Christmas dinner at Shaftesbury Avenue, perhaps 1994
Robert and Francis
Sometimes in those years (I think this was 1994) we went to Grandma's for Christmas Dinner. In one of those years we had evacuated our house the week before Christmas when I found what I thought was a thin veneer of asbestos on the bottom of the vinyl floor tiles of our kitchen floor when I had started replacing them. Perhaps it was a stupid idea to start this just before Christmas but I decided we all had to get out immediately, which we did and went to stay at Grandma's until it was sorted. It was nice going to Grandma's anyway (Alice, Sandra's mother, who lived close by in Shaftesbury Avenue).
An asbestos removal contractor – Deborah Insulation – came almost straight away after Christmas. I had taped up the kitchen door so it was safe for me to go back in our house. A workman came with lots of equipment and went in wearing a special suit. I listened to him thrutching around in the kitchen and he soon had it cleared and tested as safe. We all then moved back in, perhaps about ten days after we had evacuated. Pretty good in fact, considering the time of year. I don't remember it spoiling Christmas. The opposite actually.
I then painted the floor boards and laid a new kitchen floor. Some years later the entire kitchen was ripped out to the bare brick walls and the painted floor boards again. This was when the kitchen tap was dripping and the plumber said the worktop looked a bit rotten underneath. The kitchen had already been replaced once but one thing led to another and another new worktop became another new kitchen. I forget the order of things. Some of the old kitchen units from 1982 when we moved in are still in the garage as a work bench. I have been thinking the entire garage needs to be refurbished. It just goes on.
At least once at Alice's house my Christmas dinner was pizza because I was a vegetarian. I stopped being a vegetarian for a while and had Turkey again like everyone else. I am now a vegetarian again but on Christmas Day (that day only) I have meat (turkey).
