An Evening Out!

Anyone reading this blog (and there aren't many, if any, I know) knows that the denizens of Chateau Fingers have a slightly less invigorating social life than a handicapped nun, so forgive me if I wax lyrical a little about last night, when we actually WENT OUT to SEE FRIENDS and even SPENT A FEW INTERESTING HOURS in the company of someone OTHER THAN OUR SODDING NOISY NEIGHBOURS! We finally got around to accepting an invitation from a lovely Rumanian couple from work and the change of scenery and the conversation were truly things to behold. Without boring you with a run-down of the evening's chat, I will tell you this: his father, now 80, still runs a construction company in Bucarest. This summer, after forty years, they were evicted from their house on a trumped-up charge of preferential due: the house went to an invented relative of the original owner, a banker, who wrote the property over to the state in 1920 in lieu of debt. So, after nearly half a century's occupation, a couple in their eighties are basically turfed out onto the street. Fortunately, he had the wherewithal and strength to capitalise on the situation: he bought a 2-bedroom flat and made a three-story house out of it. At the age of eighty. Nice to see the benefits that Europe has brought to a new member state. Apparently, this deserving new owner of the house is the daughter of the banker's cleaning lady. Maybe. It seems probity was not high on the agenda.

The parents of a friend of Mrs. Fingers are apparently being evicted from their flat because of noise. Having never met them, my interest in the story was more about the logistics of how it can be done. Sorry, but that's the way it is.