Small

Once upon a time, when our first child was a tiny baby, we lived in a very popular holiday village. In summer and on bank holidays it was extremely busy and very noisy at night. We had little privacy and no peace. I nearly went mad with tiredness and stress. Young people on holiday don't want to think about neighbours, rules, early mornings. They want to be free, have fun, hang out on the streets at 3am, yelling at their mates and taking a piss when and where they feel like it. That sort of stuff suddenly bothers you when you become a parent. You feel the need to nestle with your young and keep them safe. You also value your sleep more than almost anything else. Looking back, I feel sure I was close to a nervous breakdown - if not in the middle of one - for years.

Eventually we were able to move to a house 3 miles away, surrounded by farmland. By then we'd had our second child and I was a permanent, full time mum for a while (sorry - bad choice of words).. It was the peace we needed for a young family. But after 7 years and another child, it became clear that the children needed to be back near their school friends and a bus stop and have access to their interests. Peace and mum were no longer enough.

So we moved back nearer to the action. This time we were really lucky to find a place in between the 2: near a bus stop, near the school, but backing onto fields and 2 miles away from the busy village where we'd lived before. In the field behind our house were 2 horses. Our neighbours were quiet. We spent 6 years making the house our home and getting settled. We created the safe, quiet, enclosed space and sanctuary that has always been essential to my sanity. The greatest annoyances were cats, badgers, the odd noisy driver, bonfires and strimmers. Mostly I didn't need to think about my neighbourhood. It was just there. The only nosey neighbours who could look down into our garden were the horses and the odd tractor.

Then we found out the farm that owned all the land behind our house was for sale. As the field was rented, the horses would have to go. We wanted to buy the field with the horses so the owners could keep their horses there, but we couldn't afford it.

Now the field is used as an unofficial carpark. People turn up and I don't know who they are or what they are doing. The owners of the land host weddings without telling us. They use the lane that we are responsible for the upkeep of without discussing it with us and I've found myself getting increasingly anxious. There can be weeks or months of peace and then suddenly, there's a sign plonked into the ground without a by your leave outside our house (on our patch) saying carpark this way.

Recently I found out third hand via Facebook (well, Richard's Facebook account) that there's a 12 hour music festival tonight and the field behind our house is the carpark. Not a word to us about it.

This isn't what we moved to. This isn't my sanctuary anymore.

I feel like I don't matter.