First day

So, on Tuesday 25th September 2012 I was just getting myself together following the death of my beloved son and the subsequent horrors which ensued and I realised that the weather was quite dreadful with high winds and torrential rain.

For some time we had been advising the Council that the footpath which bordered the boundary of our side garden was in need of urgent action and others in the village had also reported the same.  There were cracks in the bitumen surface of the path which were widening by the day and although a Council worker was viewing the retaining wall and path on a weekly basis, the constant rain and wind was making us a bit nervous on top of everything else.  My lovely OH had only returned to work the previous day, having spent as much time as he could with me helping with the clearing of Si's flat, the paperwork and the funeral and both of us were trying to return to some semblance of normality.

The Council chap came to view the wall at around 11.45 am and I had a quick word with him.  I then thought about checking such things as my bank account and other stuff on the computer which would get me going with small steps to a normal life again.  Luckily the room where we have our computers is at the top of the house as I had only been there about five minutes when I heard an noise which I have likened to a shelf falling from a wall. It is hard to explain the noise which was a slow rattling sound and very loud.  For the first time in my adult life I uttered an expletive I did not know that I knew and then rushed about trying to ascertain the source of the noise.

When I got to the kitchen/diner this was the sight which greeted me.

Condolence cards, flowers, plants all strewn across the table and a huge wooden fence bowing the double-glazed window.

What we had feared had actually happened but in a much more spectacular fashion than we could have envisaged.

OH then got a hysterical phone call saying the wall had fallen down and he was to come straight home.  I rang the Council and was told that the chap I had been talking to was on his way back to the office some twenty miles away to tell them that the wall had shown considerable movement and required attention.  I am so thankful that he was not doing his inspection any later or he would have been squashed!  I have always wondered why when trees or walls fall and people are injured why they did not just get out of the way and I now have the answer to that - there is no warning and no time to get out of the way!

I then had to endure at least three-quarters of an hour alone until someone came and the look on OH's face was one that I was to see many times subsequently - a wall falling is a somewhat inadequate explanation for what was, in effect, a 65 foot landslide and everyone who came to view were struck dumb by the full scale of the horror.
 

I think I could be forgiven for slight hysteria at this point and the council chaps who eventually came were also suitably taken aback.  The man in charge had assured me only two weeks before that there was no chance that this would happen!

Indeed he stood in front of the dining-area window and said that he would not be standing there if he thought that there was any chance of the wall collapsing.

Hmm

Second Day

A sleepless night followed the first day as the saturated fence had bowed the double-glazed window and the Council chaps had just left it there overnight.

There was not much else to do except gather phone numbers and cancel appointments whilst OH had to inform the office that he would not be in for the forseeable future - or at least until the house was a bit more secure.