November 5^th

I could see fireworks last night in one direction from the upstairs flat’s living room window, and in the other from the kitchen window at the back. Roofs were of course in the way but the fireworks, rather fine ones I must say, whistled and leapt and crackled above their tops from various neighbours’ gardens. I was impressed, and glad to watching from inside.

This morning, looking down into the garden from this first-floor height, I watched a pair of foxes, fully grown but still inclined to play. They pretended to fight fallen leaves (ah yes, still those leaves), and chased one another through the shrubs and flowers I have planted. Then one of them bounced to the back fence and with the exuberance of a small child seeing a newly-made bed as a direct challenge, lifted a corner of turf and tossed it to one side. Yippee! Something must be done.

I went online and looked up various relatively expensive fox-repelling gadgets including one you plunge into the ground (always supposing the ground will let you) with a sensor that upon detecting any movement in the garden directs a jet of water all over the source of the movement. The reviews gave many stars but not enough for the layout, and the faff. The gadget has to be permanently connected to a hose that has to be permanently turned on and the 9 volt battery doubtless has to be continually replaced. After all, if the gadget is doing its job it will be turning on and off half the night and early morning. There must be something simpler.

My local garden centre, a few minutes’ walk away, sells plastic mesh. I bought a square metre of it and a bag of metal garden staples about 6 inches long. Now the furthest corner of the not so newly-laid turf (yet still not rooted) is pegged down. How will the foxes view it? Have I thrown down a plastic-meshed gauntlet?

6 November

Three large men in an extremely large van showed up this morning with a huge cable of some sort on a turntable, a power jet and, although I didn't actually see it, a CCTV camera - all of it to investigate the drain that runs underground from the back of the building where my new flat is, to the front. Two of the men stayed in the van - to ward off traffic wardens, or because it was cold, I'm not sure.

The one who came in, Gary, was a tad alarmed that it was so hard to move around in the flat, and because the builders were not here today (every available Pole was helping unload a giant glass door trucked over from Poland for another job), the temporary downstairs entrance was screwed shut. This is a precaution I have seen this company use before, and it's a wise one because their tools are in the building - and tools are eminently stealable. So poor Gary had to haul everything up the stairs to main entrance and then down again where every step could have been his last.

I left him to it. After a while he rang the doorbell of the upstairs flat and announced that although one spur of the drains had been blocked (no longer is) the actual drain is in good nick. This is the first thing we have discovered so far that is. Next step: join the pipes coming down from all over the house to the drains below ground. Some of us lead such exciting lives.

7 November

Interesting things I found out today while the builders were (are) making a racket downstairs. 1. The drains people sent their report which shows that the waste pipes never were connected to the main drain that leads to the sewer. Hm. 2. I went down to the local Camden Archive in Holborn and learned that in 1957, when the responsible authority was the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, Gaisford Street was in a clutch of streets known as the Christ Church Estate. This was because Christ Church College Oxford owned the houses on the streets - since when I do not know. (I do know, though, that many Oxford Colleges made their money that way - do they still?)

It seems that various individuals who were the college's tenants were actually subletting as rogue landlords...in today's way of putting things. There was overcrowding and much insanitary living. The Council at the time (according to the minutes of meetings I read) decided this would not do and applied to make compulsory purchases of individual properties which were not well-maintained because ultimately the council would anyway find itself responsible for the people who had to be moved out, for reasons see above. Applications were made to the Exchequer for funds to repair and convert the houses into flats. Mine was one of the first.

I also learned that in 1883 a wood engraver by the name of Robert Brooke Utting lived at my address, when it was a house. Did he own it or just lodge there? Or squat? No idea. And here's something that really took my attention. About half way down the road, opposite the Lion and Unicorn pub, is a larger, double-fronted building called Northumberland House, now all council flats. But in 1910 it was a 500-seat cinema and variety show venue, originally called the Kentish Town cinema, and later the Gaisford. It stayed a cinema until 1960, when it had been part of the Odeon chain. And also, up and down the street there used to be a number of schools for young ladies.

If this building had been in good nick when I bought the flat I would never have found all this out. Silver lining, anyone?