It was the antithesis of a peaceful, ordered start to the day. 7am and there was very loud engine sound. It sounded like chainsaws. And then the sound of one of those wood chippers. There were also raised voices, men, arguing about something. I rolled over and tried to get another 30 minutes' sleep. It could not happen. The acoustics had the sounds echoing off various buildings and closing doors and windows did no good.
I decided to get up and investigate, stopping by the bathroom to wash my face. Only to discover that there was no water! What kind of scenario was I facing?
As I walked out my front door, I immediately could see where the argument was coming from. My weirdo neighbour (about whom I wrote in this post) had a tradesman in full fight. I immediately saw the problem. The plumber had parked his van in Gottfried's space. Despite the fact that he doesn't have a vehicle, he reminded me that he "makes no exceptions" when it comes to parking in the space. The plumber was at the end of this tether and moved the van to park in another space. These people DO have a vehicle and Gottfried's vibrant community spirit was about to cause him to re-engage with the poor plumber. I suggested that they could sort it out. I was only saying to a friend yesterday that I had never seen Gottfried's eyes - he was always wearing his 1930's motoring goggles whenever I saw him. Today I saw his eyes - narrow and icy and soulless. My suspicions that he's a serial killer are now being superceded by the view that he is a Pedant.
I made my way to the front of the building wondering what a plumber could be doing to cause such noise. I saw the big, shady tree in the front yard of the apartment block being killed, literally pulled apart, limb for limb and fed into the chipper. Apparently the tree had become dangerous and was at risk of falling over so it had to go, but it still makes me sad. The plumber was there to fix a broken tap and couldn't do the work because of the tree works. The water had been turned off anyway and the junior plumber advised me in a tiny, scared voice that he had knocked on all the doors to let people know the water was going off. I could barely hear him over the noise of the tree dismemberment. Great timing - 7:30am on a Monday morning to be without water.
What makes me sadder is poor communication. Both the tree people (are they arborists if they are devoted to killing the tree?) and the plumber had been organised by the body corporate managers, you'd think they could coordinate the works, let alone advise residents that these things were going to be taking place. Had I known, I would have gone to bed earlier and had a plan to work somewhere other than home today.
How hard can it be?
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