Willie is a total co-dependent enabler. :o/
Some of the best people are (or have been) co-dependent, if I may say so myself.
I’d write more about that, but my computer’s battery is at 8 %, and I don’t want to empty it completely, so I don’t have to wait too long tomorrow until it loads again … Rainy weather is kind of crap when you rely on solar power.
I’s here, finally. Sorry for the absence from reading/commenting. I’m bogged down somewhere between university, unrelenting earthquakes, and the partial demolition of my house.
. . .
And Willie’s back home – or back to the dreary vistas of Newcastle, at any rate. Wow, she doesn’t have very high expectations of her poor dad – though that’s probably justified.
Hope he isn’t too badly off. Willie could sure use a happy break right about now.
Nice work on the urban scenery, by the way. It’s somewhat surprising, but some people can’t draw it – but you can, obviously.
-A.
Is the partial demolition of your house related to the earthquakes? If not, one might assume that the earthquakes are already doing enough demolishing, no …? :o)
* * *
Willie doesn’t care about such things, but other people from her town of Gateshead would be very upset if you call it Newcastle. Of course, it’s entirely my own fault because I changed my mind halfway through the story about which side of the river Tyne she is supposed to be from. It probably still says Newcastle in the earlier chapters …
I decided for Gateshead partly because this area, the Chandless estate, is interesting, and partly because my sympathy always goes to the smaller and poorer towns or areas that are constantly overshadowed by their wealthier and more famous neighbours. :o)
Well, the sad thing is that she isn’t having low expectations of her dad at all, she is just being realistic, as that is the “normality” she has grown up in.
Well, it’s not all that hard to draw street scenes when you have Google Street View for reference … :3
She’ll return to her Dad and after a few months the life on board will just seem some strange dream. The rest of the story will cover Willie’s life in the housing estate up to her retirement and we’ll never see the other characters again…
Please tell me you won’t go down that road!
Ah, Gateshead, fine. It was claimed that she was from Newcastle earlier, though. Then again, to an out-of town Northumberlander, they’re pretty much the same thing, its all the big city of the Tyne and Wear district.
Estates are by and large miserable places, though, for all that one can sympathise with the working class (and I’ve been told that as a baby I ‘marched’ with them against Thatcher, I guess alot of them would have been from the estates.)
In Australia and New Zealand, by contrast, poor suburbs typically just have less well maintained (usually subdivided) versions of the same houses everyone else lives in – shabby but less bleak.
. . . . .
The demolition is primarly that of the chimney – a massive edifice of brick and concrete that goes through all 3 floors and six rooms of our house, which dates back to the original construction over a hundred years ago. Sadly, even that sturdy old beast couldn’t withstand the almost daily tectonic disturbances, and we’ve decided to take it down before the earthquakes do that for us in a less controlled manner. Which renders a larger part of the house unlivable as walls come down and a hole is bored from floor to ceiling.
Hans: Heh, that possibility did cross my mind, but it made me very upset.
Aidan: I think that’s exactly why some Gateshead people may get upset when you call the southern bank Newcastle – nobody would accidentally call the northern bank Gateshead. :o( Yeah, can’t be easy when the Newcastle side always gets all the sun … The little bit of sun that’s even there.
I’ve lived in an estate in Sweden (actually in the same year as this story takes place). It’s supposedly one of the “worst” neighbourhoods in Sweden, but since it’s in Sweden it looks more cutesy than estates in the UK: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30547648@N04/3518381406/
As with all other areas where people live, it had both good and bad sides. The best thing was certainly all the wonderful people (who I got to meet not least thanks to our big dog). We moved there after living for a couple of years in this terrible village in Finland where pretty much nobody spoke to me and everybody was stupid and inbred, so it was a really positive contrast.
I only lived there for about one year, but my aunt and my cousins only recently moved away from there, so I have a connection and a fondness for it. I always kick people’s ass (well, usually not literally) when they talk badly about the area. :o)
So based on my own very positive experiences I might have some kind of sick romanticism for estates …
The Chandless estate is quite interesting, because it’s pretty much in the centre of Gateshead, but the highway, which was built right through the estate in the 1970’s, cuts off most of it from the centre, and makes everything very difficult to access in spite of it being so close geographically. It’s an interesting example of bizarre city planning.
When you research it today, especially the tower block Monk Court, where Willie and her dad live, all you find are local news articles about violent crime and “antisocial behaviour”, people running around with samurai swords, disturbing the neighbours. :o) But I think in the late 90’s it wasn’t quite as bad, and in any case the media tend to paint a very one-sided picture.
Hmm, as for sympathising with the working class, I certainly sympathise with my mother’s side (definitely the best side) of the family. :o)
* * *
Ah, that’s really too bad about your chimney. :o(