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Summer must be here! We had torrential rain around lunchtime. Fortunately Gloucester City Services had been round cleaning out all the drains in the gutters in the streets (for some reason, in council-speak these are called "gullies") last week. So there was no flooding.

Hold on! We did get a report on one drain (whoops, gully!) that that was blocked! Murphy's Law ... the downpour came just as a disabled resident was returning home. By the time she got to the door to her block, there was minor flooding as the door was very close to the blocked drain! She managed to somehow get in!

There is, of course, a good reason why this drain was not attended to last week, along with all the others. While it is in the gutter of a road, the road is not a "public high way", so the contractor does not have to clean it. The road is private - it leads to garages - so it is the responsibility of the Housing Department for the maintenance! Same Council, different departments, but with oodles of red tape.

And talking of "red tape", we have a definition of "red tape". It's a special tape they use at the Gloucester City Council for tying up people so that they cannot get vital things done.

Anyway, the Housing Department was contacted and asked if it was possible to have blocked drain/gully unblocked.

The rain proved one thing. A recent repair undertaken in a flat on the top floor of Clapham Court (our tower block) was done satisfactorily. A tenant had reported a leak coming through the ceiling from the roof. Council had been to fix it a week or so ago. Had a "botch" job been done, then the wall inside the flat would not be bone dry after all the rain we had at the weekend - and today!

While talking about Clapham Court, the residents had their coffee morning today. Judging by the fact that a couple of people had to stand as all the seats were taken, it was a success. The residents decided to form a committee to run the coffee mornings and other social activities - including bingo and outings - which have been run by the wardens in their spare time.

The dustmen still cannot be relied on to empty all the dustbins! The large "euro bins" we have in the blocks of flats are a constant problem when it comes to emptying. Only three of the four at Clapham Court were emptied yesterday, we were informed today! Well, three out of four is pretty good for the contractor, Gloucester City Services who seem to have better excuses than good old British Rail and their legendary "wrong sort of snow"!

But the "client officer" at the Council did have some good news for us today. He sent us a copy of a memo he had written to the refuse contractor requesting them to clean all our "euro bins" in June. They have 20 working days to clean out the 24 euro bins on our estate. It will be the first time that they have been cleaned out in three years!

The Housing Department use the TCC office all day every Wednesday, so there was little activity by us. However, when we went in to lock up just before 5pm, Sheila Patel, the reporter from the Citizen (our evening paper) who covers the Kingsholm area, telephoned to ask if she could stop by tomorrow. A date was arranged for 3pm. We wonder what she will be fishing for?

The other thing we learned came from Louise Beard, who manages our local housing office. Louise is going to live in California for three years and she is going to be replaced by Hazel Grey who currently manages the Podsmead Housing Office.

We will have to talk with our friends from the Podsmead Tenants Association very soon!