Monday, April 3
The Void
Imagine finding a new world under your house. That's almost what happened to us this weekend. Apparently there's a hidden void beneath our house. Void - that's the word repeatedly used by the burly bloke who came to check out the whiffs of gas I could smell in the kitchen on Saturday morning. I'd rather he didn't use the word void - to someone who has seen too many sci fi and horror movies it conjures up images of forgotten Indian burial grounds or gateways to parallel universes. Actually the latter could be quite cool. Imagine if Merlin had accidentally left a stargate lying around Londinium? Although, back then our part of the city would have been several miles out of town, just a hill rising out of marsh soaked countryside. Still, Glastonbury was a mound, and that's just a man made hill.
By void, the man from Transco meant the remains of an old Victorian cellar. When the old Victorian terrace here was either pulled down, or bombed out (we are next to a train line, a common target in World War II), the builders simply built over the old cellars. If it wasn't for a small hole in the floor of our kitchen where the pipework comes up, we'd never have known about it.
NOTE: the leak came from the pipe leading to the stove. He shut it off, and Transco kindly gave us a two hob electric thingie to tide us over until we can get it fixed.
Posted by GateGipsy @ 1:38 PM
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Gipsy joined GateWorld when it was STARGUIDE in January 2001, and has
been watching Stargate since the movie. Originally from New
Zealand (specifically, Wainuiomata), she started backpacking around the
world in 1989 and hasn't stopped yet. Life is spent mostly in London with
husband Mr G and baby G, born in 2005. She is also blessed with a
beautiful step daughter and wonderful step son.
That's very cool. When I was a kid I used to scour my house looking for secret passages but never found one. You came kind of close. Sort of. ;)
I used to fantasise about finding secret passages when I was a kid too! I often have dreams in which the house I'm living in suddenly has a whole extra floor that I never knew about. Has never happened in real life though.
Speaking of another world,
I am just in the middle of watching the BBC mini series for Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE. Have you seen it?
I always thought it would be cool to discover something like that. : )
Thats sounds scary and exiting.... you could put that Stargate we keep on about in it! :P Then if i had 1 I could visit every day!
Those houses just up the road from you, are they part of the victorian terrace?
Big hugs for Baby Gipsy for Saturday!!! Bet he's got losts of birthday presents :D
I would love to have a stargate here and one at home in NZ. Imagine - I could pop home and see the folks for dinner!
The Victorian terrace ends next to us. From our house and up to the end of the road are all 50s houses. When you turn the corner of the street, you're in a large estate of fifties built houses. There were once Victorian houses here, and it is hard to know why they got pulled down. A lot of London was bombed during the war, and you will often see a lot of old houses, then suddenly a modern building, then more old houses. And if you look at photos from the 40s you'll see that it was a bombsite.
But then they also pulled down a lot of the old terraces.
It is quite likely that the other fifties houses in the street have victorian cellars underneath them too.
Our street is quite a mish mash of periods. On our side is what remains of the victorian terrace - gargantuan houses, four stories with big steps up to them (what American's call stoops I think), big high ceilings and really thick walls so they stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Most of them (I think all but one) are divided into flats. The one next door to us is owned by a lovely old Jamacian guy who came over in the 50s. In 1973 he brought the house as an investment for his kids, and it is now mortgage free. It was valued recently at 900,000 pounds, so I think he did pretty well. His sons tell him to sell up and go back to Jamiaca, he could live like a king there on that money, but he refuses. He wants to make sure that his kids get the money, bless. They are lovely people, and we often see his sons and grandsons over there working on the property or seeing to something or rather.
On the other side of the street there are some 30s properties, then some big Edwardian houses, then a few Edwardian cottages, and finally some that are Georgian. This area was very popular back in the 1700s with Londoners who visited during the summer. There was a spa at the top of the hill, and the gipsies at the bottom. The gipsies, who give the area its name, were entertainers - acrobats, fire eaters, fortune tellers etc. They'd do the winter in the city, then move to the camp at the bottom of Gipsy Hill for the summer.
There more information than you ever wanted to know!
Funnily enough no I haven't seen it, but I did just discover Neil Gaiman's blog! I was reading it wondering who the heck he was...
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/
//I would love to have a stargate here and one at home in NZ. Imagine - I could pop home and see the folks for dinner!//
That would be great fun. Or a magic wardrobe like in The Chronicals of Narnia. That did go to NZ. The Gate only leads to another part of Vancouver :P
My first though upon reading this was a picture of you and teh family all dressed up and ready to travel...Shouting *Into the VOID!!!*...LOL glad to hear you are still here with us...and that it is being fixed
Void is an odd word to use :S I thought you meant a rip in the space time continuum or something :P