Sorry. I know I’m a bit tardy with this post. I’ve been a bit, well, busy. Busy-ish. I couldn’t really tell you what I’ve been doing all this time, just living I guess. But you know how it is, things get in the way of writing sometimes.

Of course, they shouldn’t. When I gave up work I was determined I was going to write regularly, and start earning a bit through it if I possibly could. Well that hasn’t worked out has it? It started off ok, stories were flowing, rhymes formed in my mind in the way other people’s minds form intelligent thoughts. But then I started doing other things. Cooking. Sewing. Crochet (am I someone’s granny for goodness sake?) and now….THE GARDEN…

Well, to be fair, I’m not actually doing anything at all in my garden, but the landscapers are, and I find it very, well, distracting. Even though they are busy working, bricklaying, pulling up, digging down, doing other stuff with big tools, even though they’re not spending they’re time peering in my windows, (and no, they haven’t got their shirts off), it does feel like I’m living in a goldfish bowl. And they’re noisy. Drilling, banging, concrete mixing, radio playing, electric something or other using…always with the noise..

Hah! The noise. The neighbours are getting a bit of their own medicine. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they’re not that bad. They are nice people. A nice family. A nice family who are a lot richer than us. A nice family who’ve got a pool.

Have you any idea how noisy kids in a pool can be? They screech. They splash. They shout. It’s never just a couple of them either, always dozens (at least it sounds like dozens) and the pool is right alongside our boundary, so we hear it all in glorious surround sound. Well, we did. We now have fence. BIG fence. MAN fence. And we’re hoping that it will bounce the sound back their way a bit.

Did I mention they have a jacuzzi too.

You’d think that would be quieter. A grown up thingy. Well, it is a grown up thingy. They certainly use it in the (very) late evening/very early morning. We know ‘cos of the giggling and the chinking of glasses.

Now, I’ve never really wanted a jacuzzi. They make me wrinkly, and the chemicals make my eyes sore. However, I have always, always, wanted a pool. I love swimming. I love the feel of the water slinking over my skin as I pull myself through along using otherwise rarely used muscles. I love to float (floating is my special skill… once in Tobago I was floating in the sea and a tiny girl came up to me and said ‘how’d you do ‘dat? Did Jesus teach you do ‘dat? I had to answer honestly ‘not directly’) or dive under the water and experience the other worldliness of it all, even in the local leisure centre swimming pool (top tip, never wear goggles in a municipal pool, it’s quite revolting what you can see in there). And I have been swimming there weekly for a while. For once using old age to my advantage. You see, they have an ‘over 50’s’ session, where everyone is wrinkly and odd shaped, everyone swims sensibly up and down, and no-one shouts. Almost perfect, but still not as good as having your own pool.

The irony is, that our garden is plenty big enough for a modest pool. And the amount the make-over is costing us would easily be enough to get one installed. Hang on a tick…just going to tell them to stop…Stop what they’re doing..what they’ve been doing for the last three weeks, stop with the landscaping, the bricklaying, the deforestation…stop….put me in a pool instead..!!

Nah, not going to happen is it.