Uncle Biek

I’m a little disappointed to be honest. Seems my trusty old Volvo isn’t all that watertight I had hoped it to be. As some of you may know, my first Amazon wasn’t all that great and one of the main problems with it was that whenever it rained, water would pour in over the dashboard and onto the floor of  the car.

You can imagine my surprise yesterday, when I was proudly showing the car to my sister and Stevie, when I found water on the back seat and, not unlike my previous Amazon, water coming in at the front. I can only hope that I managed to keep somewhat of a straight face but inside I was boiling so much, the water would have evaporated in an instant had I gone into the car.

Boy was I angry. And not even at someone in particular but just that helpless feeling of not being in control of anything that I own lately. No matter what, everything seems to break down around me for some stupid reason.

While we drove to the Chinese restaurant to get food, I assured my sister that there was nothing to worry about and that dad and I would fix this too but deep inside I was really disappointed at the water being there in the first place. Sure, dad and I will fix it. But the point is that we shouldn’t need to. I guess he never noticed since the Volvo has always been inside at his place.

Maybe these older cars shouldn’t be used for daily use after all, I don’t know. Let’s hope this is the last of the surprises for a while, I could really use some peace of mind now.

Three years old and counting. My little, but ever growing, niece Eva is three years old today and I went over there to join the party. When I came in however it seemed I was a bit early because the children’s party was still going on. Goodness me what a ruckus! Stevie later told me there were only three horns amongst the kids but it sounded like what a big busy river must sound like in the fog: horns were sounded almost continuously and I realized that for me this was a bit too much and too early.

The reason why I was there so early was that this was my first trip over there in my Volvo and I simply had misjudged the time it would take me to get over there. In the end it didn’t make all that much of a difference in comparison to my average IFO times. Sure, when stepping on the throttle in the IFO I could go much faster but on a normal drive over there the Volvo was around five minutes slower. Not too bad for a forty two year old car, eh?

So to give my head some rest I watched the party from the side a bit and noticed how Stevie managed to stay alive amongst all these kids running and moving about. Kudos to him for surviving, well done bro; respect! ;-)

About an hour and a half later most kids were gone and the usual calmness returned over the place. Good timing too because I felt a headache coming up that would have ruined my day completely and I had forgotten to bring aspirins with me. I rarely leave the house without them but sometimes do forget. And those are of course the days when you need them most. Figures.

Anyway it didn’t come so I could enjoy talking to Eva a bit while she was having a piece of birthday cake together with one of her best friends who is one year older than she is. Her friend is a rather shy and very silent girl but the way she and Eva get along speaks books to me. It’s a joy to see them having fun and amazing how little that one year difference seems to bother either one of them. They get along just fine. Amazing.

Having trouble a torn muscle in his left leg, Bas’ dad is almost immobile at the moment. He only has one of those rolling support carriages and is moving around the house that way now. In his house a new floor was placed this week and now that it was done, all furniture had to be put back into the house. Since dad obviously couldn’t do a thing and Bas’ mom is getting a bit older too I promised Bas to help out and after we returned the IFO to Eindhoven we went over there to get the job done.

Walking around with all that stuff isn’t something my back particularly liked but we did a nice job and got everything back in place before the day was over. We got set back a little bit when Bas’ dad all of a sudden got a bad feeling in his right foot and leg too and had to be rushed off to the emergency room of the hospital.

Luckily it turned out he had ‘only’ overstressed his leg now that the left one was unusable. So all he needs to do now is take things extra slowly and be extra careful but to all of us that was good news since in the back of our heads more serious things, like the sprung muscle in the other leg, came to mind. None of us would say it out loud though, if only to keep Bas’ mother from getting too much stress. That poor woman is getting more that her share of that already and anything we can do to keep more from her is a bonus.

As you may know, the IFO was part of the contract I had with my former employer and had to be returned this week. Or at least before the 31st but since I’m working that day it meant the car was due today at the latest.

In a letter I received I was told to return it to the nearest ING service point which in my case was Eindhoven and I had chartered Bas to follow me over there in the IFO while I lead the way in the Volvo. This way we could hand over the car and drive back home.

When we got there the guy behind the counter said that he’d love to have the IFO but that the car in fact wasn’t an ING car. It belonged to a completely different leasing company. As it turned out ING is a sole supplier for when it comes to delivering lease automobiles to Brunel but since I was working for them on a project contract I never got a ‘real’ lease but a fitting project car. And those were supplied by Wagenplan, another leasing company. Nearest one for me: Oss, about half way the distance of Eindhoven. Having to return it there meant we had traveled to Eindhoven in vain this morning …

But the guy at ING then phoned someone at Wagenplan, explained the situation and arranged it so we could leave the car in his hands and that Wagenplan would pick up the IFO at ING in Eindhoven. Great service, a man after my heart.

After inspecting the car and filling out the paper works we could leave for home. When we were almost at the freeway I remembered there was a historic war museum in Best where I had wanted to take Bas for some time so I drove over there to show him. Upon arrival we noticed that there wasn’t much left. Just a few tanks at the entrance and a lot of piles of sand were lying around, as it they were rebuilding the place.

There was no gate so we drove onto the premises to have a quick peak around, mainly to find out if there was anything left of the museum at all. So we passed a few hangars and it became clear to us that it had been a military complex before it was turned into a museum. Then we passed another corner and were looking at two fighter jets, at touching distance just sitting there outside a hangar. I snapped a few pictures of them and we moved along to find another two aircraft which resembled old Dakota’s or something similar to that model.

Since we knew that we were probably not supposed to be there we left the compound the same way we got in and were stared at by a few working men who we didn’t spot on our way in. They seemed fairly surprised to see that old Volvo stroll off the area but we left before they could do or say anything.

All in all a nice morning full of surprises. :-)

Terry Pratchett for president. :-) You have love and admire all the stuff that man came up with in his absolutely marvelous Discworld novels. It’s pure bliss.

Oh well, back to the real life and my Volvo. I’ve got her covered. The Volvo I mean, it’s covered by insurance. It was a bit of a search to get one that would allow me to use her on a daily basis without being bound by a (fairly low) maximum mileage but I’ve managed to find a company who could provide me with all that I needed.

All is set now, I’m ready to drive that car just about around the world and when I’ve returned the IFO to the leasing company tomorrow that’s exactly what I’m going to do for a long time from now on: drive my Volvo.