I Won't Hold My Breath.

Thomas Bak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bak 

This afternoon was my long-awaited appeal against the decision of the Amsterdam City Council to refuse my application for air conditioning.

When my friend Anja, phoned the court last week Thursday they told her that  I could not be present via Skype or video because they were inadmissible in the Amsterdam court.

I was told that they would however phone me during the hearing and ask me questions.

When Anja was here last Thursday, I gave her letters from Janneke Stolwijk, the Rehabilitation Clinic doctor and from Milou Sloof, the nurse, who is looking after my open pressure sore scar.

As well as a statement from me listing all of my many problems with temperatures above 22°.

In my statement I explain that as our windows are from floor to ceiling and open inwards this means we cannot use sun blinds.

It also means we can't buy a separate air conditioning unit because we can't place it under the window and let the tube hang out of the window as you need to do.

I also explained that my problem is the air temperature and not sunshine, seeing as our apartment faces to the east and to the north it means that we only get sunshine up to 09.00 in the morning making sun awning redundant.

From lunchtime I was waiting quite apprehensively for the court to phone me, sadly they couldn't be bothered to keep their promise to phone and ask me any questions or hear my side of the story.

The hearing was at 14.40 this afternoon no one phoned me, until 15.20 when the phone rang and it was Anja to tell me it was all over and I would receive the court’s decision around 22nd of June.

While I have never had much chance of success, it was slightly disillusioning to hear my friend tell me that they only allowed her to read a tiny section of my statement, and they were still harping on that my problem would be solved with the use of sun awnings.

As if they would stop the heat of the air temperature which causes me all the problems in the summer.

Well who knows maybe the court officials will actually go away and read the documentation I provided and with an open mind make their judgement.

I won't hold my breath.