The nerve of some people

Can you believe the arrogance of some people?

The block of flats The Man and I live in is supervised by a warden.

That’s because it is a retirement property.

I know, I know it is surprising to learn that we are both over 60. Yes that is the criteria to be able to live where we do

.

Anyway on with the story…

Quite a while ago a new resident moved in, unlike us he had bought his unit, whereas we rent.  Thence began much banging and crashing and replacing plumbing, putting down a wooden floor and all manner of renovations.

His flat is right next door to the wardens flat, goodness knows how she put up with all the comings and goings and noise, but very nice lady that she is we heard no one word of complaint from her 

OK, I’m getting to the point…

There was a residents meeting recently, sort of an AGM and this bloke gets up and says that he thinks the building doesn’t need a full l time manager. Did I mention that she has been doing a marvelous job for the last 25 years, since the building opened?

Anyway, on with the story.

Well this new resident is recording her comings and goings, and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Not only that, as his kitchen backs directly on to hers, every time she makes the slightest sound, even running her tap he copies it and does the self-same thing. 

That sounds a bit like victimisation to me.

Our warden is feeling very unsettled and threatened by this blokes behaviour.

I think he’s trying to do her out of a job and have it for himself.

Nasty piece of work.

Not saying much

I guess I’m not that good at sums.

I’ve been trying to figure out how long our son has been in the air and what sort of ground times he has.

Problem is I just don’t have enough fingers and toes to count on.

Never mind.

All I can say is that he will land just before 1400 in Wednesday London time.

I did think I was going to have a relatively quiet day at work today and had planned to do some admin catch up work.

And did I get it done/

No I did not.

Ah well there is always tomorrow.

Family history time.

My paternal grandfather was baptised at Christ Church on the Isle of Dogs. If you’ve read previous entries you may know that I work at Canary Wharf, which is very close to where I work.

Unfortunately the parish resister are not held there, London Metropolitan Archives, and they have limited opening hours, not opening again on a Saturday until august 10^th  

Bother 

Interesting days

Back home in New Zealand it has been an interesting day for our son.

His biggest sister dropped him at the airport in the wee small hours and by now he will be well on his way to our side of the world via Sydney and Dubai. It will be great to see him.

I meant to write a bit more about our visit to Croydon on Saturday.

We went there by bus, and when we were almost there we heard the sounds of an approaching siren, well more that one by the sound of it.

Then as we watched, one, two, three, four, five, six, then seven police vans full of officers screamed past. 

Hmm we thought that does not look good.

Well at least they had turned left while we continued straight on.

When we got off at Croydon there were little clusters policemen everywhere we looked.

That definitely doesn’t look good.

So we approached one of the uniformed men and asked it we would be better off turning around and retracing our steps.

‘No’ he said ‘You’ll be fine we were just here for a protest tht was on earlier, but that’s all cleared now.’

Two people were arrested at a demonstration by right-wing group the English Volunteer Force (EVF) yesterday. The group were protesting outside the UK Border Agency's Lunar House headquarters in Wellesley Road, Croydon. The EVF are campaigning against what they call 'Islamification and mass immigration' affecting the UK. They have welcomed 'all patriots' to join an event, which has already been targeted for a counter-march by Unite Against Fascism.

Also once inside the museum and we’d had a wander around and a look at the artifacts we sat down and watched several old silent movies. I was sure I could hear the music to them insider my head.

They were short films locally made and all with a very similar theme.

The main villain of the piece causes offense to another character.

This second character gives chase. In his efforts to run away the villain trips over somebody knocking their parcels flying, that second person joins in the chase.

This scenario is repeated until there are up to six to seven people chasing the villain.

Said villain is ultimately caught, beat up and sent on his way

A quiet but interesting day...

Well today’s plan was to swan about until around 3pm, then spend the afternoon with a friend, at our place, who we had invited for tea. 

Was being the operative word because the poor chap has been laid low with what sounds like a nasty tummy bug…and all before he tried my cooking too.

So what did we do with a whole unplanned day at our disposal?

To be honest not a great deal, I know so unusual for The Man and me.

He pulled out a book he has been reading, David Attenborough’s’ Life in The Undergrowth’, and settled down on the couch for a quiet read. Periodically he would share interesting tit bits with interesting facts about different critters, including some very fascinating facts about spiders and their webs.

Me? Well no prizes for guessing how I occupied myself. Why I pulled out the genealogy of course.

I’m still in the process of going back to square one with my Harvey ancestry.

He was born in 1890 in what was one of Britian's hottest summers. Somewhere back in the archive of this blog is a story I wrote about set just prior to him being born.

The family lived on the Isle of Dogs and that is what I have been researching today.

During my googling I discovered a couple of websites devoted to the Islands history

It was fascinating to discover that, back in granddads time, the population on the Island was divided into three communities. They were separated by the docks themselves and the factories that clustered in the centre of the ‘island’

In those days unless they worked on the docks themselves few of the inhabitants would even see the river. The docks police would deal very firmly with any that trespassed there

I also discovered that saying that someone has a chip on their shoulder actually originated on the docks.

See for yourself

This relates to working practices in the British Royal Dockyards in the 18th century. In Day and Lunn's The History of Work and Labour Relations in the Royal Dockyards, 1999, the authors report that the standing orders of the [Royal] Navy Board for August 1739 included this ruling:

"Shipwrights to be allowed to bring [chips] on their shoulders near to the dock gates, there to be inspected by officers".

The permission to remove surplus timber for firewood or building material was a substantial perk of the job for the dock workers. A subsequent standing order, in May 1753, ruled that only chips that could be carried under one arm were allowed to be removed. This limited the amount of timber that could be taken and the shipwrights were not best pleased about the revoking of their previous benefit. Three years later, for this and other reasons, they went on strike.

A visit to Crydon museum

OK so when we woke up this morning the weather was good enough for us to go with plan A, but with the forecast predicting rain early in the afternoon, so we shelved plan A for another day and were going to go with plan B.

I say were, because when I googled the directions the website said, well not actually said, but according to the website the place doesn’t reopen for another week.

Hmmm so plan C.

Unfortunately this morning I didn’t immediately have a plan C.

I know, I know, it isn’t like me not to have a contingency plan, but there you are…

Fear not, with a bit of help from Mr Google I soon had a plan.

There’s a suburb near us called Cryodon. Not the most salubrious place to go to, but hey it does have its own  museum and that was our destination The trains are out for ‘planned maintenance’ this weekend , but the buses were still running.

Golly gosh it was hot in the big red bus, good thing I had my fan with me,  yes, I do carry one, so do lots of us.

It didn’t take us long to find the museum, which is in the same building as the library. Over the main entrance was a series of carved murals. Interestingly the central figure in each one was a woman. 

The building was pretty flash and I think the council here must be an affluent one. We had a wander around the library and I spotted a sign that said they had an e library. Our local one at Crystal palace has greatly reduced hours so an e library might be a good alternative, so I joined.

The Man and I took out time in the small museum, which concentrated on local history. 

We sat in a mock-up of an Anderson shelter and listened to various audios of the time when they were in use.

By the time we came out the sky had darkened and traders the food market we walked through were busily packing up their wares in anticipation. Not before we bought some lovely black cherries and other fruits.

I can tell you there weren’t may cherries left by the time we got back to Crystal palace. And we made it inside without getting caught in the rain too