Thursday 4 January 2007

Perishing phone line

So, where was I? Right here, but without a telephone or internet. The photos* tell it all, really, so if you prefer, you can just Marvel and Wonder at the narrow escape my family had – any closer and they would have had to move in with me and realise the more interesting aspects of Living With Z. Al knows all about it of course; many years ago he took the photo of Mum’s kitchen all round New Zealand to remind him of home (get it at the right angle and all you can see is chaos) but his wife and children only get hints of my version of home comforts.

I had just sat down to tell you about Bananaman, when I became aware that the wind had strengthened and there was, suddenly, a gale blowing outside. Then I heard a ‘thwumph’. It was not a loud noise, but it was wrong. I jumped up, calling to the Sage that something had blown down and grabbed a coat and a torch.

The gap was the first thing I noticed. The absence of tree. The pine tree outside Al and Dilly’s bungalow was missing. Instead, there was a large hole in the ground and a large tree on its side in their garden. The sound I heard must have been the roots tearing themselves out of the ground and the swish of the fall. There was no crash. It touched and broke the corner tiles of the bungalow and tore off the soffit board. It landed on sticking-out branch stumps, having had its fall broken at the last by the garden roller. Because of these stumps, it is balanced above, rather than on, the row of flower tubs on the patio. The light on the corner of the bungalow was still alight.

I went indoors to tell Dilly and stayed with the children while she went to look – by this time, the rain had stopped and the wind had died down. I explained to Squiffany what had happened and we went to look out of the window. “Tree, huge, in garden. Leaves, tree, HUGE. Dark. Wet.” she said, accurately.

Our good and useful friend Jamie came round the next morning with his chainsaw and we spent the best part of three hours cutting up the tree (a good section of trunk has been left in one piece and will, in due course, be Useful Timber for floorboards or whatever. No resin at all came out of the trunk so the logs will, when dried out for a year or two, go in the woodburner.

However, we couldn't do anything about the phone line.. Theirs was broken and ours didn’t work. It being a Bank Holiday weekend and a stormy one too, it took until today for an engineer to come round. I did pop down to the local internet cafĂ© on Tuesday (one computer in the back room of the computer shop, with the chair too low and the monitor too high) to check emails, but I couldn’t blog from there, it didn’t feel right.

I’ll tell you about Bananaman another time.

*whenever Blogger lets me upload them.

11 comments:

Pat said...

Sorry about the damage but you are making the best of it. Its very quiet today. Are people still suffering hangovers?

badgerdaddy said...

Blimey, you had to go to that awful computer shop where they took out two decent PCs and replaced them with one utterly shite one with the largest box I have ever seen in my life and an out-of-focus monitor that's at a ridiculous angle to the keyboard out of necessity because of the aforementioned gigantic PC box???

Damn I miss that shop... NOT.

Glad no-one was hurt when the tree fell. Reminds me of a joke though.

It's an old, not great Oirish joke. Irish Mike and Irish Kev are in the jobcentre. Mike says to Kev, 'Look - they're looking for lumberjacks outside Dublin, let's apply.'

Kev replies: 'Don't be stupid - they're looking for tree fellers from Dublin, and there's only two of us.'

Z said...

Finally realising they have to get down to some work, I expect, Pi. Me too, but I'm prioritising...

Yes, the very same, BD. I could have gone to the library, but I was living dangerously.
And thank you so much for enlivening the occasion for us with the first Blogjoke of the Year.

Still can't get the photos up, I'll try again later.

Z said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Z said...

Bum. I pressed 'publish' twice.

The Boy said...

That is officially a "close shave". I've had a branch blown off of one of my blueberry bushes, but its not quite the same scale...

Z said...

Bless you, honey. Not quite. Just wait until you see the pictures.

How do we know said...

Thank God you got back at least!
:-)

Z said...

Back online, no one was hurt and the insurance company will pay for the repairs. As ever, we hugged each other, said 'thank you' to our personal deities and carried on as normal. Whatever that is!

y.Wendy.y said...

I love that word 'soffit'.

How exciting! A smashing start to the New Year, eh! (pun intended...oh okay I am sorry - it's terrible.)

I have a smashed bathroom floor and a sinking bath - not quite the same I know..but I just wanted to say. You know.

Lovely to have you back...I agree - Blogging at an Internet Cafe is just a bit iffy.

Z said...

Your sinking bath is quite impressive, Wendz. You were mentioning the roundness of your bum, but I didn't think it would sink a bath through the floor ;-)

It was, technically, 2006 out with a bang (or a whoomph) rather than 2007 in with one, but smashing all the same.