My Home

My Home

This is my home; I have been here all thirty three years of my life. It was my father’s home before me and his father’s before him. This home belongs to my family.

My home is situated, as is normal for most urban dwellings, on a street. The street is where the problems start. The neighbours also have homes and they live differently than we do.

Next door they play their music too loud, the truth is that I play music loud from time to time as well but at least I let good music blast out through my walls and windows. Their music is all tuneless, beat-led and awful. They have a cat too. Cats do not respect borders, fence defined or herbaceous.

Next door - the other side - has a lot of barbeques in the summer but they always seem to do it when the wind is blowing the smoke towards my house and garden. Then in autumn the barbeque is put away and Brian starts burning the leaves from their big trees that block out the sun from my garden all summer. Actually half the leaves fall in my garden as well so all autumn there is a steady stream of smoke and leaves floating over the fence.

Still the smoke isn’t as smelly as the compost heap over the back fence. The house over there is owned by an old widow who is a keen gardener. What a stench from the fermenting grass clippings and other organic waste. I stay away from the part of the garden nearest the fence all summer, except to cut the grass. I have now positioned my own compost bin in line with hers to contain the combined stench to one area.

The house across the road has many cars, one for each family member. The cars are lined up along the curb blocking the flow of traffic and filling the view from our front room. They don’t line their wheelie bin up nicely at the roadside on a Wednesday like the other neighbours do. Perhaps the worst impact they have on this otherwise eye pleasing neighbourhood is the front garden of their house. They let the plants and grass grow a little wild for my liking. Their flowers are not carefully regimented like mine, instead they have created what they probably believe to be a more natural or freeform look with large bushes and randomly spaced leafy plants of various species. I like the gardens in a street to show harmony, to look like they are one garden shared by all.

Still, at least the house opposite hasn’t seen fit to paint both their front and garage doors in a lurid purple. Number seven probably think their aubergine entranceways are rather fetching; I can confirm that they are not.

The neighbours just don’t seem to appreciate that my family was here first, so things should be done to our liking. If you do not like that, you should strongly reconsider coming to live on my street.

There’s that blasted music from next door again. I turn up the television to drown it out. It’s The News, a war is underway somewhere hot, and protestors are standing at Dover showing their dissent for the number of immigrants travelling in from mainland Europe and beyond. Why can’t people just get along?

The End