Over the road

Over the road. That's a British way of saying 'across the street', which somehow makes me feel better about peering through the curtains.  "Lots happening across the street" sounds like I'm spying on my neighbours (which I kind of am) (more on this anon), while "Such a lot going on over the road" sounds like there is something interesting happening and I perchanced to see it.

Over the road is a nondescript house of indeterminate age. Maybe built in the 40s or 50s? Smallish, two-storey with an after-thought addition on the back. It's been uninhabited in the three years we've lived here, but lately is the focus of a great deal of interesting activity.  Diggers, dozers, and dumptrucks have been taking loads and loads of house-guts out and away for months now. It's hard to imagine such a small house could contain as much as we've seen be carted away!  Trucks and vans appear at odd times, then aren't seen for days, even weeks.  Official looking people have disconnected power lines, then returned to string them back up.

The house next to it is also interesting. There have been a few different households of people living there, I think as tenants, while the owner would be there occasionally to tend the garden, which is mostly 20-foot cedars in pots. The most recent tenant would be on the front sidewalk many times a day with varying combinations of mobile phone, cigarette, and dog in hand. We nicknamed him Slow Walker because that's what he'd do: walk slowly up and down the sidewalk. This was to distinguish him from the tenant before him nicknamed Smoking Guy who smoked on the sidewalk but did not walk.

Slow Walker recently got a car. It was very loud, which is how I know he'd drive away at 6:15 every morning, returning about 10 minutes later. I figure this was to buy cigarettes.  Then a few weeks ago he was gone! I feel bad because if he moved out I didn't see it happen, and I have no idea how long it took me to realize he wasn't there anymore. He pulls up to the house now and then (in a much quieter car) but doesn't stay in the house for long. There were other people living in the house at the same time as him and they seem to still be there, though we don't see much of them.

Anyway.  There is a steady parade of pickup trucks on our street today. One is parked in front of our house with safety pylons around it. One guy has been carrying very long bits of timber from the Flipper House to that truck.  Another truck pulled up in front of Slow Walker's house, and four guys got out, one is a safety vest.  He knocked on the door of SW's house, while the other three went to the backyard. I assumed they were heading to the Flipper House, and maybe Safety Vest was wanting to let the neighbours know they were going to be working outside.  Or maybe to borrow a hammer, who knows?  Yet another pickup pulled up, and the four guys come along to pull out two cabinets crammed into the cabin of the truck and they brought it into SW's house! I know that doesn't sound so exciting but I am very curious.  What's going on in that house?  Why is there a ladder propped against the side facing the Flipper House?  Why are the same men going back and forth between the two houses?

And while I was so distracted by all this mysterious activity, I completely missed the fact that the rest of the crew was taking down the back extension of the Flipper House. I saw it leaning a little but, and then it was gone. No fuss, no fanfare.

This is probably not at all interesting to anyone else, but what's happening over the road is the highlight of my day.