It’s been quite a while now since we moved out of the flat we rented for nine years and into a house of our own – but for one reason or another we’re only just in the process of giving notice.
Today we were back there cleaning carpets and painting window frames – and we were reminded of exactly why we left.
Same killer motorway traffic a stone’s throw in every direction, same ghoulish upstairs neighbour looming randomly out of the shadows with her dog, same feeling of being under everyone else’s noses (partly, admittedly, because we have the curtains down for cleaning), same odd detritus of other people’s lives under your feet (discarded latex gloves in the car park tonight, close by where a couple can sometimes be seen sat in a car in the dead of night and where we once found a discarded condom wrapper – unsavoury thoughts follow inevitably).
But most of all, the same bloody moronic pounding thumping dance music through the walls and floors, like having your teeth drilled (trust me on this, I have a season ticket to the dentist at the moment), making you want to go downstairs, knock on their door, smile sweetly and say “excuse me, could you possibly turn your music down before I STUFF YOUR FEET UP YOUR NOSTRILS?”
And now I’m back home, at my desk in our office with a mug of hot tea, in the blissful uncrowded silence of the outskirts of an unassuming market town, thinking ‘ahhhhh… THIS is better’.
Which is probably why I’ve managed to write something again, five years and ten days since I first set up shop on DeadJournal.