Category: Aluminium

There are workmen at the house today. Mummy said I shouldn’t talk to them, but I’m sitting here at the window watching and I can’t fathom why. They see like really people, just like us. Mummy also said they speak a strange commoner language, but apart from stronger accents, a heavier use of slang and some ghastly profanity, that is also not true. Perhaps as you grow to be an adult, you forget how to speak to people who are different to you? That’s the impression I am getting.

I am currently supposed to be working on my very first socialist manifesto, but I’m finding that I enjoy listening to the conversation outside the window far more. It just makes for such interesting listening, like I’ve discovered a portal to another world and everything I heard is something brand new and exciting. Apparently Justin was late that morning and forget the key to his toolbox, and he was being lightly berated by his colleagues for his lack of skill operating the toolbox central locking. Father has talked about central locking before, but only when mentioning it to Yusef, our chauffeur. I suppose tools must be expensive, if they must be locked up inside such a secure box.

The conversation then turned to models of ‘utes’. I assume this is some kind of automobile, perhaps those strange cars these people drive with the space around the back for placing all kinds of items. I’ve seen pictures of these vehicles with dogs riding in the rear compartment, and I thus assumed that was what they were for. None of these people have brought a dog with them, though their ‘utes’ are adorned with many mysterious boxes. The one called Greg mentioned gas bottle holders and under tray drawers. This means nothing much to me, so I can only neglect my manifesto and continue to listen so that I can decipher the mystery of the boxes. I mean…they are probably full of tools. That seems logical. But this is a strange new world I am glimpsing. Anything could happen.

-Madeira

I do so dislike the mansion needing work. It’s Whitehall Chamber! Our beloved home needs no improvement! Sadly, sometimes it does, and quite urgently as well. I was spending some time in lounge number five, which has slightly more space than loung number six but the chairs are closer to the heater than in loung number nine (making it my favourite) when I was greatly disturbed by smashing windows and and great thump in tandem.

I immediately leapt from my chair in a great fright, forgetting entirely the episode of Week of Our Lives that had demanded my attention only seconds prior, and saw that the old oak had finally come down in the wind. Percy kept saying that we needed to do something about that old thing, but business kept him terribly busy.

So now there are aluminium work platforms blocking out the view of lounge number five, which is a great shame because if I want to be just the right temperature and closeness to the television in lounge number eleven, I have to call Sebastian to come and move the chair for me. Even then, I can still hear the men on their work platforms! Lounge sixteen is the furthest away, but I wasn’t allowed to pick the cushions and thus Percy chose a strange lime that I think clashes horribly with most of my wardrobe.

In any case, it’s a good thing the old oak didn’t come straight through the window. No, it was only a few stray branches, with some damage to the wall. That’s what they said, anyway. Our walls are very high, which I suppose is why they decided to drag along all those heavy-looking fibreglass ladders. Terribly scary stuff, clambering all over those things so terribly high. Reminds me of the latest episode of Week of Our Lives, where Reece was rock-climbing when his schizophrenia/split personalities came back…oh, I need to catch up!!

–Cecelia