Wednesday 19 January 2011

Temporary move to suburbia; offloading of cr*p; phantom cockerels

Have completed first week in my new temporary home. Slightly weird to be back in Lower Earley, a large 1980s housing development on the south side of town where I lived for a year with my sister about 17 years ago. Maiden Place, where I’m living, is a low-level apartment development built around a central car park, with a few shops, pub, community centre and Baptist church. The small precinct includes a large off-licence and a creditable Indian restaurant, which Ray and I tried out last Wednesday evening after his van had helped to transport a large plant and my remaining odds and ends.

The flat was the third flat I viewed and is light, airy, white and an interesting design, which combined to sell it to me. It also has a balcony, which after some difficulty have just managed to obtain the key to. Contemplating setting up a small Zen/tranquil thoughts-type area with strategically-placed Buddha, grasses, wind-chimes etc. The only downsides to it so far (apart possibly from its location in deepest suburbia) are the saggy mattress on the bed and the feeble shower. Going to try a foam mattress-topper to assist with the former; the latter I’ll probably have to live with but at least I can now take baths without fear of the room flooding.

Although the plan is to live ‘light’ for the next six months, meaning that I haven’t had to move any furniture, only selected possessions, Ruth and I still ended up transporting four car-loads of stuff across town. Where does it come from? I also took the opportunity to recycle our huge backlog of bottles, with a view to some sort of New Year fresh start of not accumulating quite so many. Ruth had some amazing success Freecycling the army of bags of rabbit dung that had also accumulated in the garage, and I finally managed to get rid of a wine rack that I've unsuccessfully advertised at least three times before - the eventual taker was a chap who wanted somewhere to store his homebrew.

Have been lucky enough to acquire a completely free 32" LCD TV which Ray got as a gift with a recent mobile phone upgrade. Can't quite understand how, but I gather it's something to do with his having quite an expensive contract but only requesting cheap phones due to tendency to ruin them by rubbing grit into the screen/dropping them into lakes etc. Have generously left Ruth my sturdy old Beko that still refuses to die.

Ruth claims to have been plagued recently at the house by the noise of a cockerel crowing in the early morning. Have suggested that this sounds to me like auditory hallucinations but she has threatened to telephone me at cockcrow with the idea that I'll be able to hear it down the phone. I await this with a certain degree of scepticism.

Finally, have just noticed from the Wikipedia article linked above that, apparently, "Earley also contains the most radioactive residential property in England". Hmmm. I comfort myself with the thought that Wikipedia is just an ill-informed free-for-all.