CARNIVAL TIME

No, Don't...

If you are a long-term reader of this blog you may remember that the former MP for Kensington, Lady Borwick, was a great opponent of the Notting Hill Carnival, but did not succeed in her aim to at least re-route it, if not suppress it. This year's Carnival, though, had the strangest build-up in recent years, as there was a real question of whether it was appropriate so soon after the Grenfell Tower disaster. Now anybody I spoke to who was actually from the Latimer Road area  seemed clear that the Carnival should certainly go ahead, as an expression of community solidarity and resilience, which is indeed what happened, but it was good to see that outsiders were sensitive to the idea that they might be dancing on people's graves. I didn't envy the police their task, though, because on top of the usual public order issues with a million people on the streets there was talk of some North London gang, one of whose members was shot a few days before, coming down to exact revenge, and then there was the obvious terrorist threat. I'm not sure what the correct name is for the enormous steel obstacles that they put in place at the end of Westbourne Grove, but the journalistic "ring of steel" sums it up. All in all it seems to have gone well, with the best weather for years.


Scaffolding Goes Up

Meanwhile, the scaffolding creeps up around St Mary Mags. Last weekend we found that the nice open area outside the Vestry was now full of scaffold legs, which was a bit intimidating, but we could still reach the door. As I watched it go up along the south side I became increasingly fretful, as I thought we had cut back the scaffolding from what was originally planned, as we had economised on the external brick and stone repairs as we were trying to cut the cost back to fit the budget. The scaffold that was going up looked like the original design, not the cheaper one. When I expressed my anxiety about this, I was told that we had discovered that our conservative costing policy had actually meant that we had the money to do it as originally planned, and so it was going ahead. No mistake. No problem. No word to the client, though!


The Gas Man Cometh

The first works that have to be done are in the school. Obviously they need to be done before the children come back, next week. This has not been going well. Most spectacularly, the gas contractors are giving us real grief. You may not be familiar with Cadent, but they are the gas main bit of National Grid, rebranded, and we have been in contact with them since March because we need to move the gas main and the school's meters. When they came to cut off the old supply they managed to discover that this supply only fed the boilers, and not the kitchen, so at that point they just went away. Our contractors then found the second main, and we got them back. So both were purged and capped. Now they are back on site to do the new connection, at the last possible minute. They have managed to cut through the electricity supply to the school gate, but that's a small matter compared to the slowness of their working. A separate organisation then has to come and install the meters, which no-one told us until three weeks ago. Fortunately we were able to get them to come, but they are booked for tomorrow, and it won't be ready for tomorrow, so now we shall have to book them again, and when will they come? When will the school have its gas supply back? We had a very uncomfortable meeting with the Head Teacher, who was understandably agitated and displeased. It is very unpleasant being responsible for something going wrong that is entirely out of your control.