Brenda moved out! She had enough of stinky food, mice and cockroach infestations. Lucky her, she can afford to move out. Now she lives on the other end of Brixton. At least she is still in Brixton.
I went to visit her in her new flat to see how the other half live. The flat is in a really nice and calm residential area in a converted Victorian house. She has the garden flat and it looks well posh compared to my little gap-in-a-wall sized flat. She have two bedrooms and the doors goes all the way up to the roof. It looks very sleek and elegant. The open-plan kitchen come sitting room is slightly narrow but it's light with two large windows and sliding doors opening out to the garden. I was green with envy. I would love to have a flat like that. Sadly my budget does not stretch that far.
After a nice coffee and a chat it was time for me to leave and Brenda offered to walk me to the bus. As we stepped out of the house we could see that her road was blocked off by the police and policemen were knocking doors asking questions. During our nice chat, there had been a shooting just outside Brenda’s doorstep. I suggested she might be better off moving back to my house.
It was freezing cold and we had to walk around the whole blooming neighbourhood in order to get around the roadblock and luckily I had my Swedish winter coat on. It was warm and snug and I was glad that after all, my sister had not sent it to me in vain. However, Brenda told me that she thought that I shouldn't wear it again. She said I might as well go out wrapped up in my duvet! Basically she said I looked mad in my coat. I do think she has a point there. It's five sizes too big and the arms end way below my hands and the shoulder padding stops around my elbows and when the hood is up I look very much like the Michelin man. We laughed at my shadow on the wall. We see if I ever wear it again. I suspect I will because I am at an age where comfort comes before looks.
Maybe Brenda would not be better off moving back to my house since this morning we had some sort of police outing across the street at 7.45 am. There were one police van and three police cars and at least ten police officers on the street. They were heavily armed with machine guns (or was it automatic rifles? Not sure, I am not a weapon expert).
The police went into the house next to the halfway house across the street. I am very curious of what could have triggered such a response from the police. On the outside the house looks very well kept with flowers and white picket fence. The family in the house are acting strange though. Even Brenda thought so. She used to live exactly across from them and therefore had better insights into their odd behaviour.
The family always walk out together. I have never seen the teenage children out on their own, without their parents. Usually the father goes first and checks that the coast is clear so to speak and then the rest of the family quickly gets out to the car looking carefully over their shoulder. Is the family under threat or some sort of police protection? Do we have witness re-location programme in UK like the Americans? Or is my fantasy running amok with me?
So Brenda probably is better off where she is after all.
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