uiet downstairs



The family downstairs has gone away on holiday. Where once the mother would take the child and they might be away for anything up to six months, now that the boy has started school that holiday pattern has been abruptly curtailed.

The mother has been working nights until this week but now she and the husband, the boy and the father’s best mate who also lives in our apartments and his wife ( sounds like the title of that film, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover or whatever it is called… ) are off to Thailand for four weeks. The mate and his wife will visit her folks, the downstairs couple and the boy will visit the boy’s grandparents and then they will all meet up to get together for the last few weeks at their favourite beach resort.

In the meantime I will have four weeks of absolute bliss while they are away. No more banging doors; sometimes I think they have some sort of door-banging competition going on downstairs, in which the three of them vie to see who can slam the most doors in their apartment in the shortest time.

Quiet rules, right now.