Hello all
I'm so sorry for the absence last week, especially with no notice. I am, however, confident that you will think that I do have a good reason for wagging it. Are you sitting comfortably? You may well remember me telling you that our cladding was not fireproof and needed to be replaced. Lots of jolly men with a tendency to the sweary have been putting up scaffolding for weeks on end now. There had been some muttering among long-term residents that they should have been using aluminium scaffolding because it is much lighter, and the design of the building could mean that too much scaffolding might be problematic.
Anyway, a week, last Friday, we were finishing our tea, and a WhatsApp came through saying "Evacuate the building - danger of collapse" Apparently, some cracks had shown up in the basement, and we were all out. We spent two hours on the street while the building managers tried to find emergency accommodation for approximately 60 people. A local councillor turned up with the offer of a warm room with a tea urn, which was very nice, but no one was up for it, and we were all a bit worried that he was going to make us sing songs from the war years. I cannot adequately relay the scope of the nightmare. There were not enough places to send people, so HOH and I booked into a local hotel ourselves and arranged to send them the bill. We arrived at the hotel, completely exhausted and traumatised to find that they were running a do for a local children's charity, so we were greeted by a live band murdering "St Elmo's Fire" and a full-size dancing teddy bear. I muttered to HOH that I was so shattered that if that bear came anywhere near me, then I would probably deck him where he stood - children's charity or no. Still, a very nice man on Reception called Benjy checked us in, and we all calmed down. We were there for a couple of nights, then went away to a pre-booked holiday in North Devon - staying on a farm - which was a nice break from it all, although the weather was rubbish. I think when we booked on a farm, we thought a little thatched cottage with chickens, a bit like those plastic figures we used to play with. Er. No. This place was MASSIVE. Huge cattle sheds and sheep as far as the eye could see. They were very nice, though, which we needed. We had a couple of days out. One to Clovelly. This is a small village on the coast, and the whole thing is a National Trust property. When we arrived, the lady behind the desk said, "There are sloping cobbles on the way to the beach. Are you ok with that?" "Of course!" we said. The sloping cobbles went on for half a mile and were very slippery - your basic death trap. Please see HOH in the photo, trying to coax a woman who has had enough this week (me) to go a bit further. However, it was all quite calming.
Except we are not back yet. Eight weeks they are saying to repair it. We have been housed in an apartment, which is fine, but it's not our home. I miss my home (I know how childish that sounds), and it's all made more complicated by people with long histories with the building saying that this is overblown and there was no need for it. Then there's obviously all the worry about where this is going. We are not allowed in the building for more than an hour, and we are living out of suitcases, and it has basically been horrible.
I know that not everyone who reads this is of a religious bent, but, in the main, I think my constituency is a Christian one. We really need a bit of big God energy, and if any of you could see your way to ask him to work some kind of miracle here, we would be more than grateful.
If that's ok, I'm going to leave it here for now. I will try to keep you up to date, but if you don't hear from me - I hope you have a terrific Easter.
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