Broken glass

Back again. Got the bread, had the herrings – minus as many hairlike little bones as I could pick out - spent the next half hour convinced there was a fish bone stuck in my throat, then went to Praxis to buy a cheap imitation of a Stanley knife, a length of tough string and some blue plastic bin liners that cost all of 3 euros 95 because they were supposed to be extra strong. They weren’t. What, with cold herrings and blue plastic bin liners, I’m having a exciting time here…
Actually, I like going into Praxis, it’s one of those big do-it-yourself places full of all sorts of things that would make good photos if you had a camera with you: rolls of string, yellow, red, blue cords, metal chains in all shapes and sizes, wallpaper that you’d never choose, doorknobs to suit every taste and weird and wonderful tools to do things you never knew were possible. I took a shiny flat scraper with an attractive black-and-yellow grip off the hook and looked at my vague reflection in the metal blade; then put it back because I don’t need it… I digress.

This story gets interesting, believe me. There is drama, violence and true love in it...

We took the above-mentioned items, hopped back into the car (a grey ' 98 Citroen Xara Break 1.6v for those of you who're into motors) and drove back yet again to my old place to cut up the carpet and insulation tiles and empty it completely. Now ma Buddie has his own super quick way of doing things and that's the way it will be done... so. He cuts the carpet and I shove the pieces as fast as possible into those damned blue bin liners - they ripped open on the first piece - stack them at the side of the room ready to go down those narrow twisting stairs. Then we hump them all down into the car. Quite an operation. It didn't go as fast as Bud wanted and, anyway, he hates that flat - quite rightly so - because the house is a real mess and there's bad karma hanging around from before my time that he just seems to pick up. Plus, he can't stand the types hanging around smoking whoknowswhat outside the Heavenly Cafe across the road. It brings out the aggression in him.

(If you're thinking of coming on holiday to Amsterdam, don't let this put you off; it's also a pretty place..)

And so, we're standing there in a cloud of dust in this one room that I disown, and he's holding the bag open and I'm trying to get that last piece of lino - forgot to mention, we had to strip the linoleum as well from the kitchen area - into the bag. I can't do it and a fuse blows somewhere within Bud - who by this time is more like my Commanding Officer than the love of my life. For the umpteenth time he yells at me to get a move on. And then something snaps in me, already worn out, and I turn up the volume to beat his and yell back that I am getting a move on, and will you [less polite words] cut it out. And jj - we'll put her at a distance for this confession - swings her right leg to give the dark blue and grey plastic refuse bin situated unhappily close by an almighty kick. It bounces against the wall near the window and falls on the wooden floorboards, with the top rolled off. Bud gulps and goes quiet. (And the row's already over for him; he's like that).

Damn, damn, damn
We finish the job and I'm just taking down the curtain when I notice that there is a gaping great hole in the window, jagged slices and shards of glass on the peeling windowsill outside and a two dirty great cracks extending nearly all the way to the top and left side. Oh shit. JJ, you bloody idiot, you've kicked the bin at the window and smashed it. Why, oh why, did I do that? I mean, I never do anything like that. Have had this wretched place over three years (like every foreigner in Amsterdam, glad to have somewhere, anywhere to call mine when I first got it) and I've never caused any damage. And it has to happen on the very last day, even the last half hour. Damn, damn, damn...
The stupid thing is, they're going to renovate all these flats and replace all the windows. But will I get away without having to pay the bill to replace the glass? I don't know.

Light relief
So, we now have to mend the glass, somehow. Buddie manages to lift the window out of the frame (something that's usual in old Amsterdam houses where you often use a hook, tackle and rope to lower stuff out of the window). We tape plastic bags over the hole but it still looks a bit dicey. Can't risk having any glass fall from that height - the second floor - on a passerby. Have to go out and buy tape. I go out. The hardware shop, hidden behind scaffolding, has gone out of busines completely. I can only find an electric light shop. Go in there, stepping into the gloom and make my way between lamp shades covered in plastic since the 1960s or so. A bell rings and a woman's voice sounds from way back somewhere in the premises to announce that she'll be with me in a moment. She emerges from a dark corridor, a lady in her late fifties, I'd guess, under a vertical arrangement of dyed blonde hair. I met her once before, two years ago when I came in the shop to buy a light bulb. "No," she said, viewing me amidst the forest of unsold lighting "I don't have tape. This is an electrical shop." But she does have insulation tape so I buy that, unable to face returning to The General empty-handed. She bewails the fact that the street's turned so quiet since it's been pedestrianised. She was born and brought up here and she remembers how lively it was. I try to imagine this, taking the opportunity to gather my breath before returning to the fray. Everyone's moving out. So am I, I said. Oh, you're in the houses with the green doors, we call them the Green Doors, she said. Sounds romantic, I thought, and said goodbye and left.

Green Door: Back at the Green Door, Bud is waiting there, his face relaxed, back to his old, irresistably lovable self. (Only jj is still stuck in Tense Mode...) He's heard there's a shop round the corner that sells tape - the man at the sewing shop next door's told him (yep, you still have shops in Amsterdam where you can get clothes made or mended). So he gets the tape, we tape the window up and he puts it back. Should be OK, provided there are no storms.

Once back at our place in east Amsterdam - across the River Amstel from which the city gets it's name [Amstel dam] - we dump the rubbish, go upstairs and collapse into chair and, in my case of course, the sofa. Chit chat. Buddie's back to normal. JJ's still angry and you can't fool Buddie, he notices at once. More words exchanged - this time at normal volume - through the shower curtain. What it boils down to? I just don't like being made to feel stupid and ordered around. I'm really p.....ed off with myself for breaking that window and I know jolly well that I'd never have got that job done in two hours flat on my own. Which means he's right. And I don't like being wrong...
And then it's all over. Sometimes you just have to get the words out and the anger just falls away. What's so good about Buddie is that he doesn't let you bottle it all up, hide it under the carpet and deny it's there. You have to say it - and then it's done.
So we went out, had a pirzola (lamb chops) and pizza romana (with artichokes), downed a few glasses of red wine and trotted home happily in the rain. And that's where the true love bit begins...

P.S. You know, the wierd thing about all this is that all the time I lived at that little flat I never dared let anyone take out the window (for moving furniture) because I was scared it would get broken in the process and it's so heavy you'd never get it back in. In the end, it was me who broke the window and we had to take it out to mend it!! Getting it in and out took three minutes and was dead easy - at least, for a man with muscle power.