Overload – Sun 18th Oct 2015
By Jeannette | October 18, 2015
I’d promised D a “onesie day” today, after her braving the elements and the anxieties that come with her watching T’s football game yesterday.
Well, we’ve had the onesie element but the wished-for relaxed element hasn’t been there, not at all.
We share a party wall in our semi-detached, one that is very thin. It’s made for sleepless nights over the years as karaoke and Gangnum style blared out til the small hours when they’d be entertaining and, what with alcohol being involved, any requests for a volume reduction weren’t listened to.
It got so bad that D would try and sleep with her head phones on and we’d have to keep our windows shut even in the summer as the shouts and shrieks from the garden that accompanied the booming music carried on and on.
I’d get this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, knowing that it was pointless going round, we’d learnt from experience that we’d either get sworn at or the music was so loud that they couldn’t hear knocking/the doorbell.
A small mercy that a mass of grandchildren were born and the music has been replaced by crying, shouting and screaming, but at least it usually has a cut-off and we all sleep better at night.
Today that familar feeling in my stomach came back as they started drilling into the wall from 9.30am (I guess we should be grateful it wasn’t earlier) but the walls must resemble emmental cheese as the drilling and subsequent hammering went on intermittently until about 2pm.
It’s naturally made the children very unsettled and D hasn’t wanted to go out as today equalled a onesie day and because of that, D was adamant she wasn’t going to change clothes.
It’s affected everything, from homework to attempting a peaceful day as, oh too often that drilling started up again.
They know that we have two children with autism, it never stops the “shut up’s” being shouted over if T and D are laughing on the trampoline, not that they do that very often as they get a bit wary of being in the garden if our neighbours are. I’ve put a tent-like cover all round and grown the buddleia, forsythia (I think that’s what it is, little yellow flowers in spring) and bamboo up to trampoline height and it still doesn’t help their anxiety levels.
We love our little semi, D was born here six weeks after we moved in, sometimes it feels like a bit of a money pit what with the boiler and other replacements but it’s ours – or it will be in 14 years when the mortgage is paid off!
I don’t profess to be perfect, no one is but what I have learnt through my children is tolerance, plenty of it. It’s a shame others can’t appreciate just how much their noise effects other people.
Rant over! A new day tomorrow Jx
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