Inconsiderate Neighbours

I'd like to think I'm pretty accepting of most people and things and I go by the philosophy that as long as it does not hurt anybody else or break the law then people should for the most part be allowed to do what they like. Most of the time this philosophy is completely sound and whilst I have encountered a fair number of inconsiderate people in my life thus far, I have found nothing to make me want to revise this view of the world. Moving to Sweden has not affected it much as whilst people tend to be less polite over here, they also tend to keep themselves to themselves, something that I have the upmost respect for. However, I have now started to see a completely different side of the country; the Swedish Summer party.

I should probably point out that as I write this I am probably not in the best of moods. I am on about my fourth cup of coffee and my eyes seem still to want to be gelled shut. I got about four hours sleep last night, partially because the weather has decided to turn that horrible combination of hot and sticky that I vehemently dislike (why can't we have the heat without the horrible sweaty feeling?) and partially because one of our neighbours decided to have a very loud garden party till around four in the morning. It was somewhere around two o'clock in the morning and the fifth rendition of Dolly Parton's 'Working Nine to Five' that I started thinking that sleep would be an impossibility. I'd even resorted to ear plugs for the first time in my life but to no avail, the music (it was a live band) was still pretty loud with them even with a closed window (dangerous with the sticky heat) so I remained hot, sticky  and very very awake.

Now I respect people's need to have parties, I honestly do, but did it have to carry on being that loud until that early in the morning even if it was on a weekend? Another one of our neighbours had a party a couple of weeks back and they managed to make it quieter and this was a bunch of teenagers, so why could these teenagers show the respect that these adults seemingly couldn't? When you live in quite a closely packed suburban area, even though the houses are well insulated and the windows double glazed, even they are not going to withstand such an onslaught of sound. I've only ever been involved in a garden party that was that raucous that late once, and when it started approaching two in the morning we were told in no uncertain terms to shut the hell up.

Not wishing to sound like too much of a moany old man (although I have probably failed in that regard already) I should point out that I can cope with a sleepless night now and again, though perhaps this is not particularly pleasant for my family. I'm hoping that this particular neighbour will refrain from having such loud garden parties again this summer, but there are a fair few houses on our street, and if each of them decided to have loud garden parties then it is going to be a very sleepless summer indeed. Maybe I should start bringing the heavy metal out and start playing it very loudly...

To be fair I have had very few gripes so far with either Sweden or where I currently live, but it seems more than a little weird that a country that is less forgiving than England should have allowed this party without at least one person knocking on their door and complaining. Anyhoo, time for me to stop complaining, get another cup of coffee and mumble into that instead.

För att läsa detta på svenska tryck här