This afternoon I went to Møll to take one more look at the house and sign the lease.  It was already dark – it is November and I live in Norway – so it was hard to see the terrain.  This was not much of a problem with the house, as I had already seen it outside in broad daylight.  But I got off the bus two stops early.  Luckily I still arrived pretty much exactly at the time I had said, as I did not know exactly when the bus would be there anyway and gave us some extra time. After all, it was still over two hours till the next bus back.

Actually, even finding the house in the dark was hard enough, when I had only been there once before, and then in daylight.  Luckily the owners of the neighboring house had been merciful enough to put the house number in big letters easily visible on their house, and I could find my way from there.  The lights was on, making the house look entirely different, but not in a bad way.

We talked about a couple more things that could be done before I move in:  A reversible heat pump, which it so happens that his company sells and mounts.  He is going to pay for that one, though.  Then there is fiberoptic cable for my Internet connection. Not only does it hang from a nearby phone pole, but the landlord happens to know the boss of the company that installs it, so will talk to him about getting it into the house cheaply.  This will be for me to pay, obviously.  We also read the power meter together as I will be paying the utility bills from here on.  It is a good thing I don’t celebrate Christmas (at least in the commercial manner – I would like to think that spiritually, I celebrate Christmas not only in winter.)

I looked over the house one more time. Let me be honest, the house is unimpressive. It is either old (this is my main theory) or was built old-fashioned. It has been upgraded, particularly the ground floor, which is up to modern standards in any visible way.  It is still quite small though. The whole house is significantly smaller than the one I rent now, but this is roughly made up for by it being empty, while the house here is half full of stuff that belongs to the landlord and his family.  I am not only renting the current house at Nodeland partly furnished, there is also a lot of stuff that just stands there and is off-limits.  So available space will be roughly the same.

To compare, the living room at Møll is perhaps 2/3 the size of the living room here. The downstairs bedroom that I am making into home office slightly smaller than the bedroom I made into home office here.  (It is about as deep but a little narrower.)  The kitchen is about the same size – it looks pretty roomy now but that is because it is empty.  The bathroom is slightly smaller and has only a shower cabinet instead of a bathtub.  Not that I used the tub much anyway, it was too small for a man my size.  The master bedroom upstairs is larger than my bedroom here.  And thrown in for free are two large bed that combine into a double bed, quite a bit better than anything I have had in my adult life if ever.  (I tend to not prioritize beds when I pay for them myself, because frankly I don’t spend much time there unless I am asleep.) There is one more decently large bedroom, where I could throw in a couple mattresses and theoretically have guests stay over.  Yeah, right.  This is something I did not have here – the third bedroom here is used to store landlord’s stuff.  There is yet another room upstairs that I intend to make into a wardrobe for my excessive amount of clothes that I bought when I played normal.

There is also a small washroom which I think will fit my washing machine – they are probably made in standard formats these days and it looked to be approximately that size. It better be, because I am not washing my clothes for hands for five years!  Come to think of it, wonder if I have enough clothes lying around that I need not wash any for five years… OK, that was a joke. But I have way too many clothes and hope to wear out some while I live there, so I have less clothes to move next time.

On the other hand I should have more furniture if I move away from there someday, because I threw away my old living room stuff when I moved here to Nodeland, since the living room and kitchen were already furnished.  I will need to buy some for those rooms.  But that is not a priority.  I have lots of furniture in the home office now – more than there is room for, really.  The dark book shelves should go in the living room, as should the light commodes. They don’t really fit together colorwise, but I got the bookshelves as a gift much later and they are very nice in their own right.  If I place them in different parts of the room it should be OK.  Or I could keep the commode thingy in the home office with the pale shelves.  Anyway, a couple chairs or a sofa will have to wind their ways there for completeness.  But it need not be there for me to move in.

In short, the house is not awesome. The location is. But the house is good enough for me. So I had no big misgivings about signing the lease, after having read carefully.  Paying 5 months in advance will leave me somewhat broke, at least for the months I pay double rent, but this should start correcting itself come January, Light willing.

***

Oh, and… If I don’t get the flu now, it is not for lack of people who have sneezed, coughed or hacked their lungs out on the bus or other public places as if they were alone in their own private room.  Again and again I find myself wondering  why they even leave home in that condition, unless this is their way of getting to the hospital or at least pharmacy.  There have been numerous speculations on why more Norwegians have died from the Swine Flu than in the rest of northern Europe together.  Want to hear my theory? The heroic Viking spirit.  Evidently calling in sick is not something you do because you are sick but only if you hate your employer and want to hurt them.