Confrontations

We had a really nice day today. We spent most of it with my mum and this included going out for lunch with her at the South Bank and then listening to some choirs performing at the Royal Festival Hall.

Before we set off for that, we had gone to a craft fair near where my parents live. When we were walking home from that along a residential main road, there were two boys walking along the opposite pavement and I saw one of them throw something at a parked car that was on the same side of the road as us. The car alarm went off, and I then walked forward a couple of steps and realised they had smashed the car window.

I turned to them and shouted at them across the road that they had just smashed the window. I was so angry at the action of the boy who had thrown the object at the car (the other boy looked rather more sheepish). He just put the hood up on his top and tried to look all macho. The other boy just said it wasn’t him who had done it. I continued to shout at them and tell them how unacceptable their behaviour was and that I was going to call the police.

They decided to saunter off into the local park and seemed somewhat surprised that I followed them (and probably I shouldn’t have, but I was very cross!). They turned round a couple of times to see if I was still behind them and shouted a bit of abuse at me. I did by this point know that G was on the phone to the police, and was a bit of a distance behind me but within sight. I continued to head towards the boys, who had stopped in the middle of the park, and when they realised I wasn’t going to back down, they made a run for it.

I went after them, but at walking pace (I didn’t actually want to catch up with them as I didn’t know what they might do). They had disappeared by the time I got out the other side of the park. I briefly looked about for them but they were nowhere to be seen. So I headed back to the car they had damaged and by that time the owner had actually arrived and my mum had already spoken to her and explained what happened. I spent a few minutes talking to the woman and gave her my details. The police had also been by that point and had gone in search of the boys. The police phoned me a while later, which made me think they hadn’t actually found them. The police officer was really nice and thanked me for what I had done.

It was probably unwise to have confronted them and then to have gone after them, but I was just so angry that they could have done something so mindless. I just knew that I couldn’t be the one to back down because that would have sent the message that trying to be a bit macho meant that they could damage people’s property and intimidate people. I would have been really angry with myself if I had just let them get away with it. I also didn’t want the owner to come back to the car and find the window smashed and have no idea what had happened. That said, I don’t know what I would have done if they had turned on me...

Resigned

I decided that the best course of action was to resign my church membership. I wrote to the assistant minister and just said I didn’t want to be a topic of discussion or subject to a vote by the membership and said to take the letter as my resignation. I offered no explanation, but I guess I will hear back and will have to decide what to then.

I had to be at work for 8am today, which I guess by some people’s standards was not that early. Tomorrow I have to be in at 6.30am, which is a slight challenge given that my first train doesn’t run early enough to get me there for that time. At least I get to finish at 3pm both days.

The builders have caused yet more problems. They put “protective measures” in my fireplace while they were doing repairs to the chimney on the roof. While they were removing the measures they damaged the fire. I wasn’t there at the time, so I phoned the freeholder’s husband when I got home and he arranged for the builder to come out the next day to look at it. As expected, the builder denied there was any damage, despite us all being there looking at it. Fortunately the freeholder’s husband was there and he said it was damaged so the builder went along with this. I have now arranged for a firm to come out and repair it. The builders will be paying for it. I had a discussion over several months with the freeholder and her husband about why I didn’t want these builders to do the work, but they insisted it would all be fine. The builders have done various bits of damage and each time have denied it. I have written to the freeholder outlining all of my concerns and saying again that I would prefer them not to use these builders in future. We’ll see if it makes any difference.

It would be nice if life was a bit simpler, but at least I am on leave for Christmas from the end of next week.