Of this I dream
Not especially world peace, or an end to hate crimes, or coherent communities. These, I think, are all possible.
No, just the ability to sit at home and experience quiet. Sometimes it happens. At times it can be extraordinarily quiet, more beautiful than the most beautiful music. The smug Project Manager of the nearby site seems determined to impress upon me that the new development will act as a barrier to the noise from the South Circular, little understanding that South Circular noise never affects me. Before I even made an offer on the house I sat in the back graden, startled at how quiet it is considering its proximity to a major trunk road. If I happen to be up at five o'clock, not a frequent event, I notice the start of the rush hour. I once heard a car crash happen directly outside my house. And I hear sirens, from all over the neighbourhood. Heck, at night I even hear trains, and once in a while, when the wind is in the right direction and my windows are open, I hear the Town Hall clock. Situationally, it's only helicopters that I hear, and even then I generally miss the air ambulance landing outside.
Nah, my problem is what other people do. Five and a half days a week we have building noise. I have already made up my mind to hate everybody who moves into the yuppie flats on my doorsteps, and, especially Tesco.
We currently have the house at the back being decorated and DIY-ed. It's disconcerting to have a man standing in the back bedroom looking directly at where I'm sitting. (I'm not saying he is looking, he appears to be working hard, but I am in his sightline, unless i shut the curtain at 1 pm...hello SAD). And it's a bit noisy. But I have decided to be a bit wise about this one. It almost certainly means that the terrorist barbequers have departed (Woot! Yay!). Hopefully, the weekend working means that it now owner-occupiers rather than the noisy barbequers from hell.
So why live in the Inner City?
I don't think there's a great many places once can go and escape noise. I have lived in surburbia. Every Summer Sunday as a teenager was disturbed by the lunatic at the back hammering his pigeon coop at 8.30. For fifteen minutes. The weekend after I dislocated my shoulder was entirely disturbed by the obsessive lawn-mowing and hedge-cutting which even edges out carwashing as a Sunday morning occupation in Dullsville-on-Mersey. People in the country complain about cocks crowing, cricket on the village green and the smell of muck-spreading. No-one has a lawn to mow around here. The nearest village green is a couple of miles away, and, anyway full of dubious massage parlours. When we had a stables they bagged up their muck to be sold for gardening rather than spread it randomly. And I imagine most hen keepers are currently keeping them indoors.
I just feel I am being forced out of my house. And I am not happy about it.
