We are being moved out of our porch

Last night was quite an interesting night. Ten minutes after we arrived at the porch we sleep in, and while Declan was gone to check the result of the rugby game between Wales and France, this guy comes to me and, pointing to our bags and cardboard, tells me I have to move immediately for the night, that he is going inside the building to do some handiwork.

He had parked his car beside the porch and had with him a small rucksack and a sleeping bag – perhaps an indication of how much work he thought he had to do. While I was waiting for Declan to return, he tried repeatedly to open the door of the porch and, having failed, proceeded to make a long phone call on his mobile.

Declan and I stood in the porch until he had finished his call, after which he informed us that we could stay where we were for the night but would have to leave when he returned either tonight or tomorrow night. He then drove away. Maybe I should have pointed out to him that the keys he had could have been for the front door of the building, not the side door.

As soon as we woke up this morning (7.30am on Saturdays and Sundays, 5.15am the rest of the week), Declan went around the corner where there is another kind of porch. It is quite dirty but we are happy to clean it – we are very nice homeless people!

I told Declan not to check the porch in daylight, that the Metropolitan Police will set up somebody to move us out, but Declan said that they would do that anyway, and off he went. The police may not be a beacon of intellectualism, but they sure can come up with imaginative ways to make one’s life more difficult.

Things in Covent Garden went quite well yesterday. Despite the rain and Declan’s watching of the rugby game between England and Ireland, we still managed to sell a good number of The Big Issue magazines. Our favourite pitches, which were made unavailable to us a few weeks ago, were free yesterday and so we took the opportunity to step in to them. We have been given a pitch to sell the magazine in the West End during the week – a crowded pitch though. A guy is sharing it with us and he wants to stay in it all day, everyday.

This morning in the Whitechapel Mission a homeless guy sat in Declan’s chair while he was in the washroom. When I realised that he was going to hit me in the face if I kept telling him that the chair was occupied – Declan’s coat was hanging on the chair – I duly shut up and kept writing my blog …