Coming home was always nice, and I was by this time only too well prepared for all the beasties  that would lie in wait for me to return. Usually the spiders were busiest, and one kind spun the most awesome webs that hung down like silky curtains. But when I was only gone for a short time it was not too bad.
This time however I had burned poisonous sticks called fumi-tabs, as the small field mice had just about taken over my roof, and that being thatch, it was disastrous. They pull out great tufts of thatching, and after a while it started leaking, as if I did not already have enough leaks!
So even though I was prepared for a lot of goggas having been killed, I was still shocked and sad on seeing the spiders that had also died. I love the big rain spiders that grew about as big as my hand. They are quite harmless, and I usually have a few watching me at night with their black eyes. I never removed them, as they catch the mosquitoes and during the day also the flies, and my house is almost pest free.
But I was delighted the next day when I noticed one humongous spider in my bathroom, and then one in the bedroom!
I was horrified on walking around my house even before going in, to see if all was well, when I noticed something strange at the one window. I have very thick iron bars that was installed into deep holes being drilled into the walls, then filled with cement again. It was very well done, and I knew that the bars were too strong to be easily broken. But somebody had tried to remove the bars by hacking away at the cement, making huge holes, but as the glass of the window was intact, and the window still closed securely, I knew that their effort was in vain, although, as the bars were quite loose, I thought that they might have been inside. However, on closer inspection, everything was just as I left it, although I saw marks on my front door, showing that they also tried there.
As I had to stay longer than intended, I was afraid that my garden would be ruined, but it must have been quite cool, as my veggies were all still standing up straight, with two butternuts ready to pick, and dozens of cherry tomatoes hanging like beautiful jewels from their stems. Oh, my heart just sang with the joy of coming home to the peace and tranquility of Haarlem.
Of course that Saturday night, like every other one, Haarlem was not so very tranquil. Saturday night is the playtime for the hardworking fruit pickers, and as we have something like twenty six shabeens (illegal drinking houses) in the tiny Haarlem, the people were walking from place to place looking for fun. As they were all nicely sozzled by two or three in the morning, and by nature not shy to raise their voices, and use the most obscene language, and laugh wildly at their own jokes, it made for quite a noisy night. And all that coupled with the excited barking and howling of all the many dogs that were all running on ropes, and the screaming of Sheila's bally peacock, it was useless to even try and sleep.
But I loved living there, a bit out of the village, down at my lovely river, where the frogs sang their throaty songs to lull me to sleep!