Emmaus South Lambeth

RETURN TO WORK A hot summer’s night; the steady rain helps to ease the muggy sultriness and it is nice to have a light breeze coming through the open windows. This is the Sunday evening at the end of my holiday, and I’ll be back to work tomorrow; I’m feeling pleasantly weary after an action-packed weekend. Luckily the traffic is light, and for once there’s no loud music from the flats opposite, no alarms or sirens and I drift peacefully to sleep around 11pm. Five hours later, however, it is a rather different story. It began with a burglar alarm, shortly followed by a Vespa idling at the lights – then the cat choking on a fur ball. I could have gone back to sleep relatively soon had I not begun to puzzle – was that the SHOP alarm…? No, surely not…– but then, along came the police siren : is the Vespa the get-away vehicle? Does the alarm belong to the Moneygram shop? Best leave it to the police to sort out, I’m not burglar-catching material and they’ve come in response to the alarm. Debating whether it would all go silent again, or should I give up and make myself a cup of tea, the issue was decided when the 5.03 train (the one with the squeaky wheels) pulled up – or was it when the crows started a fight over the contents of the bins?…. As I pad downstairs, I’m conjuring up a scenario where the Vespa’s passenger has bashed in the Moneygram shop window and cut the alarm wires, then has ridden away with the cops in hot pursuit having scared away the crows by the time I return, so I can FINALLY GET ENOUGH QUIET TO GET BACK TO SLEEP. Whatever the scenario with the alarm and the cops really was, truth dawns with the rays of the morning sun on return to my room: the Vespa – any Vespa - was not, after all, involved. There was no scooter of any kind, in fact – it was the sound of snoring drifting across the dawn air; Welcome to South Lambeth, new Community Leader! So began my first day of work at the shop, which went very fast; we have another new Companion and one of the founder Companions left to return to the Showground. We held a b-b-q to celebrate Mike’s arrival on Thursday in traditional ESL fashion – organised it all, then stood and watched him get ‘stuck in’ by leaving him to be Chef! It ended with a sing-song around 10pm – and by some miracle, all 5 hours from lighting the charcoal to completion of clear-up were free from rain! We were happy to play host to a dozen or so Business Managers who came here on one of their regular meetings earlier in the week, and it was good to know that both Preston AND Colchester are soon to open. Sheffield’s opening in January lost us the ‘Newest Emmaus Community’ status – but it’ll feel like we’re Really Old Hands to be fourth-youngest! As for the allotment –we received an amazing phone call following the news about our allotment expansion I mentioned last week. “I have two televisions to donate….. address, etc… and I have some fruit bushes available if you’d like them”. It was lucky the call was taken at the office and not by me direct – I’d have deafened the poor man with my whoop of joy! So we’re off to pick them up in a couple of weeks’ time.
Take care till we meet again, Elizabeth