The doorbell rang at 8am.  I live on the third floor and am quite lazy so I tend to peek down through the front window to check out the visitor before climbing down to greet them.  I looked down but didn’t recognise the figure below.  All I could see was the top of a female head.   The hair was that home-died brassy red colour you see so often in Holland.   I think L’oreal must make it specifically for the Dutch as almost every middle-aged woman here has the same hair colour.  Anyway, I realised I had two choices.  I could either do the polite thing and run downstairs or I could break the early-morning peace on the canal and shout down like a fishmonger’s wife.  I chose the latter.

“HELLO?”

“Uh yes hello I am your neigbour from next door.” She shouted back in Dutch.

The penny dropped. 

She was my nude neigbour.  Yes you did read that correctly, my NUDE neighbour.

The one who whenever I’m trying to impress my friends with a swanky, sophisticated roof garden dinner party, persists on strolling out naked and basking in the sun on her roof.  I’m sure you’ll agree that no matter how in shape a 60 year-old is, watching her sprawl out in the sun 5 metres away with nothing on but her sunglasses is enough to put anyone off their food.  An apology if this is ageist.  I don’t want to see anybody naked while I’m eating.     

I wondered why she was downstairs ringing the bell.  During our three years in the house she has ignored us.  When we see her on the street, clothed very conservatively I might add, she walks straight past as if she hasn’t seen us before. It could be a nudist thing but I have always found it a bit strange.  I never expected a casserole or a welcoming committee. This is Holland after all and if you move into a new house the onus lies on you to have a small party or introduce yourself to everyone rather than the other way around.  As we never got around to doing that, we don’t know any of the neigbours except for the hippies downstairs who aren’t afraid to break social norms and pop up every now and then.  With all these things running through my head I collected myself and raced down the stairs in my Peter Alexander pyjamas (still loving them Holly).

I opened the door and extended my hand,

“Susan.”

She looked confused and I prayed that she wouldn’t go in for the three kisses. My prayers were answered.

“Wilma.”

“Uh hi, is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, you have a cat?”

“Katja, You mean?  Yes, yes we do” 

“Your cat is really annoying me”

“Oh? I’m so sorry what mischief has she been up to?”

“She’s walking on my roof garden and jumping inside my window.  All the neighbours are complaining and you must keep her in the house from now”

Katja, our lonely only cat (thanks to Jarno who mercilessly gave away all her kittens a couple of years ago), has taken to jumping out of the bathroom window onto other people’s roof gardens and making her way along the street across the roof tops.  We find it charming and she looks so happy hunting down the little wildlife that Utrecht has left, so we encourage her by leaving the window open all the time.  

“uhhhh…..”

insert 5 seconds pause where I tried to translate “not a chance in hell” first into something less direct and then into Dutch.

“Echt niet.”

Which roughly translates to not a chance in hell.

“But all the neighbours are complaining!”

“You can’t lock an animal inside all day, it’s cruel.”

“Well you shouldn’t be living in the city then. Why don’t you go and live in the suburbs.”

Insert a 10 second pause where I processed the full offensiveness of her remarks. The familiar indignant feeling that goes with such a classic culture clash moment rose up and crashed over me like a tidal wave but I took deep breath and it ebbed away as quickly as it came.  I fought the temptation to start talking about the dangers of dying your own hair and premature aging from sun baking but I didn’t let her get the better of me. I simply asked,

“Well is there a law against our cat being outside?”

“Um.. ahhh… eeeh… I think I must call the police then”

I smiled to myself at the absurdity of it all and we stood in silence for a moment while she glared at me expectantly.   Not wanting to be completely ungracious and unneigbourly I added,

“How about I discuss it with my husband and we’ll get back to you”

She huffed and puffed a little then stormed back to her house.  Once she was gone I shut the door, turned around and laughed my head off. 

I’ve really come a long, long way. 

It’s a Dutch heat wave! The weather is superb and we are thoroughly enjoying breakfast, lunch and dinner on our city roof garden soaking up all the rays we can catch. The weekend was nice. Gosia and Marcin came over to BBQ and we talked deep into the night about everything from Communism to the universal truth that builders really truly should not and cannot be relied upon. It made me think twice about our sketchy plans to redo the bathroom and kitchen. On Sunday we went down to Zeeland to go sailing with Izzy and Stijn. It was 30 degrees and the water was perfect swimming temperature. I am starting to get the hang of sailing but much prefer gliding through the water behind the boat on a rope. This can be embarrassing when the wind picks up and you lose half of your bikini.

So it was a lovely weekend. Especially considering we were supposed to be in Sofia at Lora’s wedding. I kept quiet about the toxic undercurrent poisoning our “friendship” for a long time. For the sake of harmony I grinned and bared some seriously narcissistic, Borderline personality traits. I tried to write it off to cultural differences and insecurity for the longest time. If she wasn’t screaming at her boyfriend, bragging about how she slept with her best friend’s boyfriend or convincing us that ALL men are in love with her then she was having a go at me. Unfortunately things came to a head on the night of my wedding when she lashed her ‘charm’ full force on an old friend of mine. She told him that all her friends in Holland are ‘temporary’ because she hasn’t been able to find any real ones yet. Can that be a cultural difference? I was annoyed that she couldn’t keep her psychosis to herself just for one evening. I remained polite but distant for the rest of the evening and the next day when she showed up uninvited to watch the soccer with my brother, Tanella and Kent. The one thing she can’t stand is to be ignored so after 10 minutes in the pub she stormed off. I guess my distance sent her over the edge as while checking my mails on our honeymoon I received an A4 page full of bizarre accusations and insults and we were formally uninvited from the wedding.

While that seems like a long, angst-ridden story it’s a fantastic outcome. One by one I’m knocking out people who have a negative impact on my life, a little Dalai Lama style. The big lesson is to be a little more careful when entering friendships. I was pretty desperate when I first arrived and have been ever so lucky with everyone else. But from now on when I see a borderliner approaching (and you can spot them from a mile away) I’m going to turn around and run the other way. Lots more to report. Will be writing weekly again. P.S GOT THE NEW JOB