Oude Meuk (Old Tat)

The English love old tat.  

One of my best purchases on eBay was a battered old chest of drawers for £60.  I had to drive all the way down to Brighton on a cold, rainy Saturday morning, and do the lifting, grunting and swearing all by myself, while the owners, still in their pyjamas, looked on with amusement. 

But it was worth it. 

It may have been a bit rough around the edges and seen better days, but I loved it.  It had character. A bit of a polish and it was almost as good as new.  

And a complete bargain. 

 In my opinion.

Not in my Dutch wife’s opinion however. 

That’s why it languished in the shed at our last house and was left behind completely when we moved to the Netherlands.

But that’s another story.

The Dutch just don’t like old stuff.  

They just don’t get it.  They get creeped out by it.  So you certainly won’t see many antiques or old artefacts on display in their homes, cluttering up the place.

In fact, come to think of it, they don’t seem to actually have any stuff at all.  Old or new.

So where is it?  

Well, either the Dutch are minimal-living gurus and they really just don’t have any belongings....

Or..

There’s a secret room lurking somewhere in the bowels of their house just bursting at the seams with all their old tat.

A lifetime of guilty purchasing...

But when you enter a Dutch home, you won’t see any of that.  You just notice how empty it is.  And absolutely nothing will be out of place.  

So much so that everyone’s house has the feel of a dental surgery waiting room.  

Sterile. Clean. Bright. Empty.

The surgery image is reinforced by the arrangement of chairs into a large circle for social gatherings.  

The only thing missing is a stack of well-thumbed copies of Auto Trader, Reader’s Digest and Cosmopolitan on the side table.

...And the ominous sound of a high pitched whistling drill coming from the room next door.

Incidentally, this neat and tidy minimalist approach is also reflected outside the typical Nederlander’s home.

Dutch villages and towns are amazingly clean.  There are no crisp packets blowing down the high street, no empty beer cans rattling about in the wind or shopping trolleys floating in the canals here.

The whole country is clean, tidy and well organised.  Everything in it’s place and a place for everything.

And if a building starts to look a little bit shabby they just pull it down and put something else up.

Something bright and shiny and new.

A house built in the 1970s is considered old here.  In the UK, it’s the newest house in the street.

So if you’re clumsy, chaotic or just slightly messy, you’re definitely going to feel a little bit intimidated when visiting a Dutch home.

Don’t expect to see a battered old 1960s oak coffee table or slightly ripped Chesterfield sofa sitting proudly in a Dutch living room.  Forget it.

Dutch furniture is neat, tidy, minimal and, well, frankly, new.

Of course, they have eBay and also in the Netherlands, Marktplaats.  

But I’m not sure they really get it.  

Because the Dutch don’t seem to embrace the excitement of bargain hunting for old gems like the Brits do.  

And the prices for some of the second-hand stuff advertised on these sites suggests that people are just trying to rip other people off.

There’s no fun in that.

You might as well buy new and be ripped off by a genuine furniture shop.

So that’s what they do.

They all just toddle off to IKEA or equivalent in their Volvos and come back with identical lamps, sofas, sideboards and coffee tables to set up in their insanely neat and tidy open plan kitchen/diner/sitting room.

And they are so proud, they’ll leave their curtains open throughout the evening so the neighbours can look inside and see how “gezellig” it all is next door.

And when the neighbours wander past they do a double-take.  Because everything is exactly as it is at their house.

“They’ve got the same table as us, Jan!”

“Ooh yes. Fancy that.”

“And isn’t that our lamp?”

“Yes, but we have ours in blue, theirs is more turquoise.”

But suddenly they look at each other in mutual shock and confusion as they spot an old, battered, well-used chest of drawers, propped up forlornly against a wall.

But then it dawns on them

Ah yes. Some British guy lives there. 

“Don’t worry, dear”, the man whispers, patting his shocked wife’s hand as they turn away from the window, “he’s married to a Nederlander, it’ll be in the shed before too long.”