In the month of July and about a month after the publication of my story about Buitenplaats Molenbosch, I had a chance encounter.
While musing with my eyes closed and enjoying the warm rays of sunshine, I sat on the bench between the house Molenbosch and the apartment complex Midland. Siena & Giulia were playing in the field and it was otherwise peaceful and quiet.
Suddenly I heard footsteps and, as I opened my eyes, saw a man more than ten years older than me, in shorts with a backpack, rushing towards me from the left. He threw himself down next to me on the bench, sighed deeply and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a cloth.Slightly irritated, about so much impudence because he did not greet me and did not ask if I objected if he sat next to me, I said “good morning to you too” and remained silent.We sat like that for minutes in silence next to each other, looking towards the house.
Suddenly the man pointed at the house. Do you know? I used to work in that house. Still irritated, I answered him with a “no, I don’t know because I don’t know you and I’ve never seen you here.”
What followed was a look of incomprehension and suddenly he started talking a mile a minute.As a child, I lived on a farm on the Molenweg and did odd jobs for Miss Annie in the house. Do you see those three tall fir trees there on the left in the meadow? There were originally five. Every year before Christmas, Miss Annie would come and pick me up at home and point out in the forest which fir tree with root ball I had to place in the house. They weren’t that tall back then.
Well, I even understood that because the trees are now at least 20 meters high and very thick. The man continued that after Epiphany, on January 6, he had to remove the tree again to plant it in front of the house. That way, the trees would eventually block the view of “what Miss Annie called” flats, or Midland.
After saying this, the man whose name I do not know, took off as quickly as he had come and with a "I have to move on because I live all the way in Zeist West in the Nijenheim district", he was gone.
Coincidence does not exist? A nice addition to my story Buitenplaats Molenbosch.
Zeist is so beautiful and how lucky we are to live here.
Until the next walk to Castle Kerckebosch, Arnie Della Rosa