Waiting to Happen

Leaving my last class on Wednesday evening, the brother of the student (who is also my student) told me that there was a fire in one of the streets that crosses mine. I knew immediately it must be the house which had been taken over by a group of squatters. Worried that it might have reached my house, or that it could have, I hurried home as quickly as possible. I didn't dare walk down the street where the house was burning because I imagined I wouldn't have been able to get through and took a roundabout way. As it was, there was a policeman diverting traffic so cars couldn't go down the street. I had to ask permission to pass between the police cars and ambulances which were blocking access to my street. Of course, when I opened the door to my building, I could smell smoke. We're very fortunate to have ambulance, fire and police services so near, so the fire brigade was able to extinguish the fire before it did too much damage. I heard someone say they thought the fire could have been started by a heater. 

Being the animal lover that I am, I was worried about the dogs that they had with them, worried about whether they'd got out too. In a way I thought there could be good from the fire, and we would be rid of the squatters once and for all. I needn't have worried since the next day I saw a couple of them with an adult dog and a puppy going in the gate to the house. All the windows have been broken. They've boarded up the ground floor ones, and I suppose are staying down there. There shouldn't be any danger of another fire until things dry out. I know the Spanish Constitution states that its citizens have a right to a decent place in which to live - not that this house, called Villa Sara, could be considered a decent place to live. Not many people are happy to live near squatters because of the problems they generally cause, such as an increase in thefts. They've hooked up to next door's electricity and there's nothing to be done.

I was hopeful this morning because when we got up it was very cloudy. At the moment, we've got about 20 º C (about 68 º F) and very sunny. I know I'm just going to have to clean my dirty windows while doing a rain dance. I can't complain it's too cold to do it, can I? Wishing everybody a great week. Can't believe it's almost March!