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Our diary begins on a nice sunny day in Gloucester - that is the good news. The bad news is that this is the first day of the school half-term holiday, and yes, the little horrors have been visiting the estate! This afternoon they were spotted having a peek into the windows of all the cars parked on the estate - the cars belonging to people coming into Gloucester to work that are parked up on surplus housing car parks and along the roads that have no yellow lines!

The police were informed about the "little darlings" who, of course, scarpered when they heard the distinctive sound of the police's armoured "Transit" van!

Despite it being half term, we had NO reports of teenagers sniffing and snorting whatever teenager sniff and snort these days. That is good news! Mind you, the police have been pretty conspicuous by their prescence on the estate of late, which is a good thing. Residents feel somewhat reassured.

The saga of the renewed "door entry" system in the entrances of the Columbia Close and Sherborne Street blocks continues. Last week, the Citizen (evening paper) highlighted the plight of an elderly and disabled lady who was unable to get her battery-powered mobility "buggy" out of the block because the Council had created a step when renewing the doors/door entry system! The "buggy" had been trapped inside the block since the beginning of the year, meaning that the resident had to call for a taxi everytime she went out.

We had been told last autumn that the doors to the blocks had to open outwards (before renewal they opened inwards). The reason, we were told, was because Building Regulations stated that the exit doors from blocks had to open outwards. Naturally, we took notice of what the Housing Department told us at the time.

With the new doors opening outward, this meant that some of the entrances that had a sloping footway immediatly outside the door had to have this footway levelled out. In the case of two entranceways, a step was created!

Today, we found out that outward opening doors were not a requirement of Building Regulations for non commercial buildings and that it would have be perfectly legal to have new inward opening doors! We learned something today - always check to make sure that the Housing Department's "expert" really does know what he or she is talking about!

The Building Regulations guru in the "town hall" also said that what the Housing Department had done in creating a step was in fact contary to the regulations! Another double whammy?

Housing Department has now said that they will put in a concrete ramp - and that "we will get on to it on Thursday". Does this mean that the actual work of putting in the ramp will start on Thursday ... or that they will start the "paperwork" on Thursday? Watch this space!

Louise Beard, who heads the Westgate Housing Office - our local housing office, returned to work today. She had been in California "on holiday". Her suntan was enough to make you jealous. Alas, she is only back for a few weeks ... in July she returns to California where her husband is working (something to do with computer programs).

In the late afternoon, three of the committee were in the office, not chatting about the estate, but remembering the recordings of Stan Freburg! That shows you all how old we are. The chairman has all 15 of Stan Freburg's now classic radio programmes from 1957 on CDs!

Anyone in the area of Clapham Court tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10.30 a.m. might like to pop into the residents' lounge for their coffee morning. A mere 50p gets you a cup of coffee and a raffle ticket. Proceeds go towards the residents' social activities (day trips out). If you are from outside the estate, Clapham Court is Gloucester's only residential tower block. There are 80 one-bedroom flats of 10 floors. Eight years ago, it was converted into sheltered housing for the elderly.