Thursday 26 April 2012

PerfectRetirementHousingComplex: day one.

My Dear Ralph

Just to let you know dear, that Pom-Pom and I have finally arrived at our new demesne in Corsettshire.  Our new abode is not quite so delightful as one might have hoped - the grey concrete frontispiece looks a trifle forbidding and I could see how one could mistake the rectangular, tower-like, structure at the far end for a gun turret - but we were anxious to leave a multitude of Pom-Pom's creditors to the rear of us so-to-speak.  Under such circumstances, choice is scarcely at a premium.  You will remember that our precise address is strictly hush hush, won't you pet?
I do wish one of us had thought to inform the Management of the Perfect Retirement Housing Complex that Pom-Pom and I are a duo as - owing to my being a notable Peasebody and Pom-Pom a (less famed) Percival - we have been separately accommodated - albeit on the same floor.  (This may actually be a plus point owing to our previous squabbles over a largely incompatible television itinerary and other little issues not suitable for mention here.)  My own domain is inhabited by a rather scurfy pink carpet which, due to lack of funds, I am presently unable to replace and a salmon pink wallpaper.  I can at least apply Magnolia to this latter excrescence.  Give that we are at the apex of the building it is just about possible to discern the communal garden below through binoculars.  In fact, within a week or so, I had discerned what appeared to be a starving cat hanging about the periphery.  Pom-Pom had also spotted said animal and we have spent quite a number of hours winging slabs of dinner out of the window in its direction.  At least, we did do this quite openly until a large, laminated, notice appeared on the notice board downstairs to the effect that some inmates or other were feeding up the rats!  I ask you pet.  If this is the sort of mentality demonstrated in one's very first week in our new abode, what new horrors can possibly be in store?  Mabel, next door, has since whispered - in confidence - that it is best to lower dinner at the end of a rope after darkness has descended.  She has exhorted us to do this at the least possible speed because the security lighting snaps on at the slightest provocation.  We appear to have moved to a class A establishment if one invokes the nomenclature used by custodial dwellings.
Another challenge presented itself during the course of our trying to located a private means of egress from the building.  Having attempted to depart via a minor door located at the front of the dwelling, our activities were promptly leaked to the Management by an inmate occupying a premises over- looking the car park.  This Ferret does appear to have eyes rather closely juxtaposed but possibly my opinion is affected somewhat by recent experience!  Anyway, the upshot of this individual's report was that Pom-Pom and I were hauled into the office and told that it was dangerous to attempt to leave by the afore-mentioned exit because a) we might slip on the grassy slope or b) someone might suddenly swing open a window and decapitate us!  The whole thing seems to anticipate a constant state of siege, death and disaster.  Life - as it should be lived - contains an element of risk!  In my experience, it is the disasters that one has not anticipated that all so frequently end up occurring!  In any event, that leaves us deciding between exiting by means of an abseiling rope or the actual front door.  This may sound all too silly to you pet, but there are a large number of inmates who seem to spend nearly all their day loitering just inside the door and most of them are excessively nosy.  Pom-Pom may not, after all, wish to admit to any regular habit down at the betting office and I, myself, may be off to hone my skills down at the local gun range.
How are you doing dear?  At least you have your very own domain to reside in and that is undoubtedly a boon and a blessing given what I have had to relate thus far!
Yours
Aunt Agatha


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