Sunday 28th January 2007
Song: The Used - Cut Up Angels
Right, so hopefully the last house update for a while. Soon after I wrote the last update, we had someone from our house insurance round for a look. When he saw the hole in the ceiling, he apparently just said, "oh..." and then just stopped for a second. Apparently, the stuff the ceiling is made of artex, and when it gets broken like that becomes carcinogenic (gives you cancer...), so my mum was delighted to learn that as she was the one who sat on the floor sweeping it up a few days ago. And my parents have spent several nights sleeping in there with it, heh. Anyway... So the whole ceiling is going to be redone in their room, which means the whole family are going to have to be moved out for a few days. I was secretly quite excited about this at first, but I don't know how it will affect uni stuff.
I looked up the list of "mitigating circumstances" that they love to rattle on about all the time, and apparently homelessness doesn't qualify. Woe.
Oh, and we've also got to have the whole roof re-tiled, and potentially some brick work done as the house we're joined to has some serious cracks... So there will be scaffolding, hard hats and all! So yeah, it could be several months before life at Chequer Tree Close returns to normal.
Thursday 25th January 2007
Song: Sugababes - Round Round
So, the tree one week on... The general feeling in the house seems to be that, all things considered, we've come away from this remarkably well. All that's left of the tree now is a few logs on our neighbours driveway, which are waiting to be taken away either today or tomorrow. Two days ago I innocently went out for a look at progress quite soon after getting up (albeit nearly midday), and somehow got roped into helping tidy up the bricks and roof tiles that were still just laying on the floor. I don't know if maybe I looked deceptively strong, because I really didn't think I was the most ideal candidate for the job, but neighbourly spirit took over and so I tied my hair back and put on some gloves. I did quite enjoy it once I got into it, though I am pathetically weak and did lift a few things that were perhaps a bit too heavy for me. But we did manage to completely fill up the skip and the place looked a lot tidier when we were done, so that was good.
I usually think the local paper is pretty rubbish, but not when you're in it! Click for full size, if you want to read.
Saturday 20th January 2007
Song: Oasis - Cast No Shadow
So, part two... Yesterday morning, a tree surgeon arrived, got up the tree and immediately got out saying it was too dangerous. We then had to wait for ages for a crane to come to help support the tree. After wasting all afternoon doing nothing, eventually a crane turned up. However after it got here, the driver immediately said his crane wouldn't be able to do it. I think he thought he just had to pick it off the ground, but as it was how it was, he said it wouldn't work. So he kindly sorted out a bigger one to come for us, we were told this bigger one could lift 50 tons. Lovely, as at the time we thought the tree was weighing about 9. Anyway, after waiting then several more hours the big one turned up. It was huge, and actually turned out to be an 80 ton crane. Winner. So they set it up and everything, got a chain round the tree trunks (there are four), tried to lift it, and immediately gave up. They then detached crane and tree and fiddled with the crane. I learnt this was to adjust the gearing in the crane, so that it could lift more weight. So then give it another go, and this time the tree starts moving, but then we can hear what appears to be a smoke alarm. This stopped and started a few times, and no one knew what it was. Around this time (I was so confused by it all I can't remember the exact order) they also dropped the tree back down on the houses, and also dragged it along the houses. There was lots of wood cracking noise, and we all assumed the worst. Anyway, they seemed to then just stop it where it was and hold it still. I then found out that the fire alarm sounding thing we heard was actually the crane's alarm to say the weight it's holding is too great... Also, the crane was currently set to hold something like 27 tons. This was a big mother fucker tree.
Around this time also, the tree surgeon who had been of absolutely no use at all all day and everyone was getting fed up with, was going home as he was exhausted. Which pissed everyone off a bit, as he left at the worst possible time, but also he was so useless everyone was kind'a glad he went. Thankfully though, I'm not sure who arranged it but another tree surgeon guy turned up. This new guy was absolutely ace and was up the tree in no time. Now with the big crane holding the tree, this lunatic guy was swinging all over it with a one handed chain saw in tow, and cutting off huge chunks of the tree and using the smaller crane (which thankfully stayed with us all afternoon) to carry the huge branches down safely to keep them from breaking the house anymore. After having been outside for hours things were starting to look up. This took some time, but they were making very good progress. Eventually the tree was pretty much stripped of all its branches, and then they got the big crane to basically pull it up and down a bit to loosen the roots, so that they could leverage it away from the house and just lay it down. Now there were no branches, it weighed much less and worked a treat (though in doing that they did poke a stump through our porch roof, but I think it only broke a tile). It was about 1:30am before they had finished, we were absolutely freezing and achey, and anxious to see the damage inside the house. At the time of it going on we'd heard all sorts of things including people seeing gaping holes in the roof, and one guy saying he saw the ceiling collapse. So, pretty much as soon as the tree was laid down, my parents and soon after Anthony and I went inside to see how it was. Amazingly, there was no extra damage to the bedroom at all. All that horrible noise we had earlier when they dragged the tree along the house must just have been the tree branches snapping and tiles breaking, and of course our brains dreaming up the worst. So we put the kettle on, hung around while the road was cleared and eventually went off to the hotel room to sleep.
Up at 8, we came back to see what happens next. At the moment we just had the tree where it had been left from the night before, just cut up and rested in our driveway. Look!
So today they're just shredding the green bits, and cutting up the trunks and moving it. The good tree man (the useless one was sent home) has been with us all day and last I heard he's using tiles from our neighbours wrecked porch to cover up the wholes and replace all the broken tiles in our roof. I think it's going to be a few days before he's finishes, but at least we have somewhere to live again.
This whole thing quite honestly has been the least enjoyable experience of my life so far.
Friday 19th January 2007
So we've been having a fun time lately. I think most people know already, but in (fairly) short...
Yesterday, me and my mum were here and it was just a normal Thursday. I was upstairs in my room, and suddenly heard a loudish noise from out the front, but thought nothing of it. Being that it was daytime and I wasn't home alone my paranoia didn't kick off. A matter of minutes later, the doorbell goes. Sometimes the button on the doorbell sticks down and the bell keeps going on and on. Fortunately, it was one of those days. So after it rang on a few times I wondered why my mum hadn't stopped it. So curiously run through to my parents' room to look out the window to see who was outside. And one of their windows was covered by tree branches. That's not normal... So I go outside and go to the front door which is open, and my mum's outside, and she beckons me out. So out I go, and I see this...
For those who don't know, that's our house on the right with the blue and yellow garage.
The noise I heard was that massive fucking tree falling over, and landing on the roof. Once I realised this, I couldn't quite believe how unbothered I was by the noise.
So that's where the excitement began, we then spent the rest of the afternoon in the road with more and more neighbours coming out to look, chat, and make cups of tea. The police had been called and turned up, though were pretty helpless. When the tree came up, it had presumably broken a gas pipe as there was a strong smell of gas in the road. So we just had to sit and wait for the gas people. During this time that felt like forever, several strong gusts of wind came which moved the tree a bit more. Fortunately none of them knocked the tree off, but it was doing more and more damage to the neghbours house, as the tree is being supported by their porch. Anyway, the gas people eventually turned up, we had four vans here at one point, and they couldn't find the gas. It was a bit ridiculous, but they were digging up the pavement for quite some time trying to find it. So long in fact that it got dark, and then the tree surgeon couldn't do anything about it. So that was the end of yesterday.
I'll probably write about part two of the story (today's events) later. At the moment I'd best go as a tree person has returned and there's people talking in the street. Going to go join in.
Wednesday 17th January 2007
Song: McFly - Ultraviolet
So after considering it for a while, while waiting for my ongoing hassle with the student loan people to be resolved, I finally went shopping yesterday for this:
Yes... that makes 5 now. However, my Fender Strat is going to go up for sale. I keep getting asked why I got a new one... Basically I wasn't terribly happy with the sound of the Fender. It had quite a nice clean tone (though always seemed a little too bassy), but was pretty rubbish with any overdrive or distortion.
You may recall one of my new years resolutions was to spend over £500 on a guitar... Well I fell short by £55 with this one, but there are over eleven months to go. ;)
Monday 15th January 2007
Song: Fank Turner - Vital Signs
Today I had the great displeasure of driving round Farnham. It unquestionably is a town that hates cars. It looked in a way much like Salisbury, very old... but not in a preserved, antique way. More just like it's been abandoned for years, but there's still traces of human activity in the area.
More importantly though, tonight I headed off to London to see the always entertaining Frank Turner do an in-store performance. Unfortunately while setting up, they seemed to be having technical problems and couldn't get the PA system working. So eventually they gave up and Frank stood on stage and said he was going to have to do the whole set without amplification, and politely told us all to "shut the fuck up". And so he went into song. I was quite surprised at how strong his voice was actually, as his acoustic guitar seemed to be at its limits. Anyway, it was a lovely little set, but sadly only about 30 minutes long. The occasion, and reason for the in-store was his album's out today, and I'm on it!
Some may recall a while back that I went to see him at Barfly, and one of the songs was being recorded to go on the album and this song had a verse to be sung by the crowd. So we did it, and they took names so that we could all be credited for in album booklet thing, so here it is!
They spelt my bloody name wrong! I was quite upset... Actually that's a lie, it's hardly like this was my entry to a world of fame, but it is a bit annoying as I quite clearly gave it to them with a 'V' in the middle. Alas.
Tuesday 9th January 2007
Song: Girls Aloud - Biology
I hate exams. I spent so very long preparing for Monday's exam (which consequently wasn't too bad), that I pretty much completely neglected tomorrow's one. Now I'm panicking over it, trying to sort out everything I need for it, and it's put me in quite a crap mood. I'll be so glad by this time tomorrow, when it's all done.
Sunday 7th January 2007
Song: David Ford - Demons
Just so we're clear as it obviously was quite a big deal to many people... The comment about drinking more in 2007 wasn't meant as, "come on lads, lets go get wasted"... It was just meant as me not wanting to not drink for the sake of not drinking any more.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I have exams. I am quite scared. Fortunately I am allowed to take notes for both of them, but I'm still quite worried that I won't know how to answer the questions. From what I can tell they're nearly all essay type questions, worth about 30 marks each. Gone are the days of multiple choice. :( Also I've got two bits of coursework due Wednesday, and the project going on in the background all the time. Woe.
Fortunately though, once Wednesday is over. I have nothing to do at all until the last week of Jan when the next semester starts. Winner!