My community and how we have brought the community spirit back through December

I’ve written before about how I live on a street with a strong community spirit and why that’s so important.

Well, that spirit has returned in force over this freezing cold December here in the UK - just when we need it.

Our brilliant neighbours have organised and hung out some Christmas style fairly lights down our road. They look ace and make this place feel special.

The lights physically connect our houses.

They remind me that we’re surrounded by good people and were here for each other through this season.
The seasonal spirit is already strong.

October and November had been tricky with communities in lockdown and general self isolating.

With the weather being as grim and damp as it is here in the UK - no one wants to be outside either. And we shouldn’t technically be in each other’s houses either (I think) so it can be a lonely old time for some.

I try to keep as vigilant as I can for our most vulnerable and elderly neighbours.
This time of the year can be very very hard for some. We need to take care of them.

Our neighbour (who bought and put up the lights) had his 24th birthday on Friday.
So we had a little surprise fire at the end of the road for when he got home from work.
It was a brilliant opportunity to get everyone together and warm up over a chat.

He loved his birthday surprise and so did we.
It was bitterly cold and even rainy, but that didn’t stop us. We hung out a tarp to sit under it when the rain came down.

However, with the fire - we burned through the dry wood very quickly and wondered what we could do..

Near by at the end of the road - over autumn - there has been an eyesore, dumped by the roadside.
It was a sofa. A gross old sofa. (Nice one fly tippers 🤦🏻‍♂️)

And although it was damp on the outside, the wood inside was perfectly dry.

So we RIPPED IT APART!

We sound like awful savages but I promise we are not 😉

That’s right.
We savoured the opportunity to get out the saws and we had about 4 adults having a hilarious time cutting this sofa in to pieces.

The kids joined in too!

The kids learned about how to use a saw safely and properly.
They got the hang of it but they need to build up their muscles to actually do any damage to the wood.
But they enjoyed cutting through the foam!

The ceremonial destruction of a sofa was brilliant in many ways; not only did it get rid of a nasty old sofa, but to burnt off some of end-of-the-week steam, kept us feeling fit and it warmed us up because we could burn the wood.

Win-win.

(Although, you’ll be relieved to hear that we didn’t burn all the material, only the wood. After stripping the carcass we put the foam/springs/plastic/material in a neat pile ready for the tip)

Good times with good people drinking good beer around a fire.

What else does one need?

Take care of each other and be excellent.