Since the weather was so beautiful yesterday afternoon, I decided to sit outside and enjoy it. I should've been weeding the garden or mowing the lawn, but decided since the rainy season will soon start, I would just enjoy - except it's not always easy to do when you live in a city or suburbs, is it?
I find it amazing how little children who are only 3' tall and only weight 40-50 pounds can be so loud. The lungs on some of those kids, my word! Yesterday a three year old neighbour was emitting some weird whine that I found quite disturbing, so much so that I resisted the urge to yell "shut up" hoping that his throat would get sore or he would get tired of it. But no, he continued for about 10 minutes (it felt like an hour). His parents seemed completely oblivious. Another set of kids were playing on a trampoline and arguing as that group often does. If children learn from their parents then I suspect their parents must fight a lot!
I consider myself a fairly quiet neighbour but I'm sure that Eco's squeaky toy or her ball-in-the-pool game can be quite disturbing to others. And of course one neighbour's lawn mowing is never a convenient time for another is it? My mom used to lament (she still might, but I don't live with her anymore) about neighbours mowing the lawn during our dinner time. But really my dad might have mowed the lawn during someone else's dinner time - we just never know do we?
The give and take doesn't just include backyard sounds it includes street activities too - children riding bikes/skateboards/scooters up and down the road or playing in the street. I always find it
humourous when a little kid gives me the 'slow down' hand signal when I drive by, especially since I am doing about 5 kph past them and the speed limit for school zones is 30kph. They have no way of judging my speed, they have no idea how slow I am going, yet someone's taught them that they should tell cars to slow down.
Street parking is also included in the give-and-take and this is where I am at a disadvantage because I live at the 'bubble' part of a cul-de-sac and so the space in front of my house is only about 1 car length. My one neighbour has much more room, but has much more visitors and their guests have learned to park perpendicular to the street so they can fit about 6 cars in front of that house, however to back out of my driveway I have to go the long way around since those cars all stick out so far into the cul-de-sac. I don't own the road or the street, and it's not up to me to police it and who's going to listen anyways - as long as they don't block my driveway, there isn't much I can do about it is there? Even when they park in front of my house - that's just life with neighbours.
As I've long said, when you own a house you're like a sitting duck. And one should always be cautious of others who have a lot less to lose than you. Some people have loads of time to think of evil and devious ways to get even. I don't need that. It takes them less time and money to cause damage to my things that it does for me to fix and clean up. So I discourage the children from playing in my driveway, drive slowly down the street so I don't smoosh a kid and put up with other people parking in front of my house. It's all part of it. And then I can go back to sitting in my back yard dreaming of winning the lottery and buying a house with a big property so I don't have to be so near to my neighbours. Or moving to the back country, or buying an island, or ...
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