Emergency procedures

I’m a bit of a nervous nellie, you might say, so when there was a knock on my studio door yesterday and a suit-clad man announced that he was there to serve notice, the rushing roar in my head drowned out what he was intending to serve notice about. I’d thought that my paranoia was quelling, now that the studio is this far from being set up (you’ll have to imagine that I’m holding my thumb and forefinger very close together right now.) Andrew had a fantastically reassuring suggestion that the building is, in fact owned by the 5th floor occupants, whose rooms are filled floor to ceiling with shoeboxes. Why would they sell the building when they have all those out-of-date shoes to store? After my anticipatory shock, it took a while for me to digest the contents of the A4 sheet he handed me.

Notice of Emergency Procedure Training Programme
To: All Fire Wardens and Management
Re: Fire Warden Training
[…]
The venue has been booked – Vacant Area on Level 9
[…]
Warden training will include the following subjects:
Types of emergencies
Duties and responsibilities of Wardens
Evacuation procedure and building familiarisation
[…]
Future Training for Wardens
An evacuation exercise is tentatively scheduled for your building in approximately four months. A review of procedures and training in fire fighting and bomb threat procedure strategy is tentatively scheduled in approximately eight months.
[…]

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to get this, when I finally understood what is was about. Something about the thought of a volunteer army of fire- & bomb-fighting wardens made up from the motley crew of artists, jewellers and button sellers in the building thrilled me. Also, the venue “vacant area on level 9” is the roof. Instantaneously, my first image was of this strange bunch in hand-me-down uniforms and helmets, up on the roof, marching in formation. And badges: of course, we’d all need red enamel badges with FIRE WARDEN lettered in gold. Afterwards, we’d have cucumber sandwiches and play a round of croquet.

It was a crushing blow to realise that
1. I won’t be able to make the session and
2. I’m not a designated warden.
But I feel so much safer in the knowledge that were we required to defend the building against marauding developers we’d have the infrastructure in place to launch a coordinated attack.

****

I’m suffering through a particularly personal type of emergency right now (broken heart) that makes me feel that I should wind this site up and concentrate my energies elsewhere. I was reading back through some of my old posts today, and am conscious that I’m unable right now to muster the kind of mental energy required to maintain the levity I like to bring to this place. But then I remembered some cupcake photos I want to show, and the fact I’ll be laid up for a week in a little while, recovering from a minor, albeit inconvenient, surgery. I’ve already overbooked that week with a full photo archive overhaul, total in-box annihilation and the overcoming of a bad case of second sock syndrome. But I feel certain I’ll be compelled to share some of my post-anaesthesia ramblings, so maybe something post-able can be salvaged from all that. But maybe not. It’s not that I imagine you’re eagerly awaiting updates, but I know I’ve felt a little bereft when people I’ve read disappear suddenly. It’s not that I don’t care: just that I can’t care right now.