the widow's flat in ground floor. all the plantings u see are hers.
london
A dog who is used to eating leftovers from ur own meal, and then you give it canned dog food, will not eat the canned dog food.
My neigbour told me this yesterday, he said that was what happened with another dog of his, and is why he feeds his present pet dog only canned dog food. Pedigree chum.
this is news to me, i thought it was the other way round, that after tasting canned dog food, the dog will refuse ur homecooked leftovers
This is a neighbour living on the ground floor flat, rented from council, in the block of flats opposite mine. I see him often walking his dog about the place. he used to have a cat, and they leave a window ajar, with a cat flap for the cat to go out. Some time ago i saw they have removed it. I asked him about it and he said the cat has died.
We were standing outside a pub, near the water front, and i was telling him about the reduced meats that the supermarkets were doing. He did not know about it. I said well since u take the dog for a walk u might as well walk there, tie him outside and go in to see what bargains are to be had. hah.
Later he told me he and his wife eat canned foods and processed foods as they both dont cook. he says it is too much trouble to cook. i told him how i cook , and i gave him as an example how i cook curry chicken, bring the whole thing to a boil, then cover the pan with a lid, and switch off the heat and leave the chicken to cook.
Now how difficult is that, i said. He was surprised at my method thinking that the chicken needs hours of low simmering. After hearing what he said about eating processed stuff, i thought he might be interested in buying the greatly reduced ready meals that are so often for sale at the supermarkets. I never buy them, but he might.
I was surprised that he and his wife, who are both quite elderly, he being retired, do not cook from raw. I was wrong to think that the older generation knows how to cook and it is the younger generation that dont cook.
When i mentioned this method of cooking to simon he too was surprised. I said it is because the chicken here in uk are so young. less than 18months old so they cook real quick, unlike the tough old birds that we get in malaysia, or at least during my grandmother's time when she would select an old broiler, long past its egg laying days, to cook it for whenever we visit her for sunday lunch. people have been told that there is salmonella in the chicken so it must be cooked real well, so they cook it for ages and make it all mushy, for fear of eating half cooked chicken and dying of salmonella poisoning. They frighten themselves too much.
anyway, while we were chatting, he waved to a group of women in black going into the pub. I asked who were they. He said it ws the widow whose husband died last week. they live across from me, and she tends a potted garden. I thought I heard from my downstairs neighbour that he had died a few weeks ago, but maybe i heard wrong. So that explained why i have not seen the widow around recently, she always was in her garden tending to the plants, but recently a black woman had been watering them, even when it rained and she had to wear a raincoat. Quite surreal I wish i got a picture of her doing it. haha.
There were some wreaths of white flowers on the ground across from her flat.
And my neighbour mentioned that the family living in the flat above the widow was looking for someone to give away her fridge freezer. Its too big for her to take away or to fit the new place. They are moving from the flat. My downstairs neighbour tells me one of the sons is a drug dealer,and everyone who lives long time in the estate knows it; so maybe the police finally was able to pin something on him, and evict the family. Hope that is not the case because it must be awful for a family to be evicted because of the criminal activity of a son.
Well underneath all the seeming serenity of the place there are currants and eddies where people live their lives.
I mentioned the tree in the courtyard that they are going to chop down, and asking us to vote for a replacement tree. I said i voted for no tree, because if this old one has to be chopped down because its roots are buckling the bricks of the courtyard, why bother to plant another one and have to do it all over again when its roots do the same? I am the only one voting for no tree.As it is there will be costs incurred to cut this tree, and more money to uproot the roots, and put manure in the hole, and plant the new tree and re-lay new brick work. Will all scream and shout when they get the bill? Only the home owners of course,but not all of them, some of those who have bought are v rich. Those who rent from council can vote for it without having to pay for it.haha. I hope it wont be a lot, but removing the roots will cost a bit i should guess.
Then sometime soon, there is the bill to repair and paint the exterior facade of the block of flats and redecorate the common stairwell. This is a compulsory clause in our lease.It has to be done every 8yrs. It will cost £2000 each. haha. i hope they have saved up for it.
For the new comers who have bought recently, i dont think they willbe too much worried. They can afford it i m sure. No poor people buying flats here that is for sure.haha. I googled the area and found that the flat above me was sold for £399,500 in jan2007, just before the big crash. I daresay it will be less now. The most recent sale was for £285,000 in may2009. One sold for £425,000 in sept2008. The flats vary in size and floor, the higher the floor the less, as there are no lifts here.
The widow is of course a council tenant, one of the few old timers who still live here and rent from council.
People only look at how much their flats have gone up in resale value and never look at the cost of maintainance and service charges as well as mortgage repayments that is required when u own a flat. the papers never mention how much those have cost whenever they trumpet the enormous prices that flats are sold for. so people think it is great to buy. Sometimes it is better to just rent esp a council housing flat.
Though i understand that Westminster is trying to charge commercial rents for its properties so council rents are rising to market values. Once a family leaves their council flat , westminster council can charge a new higher rent, closer to the market. So it benefits a family to stay put for a long time in a council flat as their rent will remain low.
This creates a situation where one old person living in a large flat,3bedrooms say, pays only a small rent, whilst large families have no big flats available and have to crowd into a small one. Naturally, the old person will only want to leave that flat feet first(when they die). some win, and others lose, whenever u do any social engineering.
