Anyway, the work soon went underway. I got involved in temporarily diverting the river away from Melodune whilst the spoil was dumped all over town. The re-landscaping plans were wayyyy above Tortimers depth so thats why I got involved. I thought everything was going great. Other villages protested due to the noisy dumper trucks working day in day out- including my dear Olivia. That was a sad sad day. She only said she was going on a short break to get away from it all. She invited me to join her, but by this point I was too heavily involved in the development and landscaping and had to decline. I haven't heard from her since, and that was 3 months ago.
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| Melodune station |
Unbeknownst to all of us, Tortimer couldn't deal with the finances very well, and we were running into HUGE amounts of debt.
The residents were forced out their homes to live in tents on top of the spoil- what would now be the new ground level. The trees were chopped down and saplings planted on the new ground level. The river path was landscaped to flow in a new direction which now avoids the railroad.
What was the top of the eastern wind break is now the new ground height of the entire town. Its quite nice as it reveals beautiful views overlooking the sea which wasn't there before.
Because every building was demolished and rebuilt, most of the commercial buildings were relocated just north of the railroad, apart from the Town hall which was rebuilt to the Southwestern side of town, as well as a new business called 'Re-Tail' which is sorta located near to where Nookingtons was. Talking of Tom Nook he decided to use this opportunity to sell his store to his sons. He then started up a new estate agency.
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| The new view overlooking the sea. |
It was upon completion of the renovations that the Town Hall had to pay up. Tortimer was so shocked when he realised how much he messed up the finances that he decided to take an early retirement.
It was decided that it became up to the residents to pay up, which nobody wanted to do. They had put up with enough from having to see their homes demolished and being forced into tents for a few nights whilst their new homes were being built on top of the spoil. This was their final straw and so everyone left overnight. Only those with businesses actually in the village itself were exempt from having to pay anything, so they all stayed. I came so very close to up and leaving myself, but then I realised that if I did, Olivia would never be able to find me.
I stayed. With the debt solely placed upon me I sold off all my possessions including my recently rebuild mansion which was taken down brick by brick. I took up Tortimers old position of Mayor and vowed to make this village prosper like it once did.
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| The newly planted Town Tree to commemorate being back in the black. |
Only just recently did people start coming back to live here. Nobody I used to know of course.
So thats the story. I'm writing this on a bit of loo roll in my tent. Its the first thing I bought since the town has come out of debt earlier on today. We celebrated by planting a new tree.
Overall hope is high for the old residents to return. Give them time. Hopefully they will forgive Tortimer and the bureaucracy and return. I have to hand it to old Tortimer, the vision he had for the re-landscaping project was really great and its only now really that I'm starting to appreciate it.
I'm still glad to be a citizen of Melodune, and happy with my decision to stay and help out the best way I could. The job isn't over however. I wont settle until everyone returns, including my beloved.
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| My tent. I used to live in a mansion. Well technically two. The original was directly underneath where I'm standing in this photograph, the second one was rebuilt here but was taken down to pay off a great chunk of the Villages' debt. |
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