 |
 |
 |
 |
On May 20, all we seem to have is the year 2008. How distinctly odd! Well … D. wasn’t always snapping away with hundreds of photos a day. Sometimes he must have had to study or something. Maybe look for a new flat? On May 20, two years ago, we found what we thought would be a wonderful flat. It was in a converted church which had for years been a bookstore. Or had stored books. Or something. In any event, the place still had the stained glass windows, and it looked clean, and was quiet.
This was such a change from the Cranston Street flat that we leapt at the offer. We were so wrong about the silence, it’s not even funny. Not to be bitter about it all, but … well, if you don’t own your flat in the UK, you don’t really have much leverage when it comes to getting people to shut up.
Our neighbor downstairs was “studying to be a sound engineer,” which meant that he had massive speakers in his living room and would start to party when his girlfriend got home from working at the pub. So, come 4 a.m. and the party would start, the speakers would rock … and we’d call the police. They’d tell us to call some other public office, who would come out and measure the level of noise. They’d then ask – every single time – if we were the owners of the flat. When we said that, no, we were only renting, they’d apologize and say that there was nothing they could do.
Owning property makes you something special in the UK. So much for feudalism.