the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I’ve written about the problems caused by others peoples noise on my sleep before now and even though I know its a first world problem, a first world problem is still a problem nonetheless and one that seems all the more problematic because there’s nothing I can do about it.

In my old house, the noise came from planes flying in the morning. Really early in the morning. The first one would be at four am, the second at five am and then every ninety seconds or so. With my insomnia, this was far from ideal, meaning that if I wasn’t fast asleep by the time that the planes started, I had no chance of sleep. Additionally, because there was no other noise so early in the morning, I could hear the planes long before they were overhead. And that in itself bothered me, the fact that the flightpath had been lowered, so the noise was even noisier.

Then nearly three years ago the landlords of my old house decided they wanted to take back possession of it, with predictable consequences for me. Fortunately, my good friend Nosferatu lives in a house with enough space to allow her to invite me to share with her.

Fandabbidosy.

The only downside to this offer was that she lives in a row of terraced houses in a part of North London, where it seems everyone either wants a loft conversion or an extension. And when they’re finished, immediately to sell it only for the new buyers to gut the entire property and start again. It’s like an endless game of whac a mole. A loft conversion is started and within a couple of weeks of it being finished an extension will be started at someone else’s house and when that’s finished, another couple of weeks will pass before work starts repairing someone’s roof and well, you get the idea.

The building work would start bang on 8am – the time that council legislation allows building work to start. Putting scaffolding up, knocking walls down, getting skips delivered, drilling, etc, etc. It was like being trapped in the film ‘Live. Die. Repeat.‘ as directed by Nick Knowles. I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

I was wrong.

It can always get worse.

Because at least the building work I’d hitherto had been incredibly annoying had at least been done by professionals, ones who knew what they were doing. By contrast, the neighbours opposite my bedroom window have thought to themselves ‘Hang on, didn’t that bloke build his own house with only YouTube tutorials as his guide. I assembled some IKEA furniture once so how difficult can it be to build an extension?’ With the zeal that only an enthusiastic amateur can have, they began in earnest only for that enthusiasm to wilt under the hot sun. In a way that a only a combination of blind optimism, a deluded estimation of one’s abilities and a misguided sense of the pollyanna’s can my make my life, never mind theirs, a bedevilment of of noise, they listlessly carry on. The dawning realisation finally sinking in, namely that professionals are called that for a reason, and that sometimes it’s better to throw money at a problem rather than creating loads of them. One hopes that they don’t accidentally electrocute themselves, or fall victim to some other DIY related fatality.

Although writing that, I’m aware that if no fatalities occur, that a trend might start, with the neighbours all attempting to out DIY each other with ever more elaborate structures. Then they can all proudly show off their magnificent erections.