A while ago I kept banging on about the Pixies, since when I don't think I've mentioned music much. One of the things that gets me to put a cd* on is to drown out the awareness of the low-level noise coming from our neighbours. The random amateur carpentry games their 4 year old plays, the accelerating vocalisms of their baby. Not the shouty lady who rants at her husband, who we recently discovered has taken to peppering his gujarati with "fuck off". 50 years in this country, and the local dialect is rubbing off on him... No, we are blessed not only to live in a terrace, but one in which the party walls** on either side are Very Thin. So I'm listening to Think Tank, the massively vermillion-fabric'd cd Blur did about 9 years back. Damon Albarn and Kristin Hersh's voices are always good to re-tilt the axis in a mad day...
Because it has been one of those. Back in the swing of the World of Work, with a morning where the recent training actually came in useful in a fairly heavy situation, and where I'd got the 14 year old off to school. By bus for the first time. All good so far. And then his school sent an automated text that he'd got a detention to do that lunchtime... no explanation. And possibly the best way to ensure his continued enthusiasm to attend, with a less than 50% attendance so far this month.
No one at the end of the phone knew anymore than it was for "failing to follow instructions". Yes, that's why he's not been at school for the past year, etc, etc, and why he's under their monitoring... By now already late for the afternoon session I was working in, I got hold of someone who was able to tell me he'd walked out of school 2 hours previously. Although fairly confident his homing instinct, and desire for a quiet spot with his computer, would guarantee he'd be at home, I excused myself and went straight home to see what was what. After which I calmed myself down by catching the tail end of a programme about the coachload of ballroom dancers who'd been called in to be in the Magical Mystery Tour film.
* Too old to be trained to use an iPod. That's for when I'm 80. And I usually forget about 6Music.
** To non-Brit readers, that's a technical term for the bricks 'twixt you and the neighbours. Not a wall covered in lurex, Twister mats and balloons.
8 comments:
Love the Pixies! We call it a party wall too,but I like the idea of it being covered in lurex,Twister mats and balloons so much better!
Hope your 14 yr old got himself home ok! So glad not to have to deal with teenagers,must be stressful!:)
They text about detentions? Lunch-time detentions? It's another world. Hope everything worked out okay!
Helga -I had this vision having teenagers would be like living at Peel Acres; a big music-filled commune of their mates dropping by all the time... I was a teenager-from-hell so I should've expected the glitches - must be in the genes! x
Mr H - I know, its bonkers - they also text to say he's not there when he is; stupid electronic registers and SMS. It was only for not having a p.e. kit and then quite rightly declining to borrow a sweaty, moth-eaten school kit. I'm booking myself in for botox - getting new lines by the week ;) x
Notification by text? Good god, times are definitely a changing.
Hope your son's doing okay and that he's inherited his mother's splendid musical tastes. x
Vix - they are indeed. I'm having issues that the texts are getting sent out without any apparent human knowledge... Yeah, he's happy enough; hates all this intervention that's going on though. ha ha - you should hear what I play that I don't blog about - I have a Lynsey de Paul cd!!! They both hate all the music I have - its "old" stuff - but I'm going to win them over one day ;) x
Heh, love your vision of the party wall. If it's any consolation - not sure why it would be, but hey - my 3 year old had his first HOUR at nursery school today and informed me he'd been 'telled off by the teachers' for singing. I have a feeling he's using 'singing' to mean making a god awful racket with musical instruments. Only 15 more years of school to go...
Lakota that's classic - awwww bless him! x
I can totally understand the noise through the wall - I live in a terrace and one neighbour has a terrible habit of having karaoke parties -yuck! Scarlett x
Post a Comment