on the ground floor before even considering placing your wee feet into your high heels. On that, if I appear to have gone AWOL please be sure to check behind my front door as the possibility of me lying behind it after tripping down the vertical drop, sorry staircase, is the most likely reason for my prolonged absence...I really shouldn't jinx this should I?

Negotiating the stairs,with great care in heels for the first and last time as outlined above, I made my way to Webster University , or work as it will now be referred too! It takes 40 seconds to stroll to work, along one canal with a right turn to another that lies adjacent to Rapenburg . Boommarkt is another of the main canals in Leiden which also lines the road leading to Rembrandt's birthplace and one of the two traditional, working, windmills in Leiden. While nervous ,I was ready to walk in a get started confident that I would be made to feel welcome and part of the place and the community at Webster, and, I was by no means disappointed. A day of lots of introductions to both Webster people and Webster workings came to very pleasant and quite poignant end as a small surprise celebration was had in honour of one of the staff to mark their 10th anniversary at Webster, to the day. Everyone was there to share the surprise and give their best wishes to a valued colleague and everyone had a sense of pride in such a legacy and achievement, the pride was quite infectious....I think I'll like it here.

So my first weekend was really very nice indeed and also a chance to unpack and make my flat look like home, add a few little touches before the rest of my homely details arrive in the form of 19 boxes...lots of little homely touches I suppose. Now don't worry, I didn't go overboard. 3 bunches of tulips, a vase and some tea lights. Following a Dutch stereotype with the tulips ,which are hard to resist given their colour and beauty and , as I promised I would, exercising my new found freedom from living in University Halls – the candle ban – I bought 75 tea lights and have lit some every night just because I can! Pink tulips by candle light are really quite beautiful.

The weekend was also a chance to catch-up with the ESA (European Space Agency) boys I met while I was over last September. An opportunity to see the social side of Leiden and relax a little around familiar faces , who reassuringly all love living here and what it has to offer. My trusted tour-guide, Dom, pointed out many a coffee shop (not the kind with funny cigarettes and 'brownies' but one that actually sells koffie and carrot cake in a Costa coffee way), and we had a good wander around the busy market famous for its amazing array of fresh fruit, meat, fish and tulips not to mention olives and random piles of batteries, toothpaste and rolls of fabric...the final three are more of note in their quantity rather than their allure.

Sunday morning , fresh with the knowledge of the route to one of the many 'Bagels and Beans' (Dutch Costa) I wandered along the canal, wooped (louder than I should have) at the sight of the old windmill working in all its windmill-esque glory, ordered a koffie (in Dutch), took a seat at the back of the café (perfect for people watching), and felt very much relieved that the week, the move, the first few days and first weekend had past without a hitch.

Lilac Limbo

So here I am where I started! Where? My wee room, at home ,in Glasgow. Its lilac, as it always has been, there is a fairy on the duvet cover, as has always been, there is a buzz and a busyness about the house, as there always will be, but there is an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, as there never has been to this degree. It’s nothing bad it’s just that feeling you get when you’re neither here nor there. Limbo. I’ve left St Andrews and I’m yet to arrive in Leiden and while I’m home, real home, I know I can’t really get too comfy before I’m off again so hey presto - lilac limbo!

The big move has been executed, with precision, in stages each with its own Filofax ‘to do list’ sheet , neatly listing who, what , where and when with a hope that upon reading the list the ‘why’ would become clear to anyone who happened upon it.

Stage one was packing the contents of my office and bedroom in St Andrews to be shipped to Amsterdam, and while the boxes are still in ‘transit’ which is a little disconcerting, stage one was completed with the trusted help of Mum and Dad – like the fairy on my duvet cover – they’re always there and always sprinkle a little fairy dust to make things easier! So 19 boxes – 14 filled with handbags, glad rags, shoes and other little curiosities, 5 bursting with books and 1 for my temporarily dismembered bike – left for Amsterdam and we went for dinner and a well-earned glass of wine!

Stage two was not goodbye but a heartfelt ‘see you later’, a few too many glasses of various things and a few more tears. My St Andrian family will not always be there physically (we’re all moving, just a different times) but I left rest assured that you never actually really leave the place, you take a little bit with you and leave a little bit behind. So with this in mind I was ready to leave and will, of course will be back; later.

Stage three was a little less arduous but a stage in the whole process nonetheless. St Andrews to Glasgow. Mum and Dad, again, arrived and helped with the small but still very present bundle of stuff. After saying my goodbyes and shedding a few little tears it was time to bid farewell to the bubble, hand over various sets of keys, make lots of promises to ‘stay in touch’, get in the car and head back the way I came 4 years previously.

So for now, I’m in my little lilac limbo in my little lilac room. I’m trying to imagine what I’ll be doing this time next week. According to the list – Stage four – I’ll be landing, one of my trusted Accomplices will pick me up at the airport and I MOVE INTO MY NEW APARTMENT….and the list ends there; for now!

Ik heb trek in een kopje thee!

So today's library marathon has been somewhat productive. The thesis and I have been working well and so far so good. As anyone writing up will tell you, monotony is the most difficult thing to overcome while doing so . So today's change of scene, the library rather than the office, was an attempt to defeat the monotonous monster!
While writing about what I've been researching over the past three years it seems fitting that I'm also thinking about what's to come. So I suppose it like being in purgatory, a nice one, between St Andrews and Webster. Fondly reminiscing while excitedly looking forward to what's next.
A few things are certain and learning Dutch is one of these certainties. So 'Hugo' has promised to help me along the way, in three months, an ambitious man if I've ever met one!
Throughout the years I've built up quite a collection of books of this nature . Greek, French, German, Latin, 'African' dialects - some more useful than others. The usual approach is to find a phrase that resonates ie. one you'll have to use and see if you can actually say it, remember it and make it your own. Gives a wee bit of confidence before nose-diving in and attempting the grammar and everything else.
So flicking through in great anticipation of Hugo's confidence, I found the phrase that will inspire me to knuckle down and learn the language as required.
Tea, for me, solves everything! I'm a great believer that no matter what the problem is, big or small, a wee cuppa tea will at least give me time to sit and think it over for 15minutes. Tea, like Hugo may become for all my Dutch linguistic needs, is always there to help in times of study, writing, time with friends, time to curl up with a good book....so one thing I need to be able to ask for, of course, is a cup of tea.
Repeat after me [says Hugo] Ik heb trek in een kopje thee

Three months is ambitious but at least I'll be able to study with a cuppa tea!

Now, back to the library...

A little wander around Leiden

So here is the first of many wee thoughts that will be posted here for all to see.

It's one month until my last High Table at Sallies, I'm editing, editing and editing some more and beginning to see that over the past three years researching, studying,writing and discovering lots of little unknowns that there is a glimmer of PhD there if you wipe it clean of blood sweat and tears, I'm really starting to feel that I'm coming to the end of an era.

It's all been very abstract so far, talking about when I move rather than implementing anything to actually make the move, that was of course until last week. Deposits paid, a new address secured, a man with a van sending me 20 medium boxes and a bike box in which I have to pack up and send across the sea to old Amsterdam, business cards finalised and my new email address activated. Not to mention a new Assistant Warden being appointed at Sallies and a new Tutor at UoC Edinburgh. I've signed, sealed, arranged to pack and deliver, I'm ready to go...it's no longer talking, it's moving!

I'm really excited for everything to come. Its not a bad start to the year, the year I finish one major thing (that PhD thing) and begin at a new university, for the first time not as a student but as a faculty member.

I'm also terrified but in the same way as I was when I was standing on the edge of a bridge with nothing but a bungee rope tied around my waist, I was paralysed with fear, the last thing I wanted to do was jump, the only thing I was demanding of the safety guys around me was to make me jump...somehow the adrenaline rush is worth the terror, it actually makes the terror somewhat pleasurable. Now this is a very extreme way to describe the move to Holland but I cant pretend that the adrenaline isn't pumping and that the thought of the jump isn't terrifying.

Having been at university as a student for 9 years I'm starting a fresh at a new university, something I have enjoyed many a time before, but the fresh start is as a faculty member at a University were I have never been a student. This will be a strange and exciting new experience.

Anew place, a new life style, a new language and everything else in between.

For now the anticipation and adrenaline is keeping the motivation up. The nerves keep me writing and keep me to a self-imposed and grueling structure, the reward....a wee apartment by the canal, my bike, Webster and everything else I'm yet to discover.