At least, I didn’t know about the Mellotron before last week. A lot of well known bands like The Beatles, The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, U2, Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers etc. have used this device in one or more recordings. The Mellotron is a sort of organ with a bunch of cassette tapes in it. Every key on the organ is assigned an eight second sample which is immediately being played from tape when pressing a key/note on the organ. Actually it’s a sort of analog synthesizer/sampler. Very interesting device where you don’t hear that much about, you can even build one yourself using walkmans. See the following ad about the Mellotron and how it works:
With a little test you can experience symptoms of dementia. All you need is a mirror, a pencil and a some pieces of paper. First draw a six-pointed star and inside that star draw an other extra six-pointed star, in such a way that you have a narrow band of about 1 cm between the inner and outer star. Now setup a mirror in front of the paper where you drew the star on. Finally grab another piece of paper to cover the drawing on your side, so that you can only see the mirror image of your star. Now start drawing a line between the inner and outer star and try to stay within the lines of the star. Keep drawing a line until you have followed the complete shape of the star and you end up at the beginning. Remember, you are only allowed to look via the mirror.
Once completed, this test gives you the feeling of someone who has dementia and has problems with his orientation.
Last week was a busy week for me, in the sense of having big workmeetings everywhere the whole day and evening. That was good, because it distracted me from the failing househunt. But we were still in doubt about whether the house was really sold. Because if the bid was accepted between the buyer and seller, they’d have three days to cancel it. And after those three days the internet site where the house is on should be updated saying “sold with reservation”. This was not the case and so Nina called the realtor last Wednesday to ask whether the house was already sold and the realtor replied that the buyer and seller had agreed last Tuesday on the house price. That’s the first strange sign. Anyway, could still be the case of course. This morning we got an e-mail that the status of the house had changed, but when we looked at the site, it was still for sale. They only added a brochure to it.
At this moment we really didn’t understand what was going on. So this morning we decided to bike to the realtor’s office to see whether the house was being advertised in the display window. And indeed it was, still for sale. We were lucky that the office was open, so we went inside to ask some nasty questions.
We asked the receptionist about the house whether it was sold and she said it was still for sale. She said we had to wait for the realtor who could explain it to us what’s going on. We asked why the house isn’t sold with reservation and he told us that the woman who wanted to buy the house couldn’t yet get the required mortgage and that they had some difficulties with that (”you can’t get a mortgage that easyily nowadays”). Furthermore we asked whether other people were on the waitinglist and he said that there were none on it yet. We knew that we were on that list, so that was clearly a lie (or he just has a bad memory). Actually with every question we asked him he turned around his eyes and was clearly thinking of a good excuse.
Anyway, we again put ourself on the waiting list and next Tuesday we will hear if the house is really sold with reservation. We hope that the woman can’t get the mortgage for this house of course. This may sound evil, but it’s our only hope. We will know more next week. And if it’s sold then it’s really over for us, for this house at least.
Last year we now and then looked for houses nearby Utrecht, but we weren’t really active. Since beginning of this year we are more actively seeking for a house and once in a while we see a house which looks interesting from the outside. Then we arrange a realtor to get a free tour to see the inside of the houses. It’s a good thing to do to see what you can expect for a certain price. Till now we aren’t yet really convinced of the houses, although a house in De Bilt came close, but it was too small. Everytime we realize that the house we currently rent is relatively spacey.
Anyway, two weeks ago we saw a house in for sale for 6+ months, but the weather was bad and there were streetworkers making a lot of noise. We were actually doubting whether this house is situated in a nice area. Anyway, we didn’t arrange a realtor yet for this house. Last week we visited together with a realtor other houses which I personally didn’t have a “good” feeling about and the living rooms were again smaller than what we are used to. At the end of the day we biked along the house we first saw, but now without streetworkers and with a nice sun. Actually the house wasn’t bad at all. And last weekend we fantasized about customizing the house and upgrading it, we really started to like it, especially because the living room is at least the size of ours. And the total space was also quite big. Today I called the realtor to make an appointment and they told me that the house was sold last Thursday. Really unbelievable and I really really really regret that we didn’t come into action earlier. For the moment it’s still strange that on the internet the house is still for sale. And even when we were there last weekend the for sale sign was hanging on the window.
I am not happy. On the one hand I hope that the current buyers cancel their bid, but on the other hand I hope that something else comes along which comes close to this house.
