7th August
It’s taken all day to unpack the van which should have gone back to the UK this morning. Last night we noticed it wouldn’t start so I headed to the cafe to see if I could borrow a battery charger. A football match was on tv there with all the local men watching. I’ve realised by now that you can’t just kiss hello to the people you know, you have to greet everybody. By the time I’d gone round the whole crowd I'd forgotten that I had a mission and got embroiled in drink and gossip. It wasn’t until the Director came looking for me that I remembered about the charger.
Despite securing a charger the battery still wouldn’t work, so this morning the van was declared dead and towed away which is a good thing because now we don’t have to drive it back to the UK.
In the bar last night I started finding out about our landlord’s father. He bought the Lovely House in 1943 in pristine condition and, according to my companions, set about destroying it. His main farming activity was pigs but he diversified. I had noticed how the once rather grand carriage house had been carved up by concrete divisions with an enormous feeding hopper bursting through the ceiling. Old Landlord was famous for his meanness and lack of hygiene standards. Stories abounded, how he set traps and ate whatever fell into them - cats, hedgehogs, crows... One of my companions told how had turned up at the Lovely House one day to see Old Landlord using a knife to eat sardines from a tin. Fish finished, he poured the oil from the tin into his palm and slicked back his hair with it.
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