So Ilze and I pop over to the windmill for our first look around as owners of the property. It gets dark early this time of the year, just more than a day before we switch our clocks over to winter time. I park a couple of meters up the driveway, with no intention of getting stuck in the mud. We make our way up to the gate by foot, only to discover an old bicycle lock on the gate, the kind with a rubber tube around a steel cable and levers that you turn according to a three-digit code. Odd, Ilze did ask the seller about a lock, and he did say he would have it removed. But, undeterred, we simply climb over the gate.
Before going round the back to sidestep the electrified fence (something the seller jerry-rigged to keep out nosey amateur archeologists and international windmill thieves) we poke around the front first. And as I stand inspecting my brickwork (as one does), I notice a car parking behind ours in the driveway, and someone in dungarees walking up to the mill. Farmer Ted has arrived.
Now let me tell you about Farmer Ted. He’s the seller’s gardening service. The bit of land on which the windmill stands is 1,500m2, and the adjoining piece of empty land (to which we will in future refer as “the land we should have bought as well”) is slightly bigger. This adds up to a quite sizable bit of lawn to mow. So Jan, the seller, being of good farming stock and hailing from the area, struck up a deal with Farmer Ted to let his two bovine lawnmowers graze on the land. Free gardening service, as well as someone to keep an eye on the place when Jan isn’t in the country.
And it’s this Farmed Ted marching up the driveway, with a purposeful that makes me thankful that farmers in Belgium don’t generally come equipped with shotguns. Well, you have to meet the neighbours sooner or later, and in this case apparently sooner. We meet at the gate, and the dialogue goes something like this:
Good evening.
Silent stare from Farmer Ted.
We’re the new owners of the windmill.
So you say.
We bought it today.
Jan didn’t say anything.
The papers were only signed this morning.
How did you get in, there’s a lock on the gate?
We just climbed over the gate, of course.
So I put a lock on the gate, and you just climb over?
Yes, we just climbed over.
Ilze walks up to the gate, extends her hand and introduces herself. Farmer Ted ignores her completely, and I start planning ahead in case I have to kick his rural ass off my property. He’s about 50 years old, strong and solid in a rural way, but he probably won’t be mentally prepared for a grown man screaming like a girl (because, let’s be honest, any attempt to emulate Bruce Lee attacking turns out sounding like a girl screaming) and violently trying to bite him in the nuts. While I strategize Farmer Ted continues to ignore Ilze.
We bought the property today.
I don’t know about that. Jan asked me to keep an eye out for trespassers. He’s had people walk in and look around. Bricks might have been taken.
Yes, well, we did buy the property today. We’re the new owners.
I feel like Withnail throwing himself at the mercy of the farmer, pleading that “we’ve gone on holiday by mistake”. [MP3 audio]
I put a lock on the gate, and you just climb over.
Right, we just climbed over.
Jan asked me to keep an eye out for trespassers.
But I have a trump card up my sleeve! Or in my pocket, at least. I produce the impressively huge key to the windmill.
I have the key. We own the windmill.
Apparently quite unconvinced, but tired of arguing in circles and not exactly sure how to respond to our ownership of the magical key to Camelot, Farmer Ted bends down and unlocks the bicycle lock.
I have to feed my cows.
With that, he turns and walks away. Welcome to the sticks, and don’t bother the livestock.
And to top it all off, we can’t get the windmill door open. There’s a trick to unlocking the door without snapping the key in two, and it’s a trick we haven’t mastered yet. So we spend twenty minutes marching about the property with flashlights, avoiding the cowpats as best we can, and fifteen minutes unsuccessfully trying to pick a lock that probably wouldn’t present a challenge to a drunken Mongol on stilts.
But still, we now own the windmill we can’t get into. That’s progress in my book.
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