Noise!

It’s over 6 weeks since I posted an entry!

Two days ago it was Advent Sunday so less than four weeks till Christmas. We received our first Christmas card at the beginning of November and that came from Canada! I have only just bought cards so I will have to get a move on.The weather is still mild, only had 2 light frosts. I still have lots of calendula in bloom in the garden and there is a geranium just outside the front door with a mass of deep pink buds. I’ve never seen them blooming so late in the year. . This time last year we had snow.

I have joined a writer’s circle run by the local carers support. I feel a bit of a fraud as I don’t think I am a carer now. Cat spends most of her time in Cardiff with her boyfriend only coming home for a few days now and then. She needs very little support from us now and is doing really well and living her life at last. I am so happy for her.

Perhaps it is ok as the wife of the other member of the writer’s circle has just gone into a care home so he isn’t really a carer anymore either! There are just the 2 of us and the lady who runs it at the moment, but we are trying hard to find more members. We have a theme to write about each month, a bit like here really! I actually wrote a short story on this month’s theme. I haven’t written one for ages.

Next month’s theme is noise and I shouldn’t have any problems writing about that. I live in the country but it’s the noisiest place I ever lived with the possible exception of Richmond which was under the Heathrow flight path! I like planes, though. I used to enjoy watching them flying over and dipping down into the sunset to land. Here it’s trains, which is ok as I like them too. I like to think about the places they are going to with their passengers, and I love the steam trains that occasionally go by. We also have low flying planes and helicopters as the SAS training camp is about a mile away. Don’t mind those either. The main road can be irritating but what really gets me down is the barking dogs.

Our puppy farming neighbour is still there and still getting away with it. He keeps 3 dogs at the bottom of his garden in little cages, The poor things only get to go out about once  week and they bark incessantly. This sets off our dog, which starts the dog next door, who is joined by the half dozen or so dogs on the end house. She is also a breeder, but she looks after her dogs properly and they are no trouble except when provoked by the ones in the sheds.

I feel really sorry for these dogs and we have tried everything – reasoning with him, calling RSPCA, complaining to Environmental Health, no one seems to care either about the dogs or those of us who have to listen to them.

Anyway, I think I know what my piece about noise will be!