Sunday, January 23/2011

Disgracefully lazy day, with sun streaming in our open doors to the balcony and us lounging about after brunch with the Sunday paper and our books. No excitement until early evening when we smell - and then see - smoke. There's some noise outside and it proves to be coming from outside flat 401, where a there's a man looking slightly embarrassed (though not nearly ashamed as he ought considering the stench). He says that he burnt the cooking, so we assume that this can be translated as "I'm aware of the problem and the fire is now out." As an actual explanation, it's almost certainly inaccurate. Nothing organic - except perhaps rubber - burns with that ugly a smell.

Interestingly no alarm has been triggered - audibly at least. Do we have smoke detectors? So open all the windows and doors while leaving the heating on. Does a pretty good job of clearing everywhere but the bathroom, where smoke seems to have come in through vents running above the false ceiling and has no exit window.