Directive from head office

I was going to go back to Easterby today but delayed my homecoming one more day as there’s much to be sorted out at Jervis Terrace.

I hitched in to the University and saw Derek Firth of Link-Up, who had the agreed upon £90 gas deposit money, but I had to tell him that the gas board is now demanding £150 (“directive from head office”). They must know about the squat.

So we’ve decided not to bother with any gas at all and we’ll ask Link-Up for a loan towards plumbing and roof repairs instead. I was going to go back to Jervis Terrace to give Pete a hand with the clean up but by the time I got away it was four in the afternoon, so I didn’t bother. He ended up staying until nine p.m., painting doors and skirting boards to cover Lee’s axe marks, dart holes and lighter fuel burns. According to Gav he was angry when he finally showed up, but I missed him again as Lee and I were out on a ‘blag.’

Lee had come back at teatime, exciting me with prospects of Easterby’s derelict mills and houses. He told me about a factory which has been gutted, where the roof hangs in twisted tortured forms. We found an empty pub, The Regency, across the road from the Oasis and near the Planning Department offices, with four stories of a one-time crummy hotel built atop.

We scaled a low wall, ran across a garage roof and dropped the ten feet or so into the back yard. There was a door open, so the crow bar wasn’t needed for once. We found yards of electrical cable, adapters and plugs, but all the rooms were empty save for one, which had been used to store all the furniture, which included finely made chairs, tables and wardrobes and even a couple of typewriters too. After an extensive tour of the building we took two electric fires and the electrical cable away with us. Another smooth operation.

Later we found out that Alex had told Gav that two Oculus executives had been round to tell us that a letter would be arriving Wednesday, but Alex couldn’t remember exactly what they’d said and gave conflicting accounts, telling Gav that they were serving us with a court order but then denying this to us later.