Sketchbook

My next door neighbour, Mr Insensitive of the Xmas lights debacle only managed to exceed himself for New Year"s Day..
I had gone to bed early on New Year's Eve, and was fast sleep when I was rudely awakened with a jolt at midnight by my bed shaking. My brain couldn't compute. I looked outside, he was doing a massive firework display. It went on and on for 15 mins without a break. It was worthy of a  Corporate event. These bungalows are literally within metres of each other and our back gardens are in the main only tiny, no bigger than twice the ground floor area of the bungalow.

I didn't know there was such a thing as strobe fireworks...now I do. 
Even though I looked away immediately i couldn't unsee what I had seen, and it messed with my eye optically for ages afterward. And it made me feel physically sick.

I couldn't get back to sleep. My body was in flight mode the rest of the night.

Later New Years Day I fell asleep for a few hours.
I wasn't wearing my cochlear processor. I never do when I am asleep.
When I got up mid afternoon, and went in the front room, I was shocked to see men in yellow fluorescent jackets in my front garden. They had been knocking or ringing the bell. I put my sound processor on and went outside.

The guy talking to me kept turning away as he was talking, even though I had explained I was deaf and needed him to face me in order for me to lip read. They looked a bit impatient with me, and didn't understand my deafness. So, I made it very clear to them, otherwise we were not going to be able to communicate, and I was still in shock with seeing men in yellow jackets   In my front garden, and I was still very tired from my neighbour's midnight explosions which rocked my bed. Now the guy speaking to me faced me as we were talking.

I couldn't lipread him at all initially because I need a clue into the conversation to begin with in order to understand and lipread. They didn't have any badges or obvious ID on their outer clothing. And I had only just woken up, after my nap, and was still very tired. Their large van/truck was white, no ID clues from that. They could have been talking in a totally foreign language for all I understood.

Then I saw that my drain cover was up in my front driveway, so I am thinking, 'blocked drains again'? But I haven't called anyone out...

Then my Mr Insensitive Xmas lights neighbour came towards me, and I was now able to get into what the yellow jacket man was talking about. I could now pick up some words and then work out the rest of it.

Yellow Jackets were employees of the waterboard.

My neighbour began talking to me in a fawning, obsequious, smarming, toadying way.  His drains (which join mine on my property, and my drains take away all his waste from his property, were blocked and backed up all the way up his toilet..I was sincerely hoping that it had overflowed). 

I looked at the waterboard employee who appeared to realise there were overtones or an undercurrent to this situation, between me and Mr Insensitive neighbour.

I unlocked the gate so they could access the manhole cover on my property where the Y junction is that takes his bathroom waste into my drains.  And my drains take it away. 

Whoever thought building shared drains for properties was a good idea should be.....

Then a short while later yellow jacket came to my window and mimed they had finished and were going.  But I told him to wait. I went to the kitchen door. My neighbour Mr Insensitive was on the other side of the breeze block wall, bent down, presumably to listen to what I had to say thinking he was unseen. 

I hadn't known what I was going to say to yellow jacket at that point. So, I asked him what was blocking the drains. Toilet paper yellow jacket said. Well I have something to tell you then I said. That toilet paper is not mine. I never put toilet paper nor wet wipes down the toilet, and they are put in a baby's nappy sack and put in the bathroom bin. Only the brown stuff and the yellow liquid stuff goes down the toilet. That is it, I said. And by the way, this is the third time in the last 3 months the waterboard has come out to unblock these blocked drains. Also, the waterboard rebuilt these drains on my side of the property twice in 2019. They promised me this would sort whatever the problem was, yet they have still blocked many times since.

Yellow jacket seemed to understand what I was implying but not saying. Neighbour Mr Insensitive was still crouched down behind the breeze block wall listening...

Yellow jacket went back to his van/truck, made a phone call, and the result of that was he came back on my property, opened up the drains again, he went back on Mr Insensitive's property, opened up his drains again. Mr Insensitive came rushing out, words were spoken, slightly heated and a bit of arm waving from Mr Insensitive. And Yellow jacket and his mates spent another 45 mins doing something with the drains. 

So I think something has been initiated, but I don't know what.

When I came in after all this I was completely drained. I had almost lost the will to live. It was like all my energy had been sucked out of me.  I didn't have a scrap left. Also I was going to have to clean and disinfect the toilet paper and waste that was in my passageway. And the bits of stuff remaining on my driveway. Also I had been clearing that area after the recent storms, and was recycling the damaged ornamaental fencing and the rest of it. But it was on the ground where the waste stuff from the overflowing drains was mixed in with it. So all my hard work has now gone to waste. And I have to get rid of it all. I did have the fleeting thought that the mangled soggy smelly toilet paper was next door's property and that I should return it to him.....

The waterboard did hose down, but as I said above, all the broken decorative fencing which was on the ground and I was recycling, the excrement and toilet paper was mixed in with it.

I had not opened the kitchen door since before Xmas, not been out, so I had no idea of the stink nor flooding waste out there.

And that is how my New Year has begun, not on a very auspicious note. And I have to shovel up and disinfect today...

Creative today.
Pen inks and water spray.

I might add something else to it later...
But I have not got out of bed yet...I am putting the day off...