Trouble with Mr & Mrs Pijjie

I could tell you about the heavy luggages we've been dragging across the city since Thursday into our new flat, the heatwave that has emptied London's streets and caused temperaments to flare underground (heat which I'm not enjoying since I'm still busy scrubbing away other people's grime instead of working on my tan); I could tell you about my impending life without telephone or internet (this will last until July 24) or of how grateful I am that my most important task on a Monday morning is to read all the weekend newspapers; I could tell you about all those things or more -- my first impressions of Mile End, the weird characters that live in our tower block, Kevin's short film "The Rubbish Composer" being screened this past Friday at Curzon Soho Cinema, the talk we attended on Saturday which consisted of watching a selection of award-winning animation followed by discussion with Tony Grisoni -- but I will choose, instead, to inform you of our troubles with Pijjie.

As I've mentioned before, Pijjie is a squatter who's been living in our balcony. At first, we thought Pijjie was a single mom who was using our balcony to hatch her egg. We decided to let Pijjie Junior be born, give Pijjie some time to find new accomodation, then lift the net, which all sensible apartments have, to prevent further invasions by dirty squatters. On Saturday morning, I discovered that:

a) Pijjie was Mrs Pijjie, and that when she was busy partying at night Mr Pijjie took over the hatching business.
b) Junior was going to have a little sibling.

I saw how the scenario would play out: Mr & Mrs Pijjie would demand indefinite state of leave and before long they'd have their entire family (including long-distance ones) moved in. I knew we had to do something about it.

During one of Mrs Pijjie's trips to KFC's sidewalk, Kevin and I lifted the net and dumped Junior and his sibling down the garbage chute. Mr & Mrs Pijjie were outraged. They kept flying against the net, trying to get in, implying that we were kidnappers and were committing some kind of felony.

The net had some holes because those bloody stupid & dirty Australian boys cut it down instead of unhooking it from the balcony's wall. I didn't think this would be a problem until yesterday evening when, just before watching Big Brother, we spotted Mr Pijjie inside the balcony. As Kevin quickly closed the balcony door, Mr Pijjie flew against the net in a panic and almost had a heart attack. Mr Pijjie was now trapped inside and didn't have the brains to get out. I suggested we throw a towel over him, then release him from one of the bedroom windows. This, however, would involve getting ourselves covered in shit.

Kevin has now just informed me that Mr Pijjie got out during the night. Good news. I'll be mending that net when we get home tonight and, hopefully, we won't have any more problems with the Pijjies this year.

P.S. this is my last post from Delamere Terrace. Hopefully, I'll be back on the 24th (*all you bitches cross your fingers and toes*)