Van Gils Blogs

Unfortunately my good old trusted fountainpen “died” this week. This makes me sad as it was a gift from Eva at my graduation from Tilburg University a few years ago. My name is engraved and everything. I’ve used it extensively throughout the years (my handwriting still isn’t what it is supposed to be, but that’s another discussion).

Anyway, as some readers may know, I really liked the Waterman Serenite fountain pen. The biggest problem with that particular pen is its price (well over €700). Luckily we have a shop called “de inktpot” (the ink well) here in Deventer. Marevelous shop, great guy, really passionate about his job. Anyway, I had been there a few times in the past and today I decided to actually buy a new pen. No where near as expensive as the waterman, mind you.

My new fountain pen is an Aurora Talentum D11. It is an Italian pen in black and chrome. I also bought some great ink (dark green) as well as luxury paper (with linnen). I’m already looking forward to writing (rather than typing) long letters with this pen. It’s pretty, it’s a great product and quite sturdy.

Of course I’m happy as can be with my new pen. But thinking about it some more, I realized that one of the things I like about it (and many other things) is craftmanship. I can really enjoy tools, objects, art, whatever when it is made by a craftsman. It is amazing to see how people can get very pationate about their job / the product that they make and more often than not it leads to products of the highest quality.

The last few days we’ve had some serious problems with the sewer again. Things started out last week when the neigbors (nr. 88) knocked on the door after we had a shower: they ‘d get water in the basement each time we shower. Oops.

We did some checks with another friendly neighbor and quickly found a sink just outside the front door which was flooding. There were some plant roots in it so we hoped that that was causing our problems. Nope, no such luck. On wednesday a company came over to clean the pipes. They worked on it for about 2 hours but that didn’t help us much either. I ended up digging up the pipes in the evening (with a bit of help from a friendly neighbor across the street) only to discover another sink about a meter away from the house. From there on the pipe is running parallel to the houses…

To cut a long story short: it seems that there’s 5 houses on a single pipe before it empties in the city sewer system.  Of course the city officials won’t do a damn thing until they’re sure there’s a problem on their turf. Our pipes are clean, but we’re stuck with the hassle as water always seeks the weekest point. Just our luck! Anyway, I pulled the files of the piping system from city hall, made lots and lots and lots of phonecalls the last few days and spend some time talking to the neighbors about sharing cost of a camera investigation. If all goes well they’ll come this tuesday to pinpoint the problem. Hopefully we can fix things soon after! Our front yard is a mess

To be continued…

Wow, it’s been a long time since my last post. As Eva blogged a few days ago: Stijn has had the chicken pocks last week. This appears to be one about now, but instead he has picked up a serious cold. The poor bugger is up in bed with a mild fever and coughing all the time. Let’s hope it’ll go away soon.

Last weekend was Father’s day. Koen had made me a wonderful present by painting a handkerchief and Stijn had left his foot-impressions on a cardboard breakfast plate. Very cute! Of course there were also some other lovely presents. Unfortunately I was a bit ill on Sunday though, possibly related to playing cards / drinking until 3am the day before…

At work things are going great. I think I’m getting the hang of the strategy method that is used as I recognized a lot of material from the book when I was at a big client yesterday with Ron. It’s good to see my co-workers in action and learn as we go along. I must say that the team is great, everyone seems to be willing to help each other out when necessary. A joy to work here (and the train usually isn’t so bad).

Well, time to check on Stijn again. Hope to post again soon.