"Fire Fire Fire"

Well there we were all snuggled up in our beds, fast asleep when the unimaginable happened!

I'd said to my children just a couple of weeks ago 'we are due for a proper fire you know'.  This was due to the many near fires we had experienced and by the grace of God hadn't quite happened.  Well I am well known for my predictions, saying things that happen soon after and my children had complained telling me not to say anything like that.

So picture this, middle of the night, pitch dark, not a sound on the horizon and out of the blue my father opens the door to my bedroom and in a breathless voice says 'we've got a fire'!! I sat up and said a fire??

My father being known for getting up in the middle of the night and making breakfast or getting dressed and thinking we are going out, to suddenly be told by him there is a fire you might have been tempted to just roll over and say go back to bed its the middle of the night! But on this occasion the panic in his voice and the speed in which he had charged into my room I just knew he wasn't joking.

I jumped out of bed rushed to get the phone, turned off the electric to my fathers side of the house, woke the children and heading into his part of the house, only to be greeted with thick acrid smoke and flames bellowing up around the kitchen.

My father had managed to get the fire extinguisher off the wall and was spraying the cooker hood and cooker with the foam.  After a few minutes the fire seemed to be out and we then realised that we were breathing in the terrible smoke so I flung open the doors, windows and we all went outside to breath in the cold fresh air.

The smell was unimaginable, thick grey and smelling of burning plastic. We grabbed torches to try and examine the damage but it was too dark and too much smoke to really see.  My son took the cooker hood off the wall and to our horror we found that the wiring to it had been put in the chimney.  As he took the hood down a wall of water flooded out from the chimney all over us.  The water had been leaking through the chimney and resting on the top of the cooker hood.  On further examination we noticed the wiring had a join in it with tape around and was laying in the water!

I am just thankful that I do all the cooking for my father and he never ever used the cooker hood in his kitchen. Now you might be thinking that you read one of my previous blogs saying you must have a smoke alarm.  Well we have got one and it has batteries in it and we check it and it works but on this occasion it didn't go off not even when we took it into the smoke to see if it would go off!!! So it looks like we need to get another one.

The only reason my father woke up was because the lid to the cooker hood opened and hit the wall otherwise I may not have been here to write this blog!  Our Guardian Angel was with us on that night.

The next day we washed and cleaned and washed and cleaned but still the kitchen has loads of soot stains all over it.  I think it will have to be re decorated. We have an electrician coming to sort out the wiring and a builder coming to take the chimney down and mend the roof so all is good.

Still we live to see another day and the smoke and fire damage will pass and it will be just another memory.  Just don't forget to check your smoke alarms and maybe check they go off with a bit of smoke too!!

A Mother's Love

My earliest recollections of my mother are being surrounded with a love like no other.  Sitting on her lap, snuggling into her fluffy dressing gown, sucking my thumb and feeling her arms wrapped around me the feeling of total security and warmth.

My mother was a complex lady, she was funny, loving, selfless but could lose her temper and strop for England.  I remember when I was tiny hearing her shaking the back door and cursing the key that wouldn't turn, throwing the contents of her whole bag across the room because she thought she has lost her purse and getting angry with my dad who always refused to enter into any argument.

I remember falling about on her bedroom floor laughing with my sister until we had no breath while my mother tried on all these items my father had bought, mail order, from Russia.  A massive thick army Arctic coat with a frozen dead mouse in the sleeve, a pair of pajamas that went round her three times and calico scratchy thick under wear which was like sand paper with long legs and buttons at the front!

She was a one off and never to be repeated.  She would always be getting up to something silly and there was never a dull moment in our house.  My father would come home from work to find the house turned upside down with a piano wedged solid in the doorway, her reasoning was she wanted a change but the stupid doorways were not big enough.  She had spent all day heaving, pushing and pulling all the furniture around from room to room until she got to the piano which just wouldn't go through! Then with the instruction of my father we would spend the evening putting it all back.

I remember once my father bought a load of cheap beefburgers which my mother hated.  She refused to cook them so one day she spent the day digging massive holes and burying the burgers in the garden.  As they were frozen together in long tubes of 20 she had to dig very deep holes to bury them but her determination got her through and she completed the task before my father got home.  The next morning when she came downstairs to make my fathers breakfast she noticed the foxes had had a field day in the garden and dug up all the burgers leaving loads of massive holes!  Not wanting my father to see she stood by the back door until he had finished and left for work only to go back out and fill the holes up!

Although she did stupid things, like standing at the bottom of the stairs in a big department shop thinking they were escalators, walking around the shops with a loose pair of tights falling out the bottom of her trousers,, having a fit of the giggles in church, putting the dinner in the fridge and wondering why it didn't cook and getting lost coming out of a pub toilet and ending up in the staff quarters, she was the most amazing warm, caring person.  If every you were ill, upset, confused or indecisive she was the one you would go to.  Always there for a chat, advice, and a shoulder to cry on.

She was a wonderful pianist and played right up until she died.  If she was cross she would bash the notes out and the ring of The Entertainer and The Butterfly would filter through the whole house.  The piano, which we still have, was a family piano and survived the war with my grandfather carrying it on his back down the flights of stairs in a effort save it from the bombing.  I remember learning on it and my sister playing her wonderful pieces on it too.  It was my mother's pride and joy.

She was the one who said to me you must have children, I will look after them.  This was because we didn't have enough money for me to give up work at the time.  This was a wonderful decision because it meant I had two lovely children and they got to experience the unconditional love my mother gave.  They loved her with every inch of their bodies she was their world.

When my mother was younger she would sleep walk and I remember her telling me through laughter and crying how she kicked her sister out the bed once while dreaming she was kicking a football into the goal! Her sister was not amused as she suffered a split lip from falling onto the electric fire.

I remember in later life her having a row with my father, a serious man who loved reading and never entertained into her frivolity and telling us afterwards she had pretended to died for an hour just to see if he would notice!  Proudly telling us that she was right she could die and he would probably still bring her breakfast in bed, coffee and tea and not even notice.  He just looked over the top of his glasses and tutted.

When they got older their bedtime ritual was crosswords and I remember listening to her shouting out to him the clue and letters to a word.  My father being a bit deaf didn't always hear her.  So it went like this - 8 letters and I've got S T Blank Blank B Blank, my father says what was that F T, NO shouts mum S T, that's what I said F T, and then she screams out NO S for shit, T for Tit, B for Bum !!!! My father calmly turned over and said I'm not playing if your'e going to be rude goodnight!! LOL

We had fun, there wasn't a day I didn't talk or see my mother, I made sure she was in the centre of our lives and we included her in everything.  I cannot explain how much we miss her, that person who was always there on the end of the phone or in the next room.  Her greeting to me when I walked through the door was Oh goodie come sit down tell me everything.  I haven't got that person anymore but I am so lucky to have had her in my life for so long.  She left many memories, she made me who I am and she was a lady who lives in our hearts forever

 

Childhood and churches

When I was tiny I remember my mother and father dragging me to the local church.  A church that had been around for around 900 years and was very old, cold and dark.  My father was very strict and demanded my sister and I were silent girls.  We stood there in our best coats gloves and hats in silence.  I always drifted off into a dream world of things far more exciting than listening to an old man in a long white dress saying things that made no sense.

The church was old and small and had lots of history, something I appreciated when I grew older.  When I had my children I decided that they should experience the same as me so my mother and I took them both to the same church every Sunday.  By the time my children were born the church had a 'family service' which was designed for the little ones.  This meant I was able to understand it at last and it held a little more interest.

My ex husband never really came along to the church with the excuse that a bolt of lightening might come down and strike him!! Never really understanding that but being relieved that he stayed at home my mother and I made a point if bursting into the church, slightly late and usually forcing the last bit of breakfast into the children!

I remember vividly my daughters Christening.  My son was about 2 and the Rector always insisted the children were allowed to run up and down the isle and play with the toys at the back of the church.  Well there we were all circled around the font spouting the usual words on the card designed for Christenings when my son rushed up to the font and said whats in here mummy.  Holding onto the edge of the font and pulling himself up to see what was inside.  Now the top of the font was a loose bowl and as he heaved up the bowl tipped up and poured all the Holy water over the Rector and everyone else's feet!

At Christmas time the church has a massive tree at the front and of course the children wanted to inspect it, only my son wanted to see if it was fixed to the floor, was strong and if he could move it.  Not realising that he was inside the tree, during the carol 'Come o ye faithful'  we saw the tree swaying backwards and forwards and eventually starting to fall.  Many people from the choir and pews all rushed forward to catch the toppling tree only to find my son crawl out from underneath saying 'mummy the tree isn't in the ground'.

Another time my son was playing with another little boy, at the back of the church, with the box of toys and during the quite pray time suddenly they came charging up the isle holding the flag poles as swords and pretending to fight!

All these things were very embarrassing and my mother and I were horrified but the Rector always told us not to stop the children as he liked them to have freedom in the church and feel like it was their home!

Looking back on these fun times we had many a laugh and the children have fond memories of it.

This is the website to my old church - St Martin's of Tours Chelsfield

http://www.stmartinchelsfield.org.uk/

Fire on the horizon?

Well its been a traumatic week.  It started by me burning the rice dry and nearly setting lite to the hallway.  You may ask why the hallway well my gas bottle cooker is in the hallway as I have no room for it in the Kitchen.  You may ask why I haven't got a cooker in the kitchen, well I have but due to the bad installation by David, the man who conned us, I cannot use it.  He apparently used the wrong wiring and it could catch fire at any point, hence why I am now using a gas cooker given to me by a friend.  Anyway I now have to remember that I have something boiling away in the hall which is something I find difficult.  The out of sight out of mind syndrome kicks in and I have burnt many things since using this cooker.

When I found the rice it was black and smoke was pouring out and along the hallway round the corner and up the passage to my dad's side of the house.  The smell was disgusting a smell that lingers and still smells out there!

Secondly my father's wood burner nearly setting light to the roof and now we are unable to use it.  After spending all today phoning around I have found someone to come on Monday to have a look at it, fingers crossed they sort it before the temperature drops to -4 as predicted on the weather charts!

Thirdly I fill the dishwasher up, my only luxury and most loved piece of equipment, turned it on and left it.  I then went back to it to see if it had finished opened the door and everything was still dirty and a terrible smell of burning hit my nostrils.  On further inspection I noticed no water was in the bottom and the heating elements were hot and burning! So I had to drag all the dirty pots, pans and plates back into the kitchen to hand wash them all.

So today I found a pack that I've had since October containing a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm.  After fitting the batteries, testing and locating a good place for them to go, finding the double sided tape I took great pleasure in slapping them up on the wall.  Hopefully these will stir us if there happens to be another 'almost nearly' fire incident.

Let this be a lesson to everyone - you MUST have a smoke alarm and if you have any fires a Carbon Monoxide alarm.  These could and do save lives and are essential.

Friends and Fires

Well today we had a sort of emergency.  My son lit my father's wood  burner and when he went outside to get more wood noticed no smoke was coming out of the chimney.  Then going up into the loft saw the smoke was coming out of the wall and the beams in the roof were black!!!!

After phoning a friend who lives reasonably close to us, he came round and emptied the fire and sprayed the beams with water and said we must not use the wood burner again until it has been looked at and that it looked like it had not be installed properly.

The wood burner was installed by a so called builder who used to be a hairdresser in the UK.  He has befriended himself to us when we were in need of many things mending and had no money but a shed full a tools and toys that any man would be jealous of.

David, who used to live with us, who was supposed to be renovating our house, after spending all our money conning us out of everything then disappearing had left us with a 300 ft shed full of new tools machinery and toys like quad bikes.  So there I was left with all these things that I had to sell 'or swap' just to pay bills or get work done! This is how I came to agree to swapping lots of items to this local 'builder' who suggested taking lots of things in return for work.

Anyway our so called 'builder' said he would swap lots of items in our shed for work we needed doing in the house.  We agreed and he took many items worth a lot of money and told me to do a list of things that needed doing.

Well my list was never started he did a few little things like a couple of wood and mesh gates, making the garage doors run smoothly, mending a water pipe and making a cupboard.  The last thing he did was install my father wood burner.  My father had the wood burner for a good few months before he finally came to install it when the weather turned to -21 and my father was left with not heating and a hole to the sky.  He finally came to fit it, his mood was bad, the atmosphere was terrible and my father and I were really embarrassed and felt bad that he had come over to us to do it.  He kept swearing and telling us he had other things to do and that he didn't have time to be here.

Well we find out that he didn't install it properly and it could have caused a major fire in the roof which we probably wouldn't have known until too late and we would't have been insured because he isn't registered to install wood burners.

The funny thing is he came around a few months ago and said he would be doing no more work for me for nothing as he didn't get any help from us and he could't afford the time and effort for no money!  I think he was forgetting the 100s of Euros worth of machinery furniture and tools he took form the shed for nothing.

Moral of this story is - It doesn't matter how desperate you are never agree to anything that means someone owes you something.  If you do make sure you write it all down (something I didn't) and make them sign the list of items taken and the value.  The the list of jobs to be done for the value and cross it off when done.  This all sounds easy but when you have hit the bottom all rationality goes out the window and you just trust everyone who comes along smiles and promises things.