Dear Grandad,
Things are happening around here. I was in the garden the other day (that blackbird was there again too!) and I heard a van pull up in the road outside. I could hardly miss it because the radio was on really loud and it was going ‘thump thump thump thump’ – really noisy and not very nice to listen to in my honest opinion. I wanted to see what was going on but I didn’t want them to think I was being a nosey-parker so I went to the hedge at the front of the house where there is a spot by the tree where you can get almost inside the bushes. If you squiggle yourself into the space you can look out through the hedge to the road and the houses on the other side without anyone knowing you are there. It’s a secret hidey-hole.
Anyway, once I was in position I could see that the van was a blue one with an open back and on the side of it there were white letters that said ‘A.K. Builder and Plasterer’. In the back of the van there was a ladder sloping down diagonally from the top of the van which was tied on with blue rope and there were other things in the back including a rusty old orange cement mixer and a pile of tools – spades and things like that. There were two men sitting in the van drinking cups of coffee in cardboard cups from the café around the corner and then, as I was watching, a car pulled up and another man got out and walked over towards the van. One of the men in the van turned off the radio and then they both climbed out. It was funny, because when the one on my side got out I could see there was loads of paper and rubbish piled up at the front of the van and as soon as he opened the door it started to fall out into the road. He had to grab it quickly and stuff it back in but I saw one piece of paper fly off in the wind and go right down the road. Litter bug!
The three men went and stood in front of the house – I mean the spooky one that Annie’s bedroom looks out at not our house – and they started looking up and pointing. I could hear them saying something about “fixing the roof” and “once the scaffolding arrives” and then the man who had been driving the van, the one who was doing most of the pointing and talking, slapped the youngest looking one (who had come on his own in the car) on the back and said “you can block the windows and sort the pigeons”. He was laughing as he said this but the other man did not look at all happy – not one bit. He was muttering away as he went back to the van and the other two went down the lane at the side of the house and started pointing and talking down there, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying then as they were too far away. The younger man grabbed a big bag from inside the van and a brush from the back and disappeared into the house. After a while I saw him at the window in the bedrooms and I could also hear a radio playing again but from inside the house this time. The two other men came back eventually and the second man (not the driver) grabbed some more tools from the van and went inside. The driver sat in the van making phone calls and then after about ten minutes he drove off. I waited and watched a bit longer but there was nothing much happening and I was getting bored so I went in after that.
Since then I have seen the van most days and there has been a lot of coming and going and banging and crashing around over there. The holes in the windows have been covered over with bits of wood and so now the pigeons cannot get in. I saw one waddle its way along the windowsill to where the hole used to be and try to squeeze through but it couldn’t find a way in. It kept trying for ages and looked really confused. I think pigeons must be a bit stupid because anyone could see that the wood was covering up the hole.
Yesterday morning another van turned up and some men put scaffolding all around the house. They were VERY noisy and when they had finished it looked like there was a sort of skeleton holding the cracked house together. It’s funny to think that the houses we live in can be mended like this when they get broken. I bet the snails that I told you about before would like it if they could have scaffolding to fit their houses back together again if they got broken – that would be funny to look at. But even if a snail could mend its shell house it would still be in trouble if the squidgy bit inside got damaged. It’s the same as our bodies really – once a body gets broken, I mean properly broken not just a cut that needs a plaster from Mum, there’s not a lot that anyone can do to repair it. I know there are hospitals and medicines and things like that but no-one mended you has mended Old Shuffler so that he can walk. His body must be really broken. And if the squidgy bits inside us get broken somehow, like in our heads, then I guess that’s it really, just like with snails. Perhaps that is why Old Shuffler just mutters all the time – he must be broken on the inside as well as on the outside so that he can’t talk properly. Imagine if he was walking down The Plain one day and a van drew up next to him and men jumped out and put scaffolding around him and managed to sort him all out. That would be funny. And good for him of course. But I know it doesn’t work like that. I wouldn’t be writing this letter to tell you all about what is happening here if it was, would I?
Until next time.
Kate x
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