July 02, 2003

Purgatory

Being Orthodox, I'm not supposed to believe in Purgatory. Now I'm convinced the Catholics were right after all. The only bit they got wrong was the time and place. It doesn't occur after death and it is located on this housing estate.

Last night while I was trying to get Aidie to sleep, some boys who should be old enough to know that they have no future in professional football were either using his wall as goal or had a very difficult time keeping the ball in bounds. Every time he would start to drift off, the ball would slam against the wall and he would wake up again.

Fortunately he didn't wake up a couple of hours later when somebody decided to let off firecrackers. It sounded like gunfire. It may have been gunfire, but I'm just going to assume for my own peace of mind that it was firecrackers.

Then our upstairs neighbours were entertaining until the wee hours. As I was laying in bed, I could hear almost every word they were saying when the music was between tracks. After their friends left, they were stomping through the flat in their usual manner. In fact, we've never learned the name of the woman. We've always just called her Stompy.

Other neighbours were going in and out of building, letting the doors slam over and over. At one point several of them were outside slamming car doors racing their engines.

It finally got quiet sometime before 4:00 am.

It's not hell, because it didn't go on forever -- it just seemed like it.

Posted by david at July 2, 2003 09:43 PM
Comments

Uhmmm, why firecrackers? They do realize that we Yanks won the war don't they? *wink*

Posted by: Karl Thienes at July 2, 2003 10:48 PM

In this neighbourhood, I wasn't about to go out after dark and ask!

Posted by: David Holford at July 2, 2003 11:07 PM