A Quiet Night In

          My house is filled with homely chaos. There’s usually a mix of human activity and busy domestic appliances. Loud music, TV and Xbox create a mish-mash of noise from different rooms on different floors. Voices are raised to be heard and often the dog joins in. It sounds like elephants running down the stairs and the attic door slams because the skylight is open. Raucous laughter erupting from above reminds me that it’s also happy chaos.

          Quiet times are rare and cherished. This was going to be one of those evenings. The loudest occupant and her non-stop chattering friend had gone out. The less noisy one was alone in his room. My husband and I turned the lights down and snuggled cosy for catch-up TV. Can we really have a peaceful night in? No. I was just peeling the wrapper off my second Ferrero Rocher, saved from last week’s birthday, when it started. I love parties, but only when I’m at one, not when the racket filters through from four houses down and I’m trying to relax. They are an odd bunch. We call them The Scrappies because of the broken bits of dead car rusting away on their drive. Oh well, up goes the volume on our TV. Some friends arrive for our son and stampede up to the attic, beer cans clanging. One of them has an irritating, snorting laugh. I try to ignore it and eat another chocolate.

          By the time we’re going to bed, the party in the attic is rocking. There’s reassuring promises that everyone will be leaving soon. They’re just running through some tunes. The bluesy guitar riffs are alright turned down but someone’s messing up on keyboard, over and over again in the same place. I lie still for a few seconds, practising the ‘tolerance’ and ‘restraint’ skills I’ve been working on before telling them all to shut up. They troop out soon after, but the party down the road continues, half indoors and half out. Someone’s shouting, someone’s swearing, everyone’s laughing.

          I drift off into a restless doze. It’s not long until something wakes me.

          Mr Movember is flat on his back and snoring, undisturbed by the helicopter droning overhead. I finger-stab him in the ribs, hissing a suggestion that he should turn on to his side…or else.

          A quiet evening in this madhouse?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bless you, Enid Blyton!

     

 

       I’m overjoyed to be given a Kindle for my birthday. I’ve wanted one for ages so I’m delighted that all my dropped hints landed in the right place. It won’t replace my books, it’s a modern addition. Nothing can take the place of reading. Well, okay, writing can, but good writing is built on a foundation of lots of reading.

       When I was seven, my family moved house and in the new place was a box of old children’s books ‘for the little girl’. What treasure that box held for me! There was a book about ballet, a girl’s annual that introduced me to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, some junior encyclopaedias and a stack of hard-back books by someone called Enid Blyton.  Looking at the beginning of a ‘Secret Seven’ book, I discovered that not only could I read and understand it, I loved it. The story was about children playing and having fun making up their own games. Children like me and the friends I had in my new school.  It was tons better than ‘Janet and John’ or ‘The Green Reader’. Throughout my childhood I read and re-read Enid Blyton. I would reach the end of ‘The Rilloby Fair Mystery’ and go right back to Chapter One and start again because I loved the characters so much. I couldn’t get enough of The Famous Five books and all ‘The Mystery of…’ stories. When I read the school stories of Malory Towers or St Clare’s, I longed to be at boarding school with those girls.

       All this reading did something else. It gave me the desire to create characters and write my own stories. Bless you, Enid Blyton!  I’ve kept those old books, but I’m going to enjoy reading you on my Kindle.