Friday 26 November 2010

To Be Read At Your Own Convenience

7 old ladies stuck

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Seven old ladies were locked in the lavatory;
They were there from Monday 'til Saturday,
And nobody knew they were there

Which was a daft song sung in my youth. There are heaps of verses, but I never got past verse 1 [at which point my Mum would usually stop me and suggest I sang something better!]

I was astounded to read this story on the BBC website this week. It concerns a resident of Epinay Suous Senart near Paris. A 69 year old lady was trapped in her bathroom for twenty days, surviving on tap water. She could not alert anyone to help her – and so, living in a block of flats, she decided to bang on the pipes at night, thinking that they would hear the disturbance when it was quiet, and come and investigate. What I found most distressing was the fact that nobody came to find out where the banging was coming from.

NO – in fact, they started a petition to stop this thoughtless resident from doing noisy DIY during unsocial hours!! Eventually, somebody realised she hadn’t been seen for a while and the firemen broke in and rescued her.

french fireman

A neighbour said

"You could hear banging sounds, like a hammer, even at night," one neighbour told local media. "But we thought they were doing work at night. We said: 'They are going too far! They are preventing us from sleeping!' If we had known....'"

What kind of neighbours are they? Surely the first course of action with noisy DIY-ers is to pop round and say “Excuse me, please could you stop banging at night, it is disturbing me” THEN if they say ‘No’, maybe start a petition. If somebody had tried that approach they might have discovered much sooner that the lady was trapped. I am glad the lady is recovering

Well done, French Firemen!

When we were on holiday in Paris in 2006 we saw a parade which included soldiers, police and firemen. I was a little concerned to see that even the firemen appeared to be carrying weapons. But Bob assured me they were probably just Water Pistols!

5 comments:

  1. Unbelievable. Was this in Paris? I'm amazed that she survived that long, poor lady.

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  2. How sad, that must have been an awful experience.

    Cute song - did you actually know all those words when you were a kid? Blessings, Peg

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  3. Poor lady! Good she was "finally" found.

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  4. Hi Angela , I have been looking for a email site on your blog but--I see no sign .

    I want to thank you for the flowers you so kindly left on my doorstep ,what a very kind gesture, I,m sorry you came while I was out .I shall post my telephone numbr to you . We must have tea or coffee together sometime .

    Once again thank you so much--cottonreel

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  5. I have just been reading your post re, bread pudding . When I was a girl there was a cinema just off Barclay Street called the Westleigh , I would go there with a friend Saturday mornings . Because sweets were rationed my mum would give me a slice of bread pudding to eat while watching the film . A crusty side piece was a real treat--cottonreel

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