Now those that know me will be aware of my tuneful nature, in the car, in the shower, in my sleep and of course...singstar!!!

So it was no surprise when weekend before last myself, D and my visiting singing buddies, H and Joe, decided to exercise our vodka lubricated vocal chords on a saturday night. It was the night the clocks went forward to welcome in the good weather and we packed up about 1.30am BST after a jolly raucus time and actually managing to get D to sing and enjoy it!!! 

It wasn't until returning from a funeral on Monday that we were confronted with our nextdoor neighbour without his glasses and swaggering like he was hard!!! He called D over...'NO MORE!!!'  he said. Being the more diplomatic of the two of us I saw my opportunity and struck up a conversation with Mr. NDN about our saturday night soiree.

He asked me if we were aware that his wife had given birth on friday night...to which I said 'No because you didn't inform us!'

I offered my congratulations and apologies for saturday night, saying that if we had known, even the thought of Singstar would have been abolished.

He then informed me that he had rang the police, who refused to take action and informed the council who will be contacting us as well as setting up a decimeter to measure the noise we make and that he would be keeping a diary in future of our din.

At which point I reminded him that the singstar occured about three to four times a year when we had visitors and that was the any use in a decimeter in this case? I also explained that I felt upset that he had sullied my name with the Local Authourities for such a minor matter when he could have quite easily knocked on the door at which point we would have apologised and turned the offending pollution off!!! 

His reply was that we were basically drink and drug fuelled knife wielding maniacs and he would fear for his life and his freedom if he were to knock on our door that night...AND Mrs. NDN had looked in the alley and seen half a dozen cars so there must have been at least a dozen of us in there...far to dangerous for him to attempt setting foot on our path!!!

I informed him that we were not drug takers and how dare he sully our name and although we liked to drink in the privacy of our own home with our friends and really took the time to avoid confrontation as much as possible. I was upset that he felt this way after eighteen months of neighbourly banter over the fence and as for the amount of people?...I looked quizzical and pointed out that there may have been six cars but there were only four of us.

At which point he looked confused also, so I pointed out the kite flying overhead (beautiful birds) and I explained that I must prepare for work as we had just been to a funeral. (nice change of subject!!!)

He apologised for the confrontation at such a time but he wasn't aware.

I said, 'exactly...'

So the question is do we bow to the council and our extreme neighbours as if the new arrival was our own and living in our abode...after all, we can't be THAT loud...or do we try for the ASBO!!!!