Well, not exactly from town to town, as Bad Company sang in 1974. But I'm moving anyway, albeit only 300 meters in birdflight.
Been living here for only four years, since October first 2008. Social Housing is what we call it in Belgium. Is a company which owns several thousands of apartments and rents them to people who subscribed for such an apartment -when one is free, that is.
Rent is calculated according to income, which is very fine by me.
My current "residence" is a bit on the small size, an overgrown studio, really. Thirty-six square meters. That's it. Just room enough for me to turn around in-between the furniture I've stacked-up over the last couple of years.
The apartment I'm moving to is more than three times as large, with just under one-hundred and twenty square meters. Is going to be a nice change to be able to actually walk around in my apartment, instead of shuffling along a narrow pathway in-between boxes and furniture.
Must say I overdid the buying in recent years -with the knowledge I was going to move "soon", I kept on acquiring stuff. And the more things you buy, the smaller the apartment becomes, of course.
I also -finally- bought the wardrobe that goes with the bed I bought two years ago. At the time, I couldn't buy the wardrobe -well I could, but then it didn't fit in the bedroom because of lack of space.
I went to see the apartment a couple of weeks ago. Looks exactly the same as the one my mom is getting. Which is kinda logical, since it's in the apartment block just next to mine. And since the blocks were all built around the same time, it kinda fits that the apartments lay-outs are the same.
The housing company is now going to improve the apartment. I get new kitchen furniture as the cupboards that were there were kind of tacky and looked old and used. The walls are getting a fresh lick of paint and the floor gets new carpetry too.
The only thing which bothers me a tad is that I'll have to spend a small fortune on draperies. I've got around twenty-eight square meters of window, so I'll have to do some decent window dressing.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting out of this place and moving into the new apartment. Need some breathing space, desperately. On the other hand, it's a bit of a shame we have to move. With "we" I mean all the other folks who live in "my" block. It's not exactly a block, since the housing consists of a U-shaped building with a ground floor and one storey and with a large, grassy open space in the centre.
You reach your apartment via a gallery, which means that when I go outside and stand on the gallery, I look out over the grassy centre of the block -hey! I can even see the front door of my mom's apartment from where I live.
Living in such a tucked-away area also means that you have lots of contact with the other residents. In the summer, people put chairs and small tables outside on the -broad- gallery, so there's lots of contact -a small friendly community of around 35 people.
That is lost now. An apartment block isn't the same. You go out of the apartment and you're in stairway hall, with a door across the landing that leads to your neigbour's apartment -a neighbour you only encounter sporadically when both happen to go out at the same time.
But I don't mind too much either. Bit of a loner by nature, so I don't specifically need to get in touch with the surrounding natives. But it's still a pity that our small community is being split up. Especially since a lot of the folks around here are elderly people, for which others -including myself- were always at the ready to help 'em out.
But, like I said; I can't wait to get out and move in. If that makes sense.
I'll keep you posted.
JJ
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