Erik: “We met in 1983, when we were both just studying in Leiden. I was 18 and Tjitske 19.” Tjitske: “And both members of the somewhat alternative student association SSR.” Erik: “I studied chemistry.”
Tjitske: “And I speak French.”
Erik: “We fell in love immediately, but we waited another ten years before we moved in together. During that time I studied in Paris for another six months.”
Tjitske: “And I lived in Drenthe for a while, where I found a job as a French teacher.”
Erik: “After ten years we started a family. We have three daughters aged 30, 28 and 23, all of whom left home at the age of eighteen.”
Tjitske: “We thought that was a good age to start living on your own and they thought so too. But we still see each other a lot.”
Erik: “Now that our daughters have left home, we have decided to move to a canal house on the Rapenburg, also in Leiden.”
Tjitske: “We have always lived in practical family homes, but now we wanted an old house with a lot of atmosphere.”
Erik: “It is early 17th century. And it still looks the same as when it was delivered. There are lines on the beams that they then carved to mark where the beams should be located. And it seems that this is where the printing house of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the founder of microbiology, was located. Of course I like that.”
Tjitske: “We are going to make the house completely more sustainable. It’s drafty on all sides. We want to show that you can also get such a building off the gas. That doesn’t happen automatically. It is a national monument, so you are not allowed to demolish everything and replace it. And until recently, municipalities were reluctant to do this in order to protect the monuments, but you now see that there is a tipping point.”
Erik: “They are now more cooperative in making such homes more sustainable.”
Tjitske: “We will be camping in the annex from January 21st. We will live there until we have completely renovated the building and made it more sustainable.”
Running together
Erik: “I am a professor of genetics at Amsterdam UMC. I study diseases with a hereditary cause. My field was mainly limited to diagnostics, but recently we can also cure people. Thanks to new technology, this is now finally possible. For example, by introducing a gene into the body or repairing it if it is broken. Take SMA, spinal muscular atrophy; a rare and very serious hereditary muscle disease, which can be diagnosed immediately after birth via a heel prick and in which we can now repair the gene for the first time.”
Tjitske: “I am a freelance communications advisor and currently work for the South Holland association of energy cooperatives. An energy cooperative is a group of private individuals who, for example, jointly own a wind turbine or a meadow with solar panels. In this way they green their own energy consumption and it also saves money. I am chairman of the local energy cooperative here in Leiden. That takes up a lot of my free time.”
Erik: “I work 40 to 50 hours a week, including three to four days in the hospital in Amsterdam.”
Tjitske: “I work 36 hours, two days of which are in Delft at the dome and further at home. I have a lot of deadlines but I can plan well. This way I keep my stress to a minimum.”
Erik: “If one of us goes too far, works too hard, the other steps in.”
Tjitske: “When we both work from home, we sit next to each other in the study.”
Erik: “Very nice!”
Erik: “We also usually cook together. And always running, twice a week.”
Tjitske: “We have a lot of fun together.”
Erik: “On Wednesday morning we do a short run of 5 kilometers and on Sunday we run 10 to 12 kilometers. We are quite fit, also because we don’t have a car.”
Tjitske: “We do everything by bike.”
Erik: “We also sometimes go on cycling holidays. To Belgium or Denmark.”
Tjitske: “If you don’t necessarily have to fly, we don’t think you should do it.”
Clean your toilet yourself
Erik: “It took me longer than Tjitske to stop eating meat.”
Tjitske: “We have been vegetarian for about twenty years.”
Erik: “On occasion, when it is put in front of me, I still eat meat. I think it’s more important to be a good guest at such a time. And recently I ate a few bitterballen at a drink.”
Tjitske: “Our household is quite balanced.”
Erik: “I do the toilets and bathrooms after running on Wednesday mornings. Yes, I once received a comment from a fellow professor in the hospital. “You’re crazy for cleaning your own toilet!” But I think it’s normal. Why would I feel too good for that? I made it dirty myself so I can clean it too. That keeps you with both feet on the ground.”
Tjitske: “I do the rest, such as cleaning up and dusting.”
Erik: “Tjitske cooks a little more often. We never order food.”
Tjitske: “That is the advantage of an organic vegetable package. There is always a vegetable that needs to be eaten! A pointed cabbage, a parsnip.”
Erik: “Every now and then we get roti around here.”
Tjitske: “I always did the garden. I love gardening, but we don’t have a garden in our new house. So I adopted two tree mirrors, that is the border around the tree.”
Erik: “We’ll sit in front of the door with a glass of wine.”