Happy Bank Holiday!
After a very quiet few months from me I’ve been feeling more
like putting pen to paper or should I say, tapping keyboard – not half so
romantic sounding.
I’m sitting here at the end of a perfect Bank Holiday. The weather has been fantastic and I’ve been
out with my family enjoying a visit to our local Naval Heritage Centre. By the
far the coolest exhibits where the utterly marvellous figureheads. They were
housed in a very unassuming workshop and were the very last display we were to
visit, which helped greatly to restore my fourteen year old's sons better
humour. It was great to stumble upon
these colourful slightly grotesque wooden ‘statues’ reaching perhaps five
metres high. The figure heads
traditionally stood at the bow of the ship and seemed to personify it. Some were mythical Gods such as Sybil and
others were royal replicas such as Queen Victoria and probably the most
ostentatious King William IV standing magnificent but almost hidden in the
corner. To me these wonderfully ornate
and characterful carvings are totally undersold. They are a fabulous part of
our maritime history and surely tourists
from across the world would flock to see them if they only knew they were
there!
It was great that the Bank Holiday weekend finished so well.
Things hadn’t looked so promising. On Friday I noticed that a neighbour opposite
was doing strange things to his wall. His corner property was surrounded by a high
brick, white plastered wall around two and a half metres. He had built a couple
of pillars at either end and I could see that he had decided that he wanted to create
similar pillars at regular intervals around the wall. He had marked out very
accurately where he wanted the pillars to stand around six or so and somehow he
was going to calve out and remove the bricks he didn’t need from the solid
wall, a difficult, probably long and dirty job. I wondered when he was
proposing to do this work? Nothing happened on Saturday great, sensible man.
Sunday morning began
with the sound of the buzz saw and this continued most of the day. My neighbour
who was closer to him wasn’t impressed!
Remarking at least we could be grateful that the wind wasn’t a westerly or the
dust would have been blowing across our houses and gardens. Yes, fine for us but
what about the poor neighbour who lived next door! The noise stopped around 5pm
and on my way out I noticed that he seemed to have managed to cut into the wall
and I guess loosened the squares to
create each pillar. He had got much further that I thought he would. A small consolation as I was pretty sure he
would continue again next day!
When I heard the saw start up again this morning I started
to feel very irritated! How could he not see that firstly, this was a
ridiculous idea and secondly that it was grossly unfair to subject the
neighbours to this terrible noise all weekend. Had any one complained? Was it
worth going over there now that he was already more than half way through the
job? Could I telephone and complain to the Council about noise pollution right
now! I knew we would be out for a good part of the day so it wouldn’t be too
bad but as we got ourselves organised I could hear the saw and then the bashing
as I imagined him knocking down the bits of wall he didn’t want. I mused that
what a shame he didn’t realise that while he would probably love his wall
because of all the extremely hard work he was putting in, all around him the
neighbours would hate it (and possibly him too!) Why hadn’t he thought through
the consequences of his actions on everyone around him? I felt him to be the sort of man who has some
good ideas (the rest of his house and garden were looking great) but also some
bad ideas. Not a problem in itself, I recognise that in myself. It’s only a problem if we decide to act on all
our ideas without discussing them and listening to feedback from other people.
I feel sure that if he hadn’t been so sure, that if he had shared his vision
with someone they would have said ‘Are you insane! You cannot be serious! This
is a stupid idea and you are going to p___ everyone off trying to achieve it!’
As we approached our car I noticed that it was covered in
the fine dust from his wall and I looked over I thought I might say something
to him. Then, when I looked over I actually felt sorry for him. His plan
hadn’t worked. The pillars that were left after all his sawing and bashing and
smashing were not strong enough and although one or two were still standing
most of the wall looked like someone had crashed into it! There were bricks and
rubble everywhere on the lawn, on the pavement and dust surrounded the carnage.
He was shovelling what was left of it into the back of his truck. I also
noticed a hot tub van drive away. Unfortunately the wall had shielded the patio
beautifully and provided a really good private space for him to relax in his
hot tub. Now he would be in full view of the pedestrians and cars which frequently
went by, oh and the buses.
I don’t think I had really wished him ill and as I said I
did feel sorry for him. I think I stood there staring, looking shocked and he
gave me a sad wave. Do you think it was possible that those neighbours in the
ten or so houses he was disturbing on this our first proper sunny, garden
enticing back holiday weekend, created so much negative energy that they
unwittingly made his wall fall down?
