Friday 11th september 2020

It's the annivary of the Twin Towers terroist attack today.

I went to happy cafe at the arts centre this morning, it's a bit like the Mind group I go to at SP2.  It was great to see all my friends again.  Started off sunny but its now gone a bit cloudy, I had to line up to get into the arts centre, they have an arts display on at the moment where people show off their work.  One looks like a red doormat hanging on the wall, my tatty old rug would have been better me thinks.

Apparently the top brass are working on a vaccine called the Oxford vaccine, some say it will be ready by Christmas (they said WW1 would be over by then, it wasn't!) other's are saying it won't be ready until the new year.  

Birmingham are going into lockdown on Tuesday, lots of familie's congregate together up there, and there's also some dimwitted covidiots there too.  Some of the pubs and bars have been flouting the test and trace forms, no wonder its spread!  I spoke to a bloke in the happy cafe who cares for his dad, during lockdown he did the shopping online, in March all the slotes for deliveries were fully booked so it was imposible for most people.  thanks to young people, they are making it worse again.  Thanks very much.  NOT!

The christmas market has been cancelled a long with the switching on of the lights I guess, I don't know how that's going to go about.  I'm still spending christmas with my parents, not spending it on my own like I did Easter.

When me and mum used to walk back at night from grans in the dark during the winter, we used to go past Victoria park and down Waters Lane.  I remember people's lit up windows and they always seemed to have red curtains. Mum wouldn't take the path that went past the grammer school, during the day we would; but not at night.  I can't say I blame her, in those days there were no lights illuminating the path like today; it was just a dark void probably concealing the Salisbury stranglar!

We lived at a house in Clifton Road then, it was built in 1909 and apparently had connections with the gasworks behind.  Ours was the end door withthe yellow wall, you can see the gasworks peeping over on the left hand side by the chimney pot.

 My parents moved into the house in 1968 just after they got married.  Grandad was friends with Mt Hart who used to live there, it's seen a lot of history those houses.

A lof of them have changed inside, but number 40 (on the left) is still as it was when we moved to Bemerton Heath in 1980.  You entered a passage from the front door, the front room was on the left hand side (painted red) with the dining room (mum always called it the kitchen for some reason) up ahead.  The back house led down from the dining room, there was a stone step which mum accidently fell down one afternoon; must have been terrifying. I remember there was a dent in the step where it had been worn away over the years, I fell over it once hurting myself.  We had a wooden back door, the kind you get on farms with a latch, had my blue hoola hoop hung on the hook once; until our dog Jinky destroyed it one afternoon.  Something I sadly discovered when we came in once from town.  

Out in the back yard we had coal bunkers which my dad painted in red white and blue for the queens Jubilee, the paint peeled off in the sun eventually.  At the end we had an outside toilet which I hated, I still hate chain pull toilets and I'm glad they no longer exist and have been resigned to the past.  Dad painted the cistern red and there was a wooden toilet seat, like most WC's it smelled bloody awful!

We couldn't really grow a lot in the garden because of the gasworks, I think mum tried gooseberries, but the bush was horrid and prickly catching onto my clothes.  The problem was that there was chlorine in the earth from the gasworks, which isn't good for the digestion.  We also had a rose bush which came from my great aunt Kitts garden, it was pink if I recall.  We had a lawn but it was bald in place's, mum said she would have prefurred it to be paved over.  

Inside we had my parents bedroom up the stairs on the right, mine was on the left.  Both rooms must have had wraught iron fireplaces, but by the time my parents moved  in they were both boarded up only leaving the mantlpieces.  My room is now a bathroom, but back then my dad put up Disney Alley cat wall paper and there blue lino on the floor.  There was a gentlemans wardrobe, but it was always locked and there was a vintage wash stand next to it with bowl and jug.  I had to have a sponge in a tray outside on thee ledge because the drain pipe kept dripping and making a racket, even now my bedroom had to be dead quiet.

There was a spare bed in the corner, sometimes great aunt Francis from South Newton stayed over; she was grans sister.  In the mornings I would wake and hear the dawn chorus, can't hear it so much now in town now which is a shame.  Mum used to bang on my door to get me up, I remember rushing downstairs to get warm my the heater in the dining room.  

Right at the top of the house were two attics, both with fire places; mum said the one on the left facing the garden could have been haunted.  I'm sure the chimney stack on our roof is now gone, I remember a guy coming round with a brush to clean it in the living room.  He asked me to cross over the road to see if I could see the brush stcking out the pot.

The fireplace in the front room smoked back into the room occasionally, couldn't have done anyone's lungs much good.  We had a brass coloured airer hanging over the grate to dry clothe's, it would be a health and safety issue now.  A pidgeon fell down the stack once and we had to fetch MR Hallatt out neighbour to get it out, I liked Mr and Mrs Hallott; think they must have been there since the early 1950's.

They had a cat called Tom (a tabby) who i used to torment because I was a stupid little idiot kid.  I now regret the way I acted, and i am deeply sorry (having been abused myself) about what I did. I wish I could say sorry to Tom and ask for his forgiveness, I torment myself about it sometimes and ask myself why, why?  He vanished when we got Jinky, Tom hated me and I can't blame him; I derserve all I get  I will talk later about my abusive relationship in another post.