Meeting the Neighbours, Learning More About the Flats

So yesterday I met some of the neighbours.  There was a housing partnership barbeque - which I came home at the tail end of.  It ran from 4pm - 7pm - and given that I rarely get home by 7, I had not imagined I would make it along.  

We got a letter in the post about it a couple of weeks ago and I didn't really assign the date of it to memory, as I had thought I wouldn't make it, particularly as I had an event to run the following day (today).  As it happened though, I rolled in through the gates at 6.53pm - just in time to see them packing everything up. 

So I rushed upstairs, dropped off my laptop (brought home from work for the event today) and rushed back down in time to see the cakes being syphoned off into little plastic bags by the handful of stragglers preparing to go home for a sugary feast.

So I decided I'd just jump right in and introduce myself.  The first two people I met were Liz (building 1) and June (also building 1), followed by Mike (building 2) and James (building 2) and finally Magda, James' wife (/partner?) (building 2).  Poor show from building 3.

I didn't find out much about Liz - but James and Magda have been living here 8 years and yesterday Magda, who's a nanny, met Gary Lineker at the house she nannies at.  They have a burgler alarm.  James is not sure why.  Magda made a cake.

Mike is the chairperson of the residents' association, but really, most interesting, was chatting to June.

June's mother (who passed away last year) was one of the first residents in the block - she moved in in 1956.  I had thought the block was finished in 1954 - so now I know for sure that it was 1956.

The block had originally all been intended as private flats, built by a private company, who then went bust before getting much further than building 1 - so the council took over and still owns the buildings today - I think about half of the flats are still council flats - but my research might once again be wrong...

Anyway - June confirmed that the red floor and skirting tiles in the kitchen are the original tiles (she has hers painted white) and also confirmed that all the windowsill tiling is the same red as the kitchen floor.  I've not mentioned the sill tiling before - but may come back to it at some point.  Some point when I can bear the thought of stripping more paint...