One Day One World Project: 06:00 – 07:00

I haven’t done well with the project during the early hours, and I am a week late with this time slot, but last weekend I was called in to look after my three English grandchildren whilst their mother (my daughter) was whisked off to Bruges for a romantic weekend. Whilst there the opportunity for a post for the project presented itself when I was rudely awakened between the hours of 6 – 7 am due to three factors:

  1. Aircraft – my daughter lives on one of the flight-paths to/from Heathrow. Fortunately it is not one of the busiest flight-paths and the planes are still quite high at this stage. But when you are not used to this it is quite noticeable.
  2. The not-quite son-in-law’s alarm clock. Set to 6:15 am so even if I could ignore the planes, the incessant buzzing of the alarm pulled me from the depths of sleep. No matter what buttons I pressed I could NOT stop that damn alarm from operating.
  3. Birds. Not just any birds. My daughter’s neighbour runs his own zoo. Or at least it seems like it. In addition to the chickens he has always kept, there are now white fan-tail doves coo-cooing away and an aviary containing cockatiels, parakeets and other screeching, squawking flying objects that start their day around 6:45 am.

Because it was warm and I always like fresh air, the bedroom windows were open. On Saturday and Sunday though, when the alarm went off I got up and closed the windows so that the noisy bird squawks were slightly dulled, so I suppose the alarm was useful in one respect. As for the children. No problem.

Cockatiel-Rico-001
By Bensem51 (Own work (own photo)) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
When the happy pair returned I was asked whether I’d be willing to child-mind again – “of course”, says I nonchalantly, “once you have moved.”

Do you have any noisy neighbours?

Lisa of the blog NorthWest Frame of Mind has decided to run a different project over the next 24 weeks. To try to show what is happening in different parts of the world (if you all join in) at a particular time of day. If you would like to participate you have until next Saturday midnight to post a photo or write about what is happening in your part of the world.   This week is between 06:00 – 07:00.  I hope you’ll join in! See links for more details.

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Heyjude

I have lived in the UK for most of my life, but when young I definitely had wanderlust and even ended up living in South Africa for several years which was a wonderful experience. I now look forward to a long and leisurely retirement doing what I like most - gardening, photography, walking and travelling.

60 thoughts on “One Day One World Project: 06:00 – 07:00”

  1. We had some crows that made horrible cawing sounds at first light. I had dreams of hitting them with a tennis racket. I am not a violent person and don’t own a tennis racket?

  2. Ster-ewth, Jude ! – am glad you made your position clear. While they COULD turn off the alarm-clock another time, that’s all.
    It’s perfectly true one can adjust to noises external, but only after some time. Yer a saint, woman ! 🙂

    1. I was able to shut it off once it alarmed, but for the life of me couldn’t manage to stop the alarm from sounding. Now if only those birds had an OFF switch…

    1. Yes, well, one good thing about it is that it gave me an amusing post for the project. It felt like a looong weekend though…

  4. We’ve got an alarm clock like that. As we are both usually awake before it, I can’t see the point in keeping it, but it’s one of those things … We are fortunate to have lovely quiet neighbours, don’t live on a flight path (although we used to – eventually it becomes white noise) and have absolutely no squawking birds – only twittering quietly ones.

    1. I love the sound of twittering birds, a gentle sound to wake up to. Oh, and I didn’t mention his water feature did I? How could I have forgotten that!

  5. Ahh…now I know why you had cockatiels on your mind Jude o_O One thing I can say about our menageries is they were quiet (well, except when we had chickens but we lived in a tiny town in rural California). Those squawking birds would have annoyed me too. We have the neighbour’s barking dogs still to contend with. Left alone all day and bark the minute I step outside. One squeals like a stuck pig, never heard such a noise from a dog, most peculiar. Glad you had a lovely time with your grandchildren though, forgetting all the rest 🙂 xx

    1. My neighbour here has a dog that barks whenever his master leaves him. The dog is totally attached to him. It’s a very old dog though, so probably hasn’t much life left and he is an old softie… but when he howls and barks for hours on end I want to strangle him!! I wonder if I am getting less tolerant to noise as I get older?

  6. They do say you get used to the sound of the planes but I think you should take ear-plugs with you next time Jude.

        1. Cornwall then. Lostwithiel is a nice village with shops! And a good music pub. And a station (rare). I have always liked the name – has a Lord of the Rings sound 🙂

        2. Saw a nice house there. Should go have a look then! It’s not far from the coast and more accessible to the rest of the country than deepest Cornwall.

  8. Sounds like a very ‘loud’ time away. Yikes! I read in the comments of the suggestion of ear plugs. I definitely travel with several pairs. 🙂

  9. when I first started reading I thought it was going to be much different – and I was chuckling pretty good by the time I read number three – and what a fun share for this early morning hour – and whew – I know how loud birds can be – not all (as you note) but sounds like that neighbor has a lot going on –

    anyhow, have a great day –

    1. He certainly has a menagerie! And I never even mentioned the water feature that sounds as though it is raining all night long!

  10. We don’t have particularly noisy neighbours, we just live on a road that can sometimes be noisy late at night (cars on their way home from the local sports club, or technical vehicles which have been parked at the same sports club for a base for filming). I sympathise about the alarm clock – Mr Decisive sometimes gets up before his alarm goes off at 6.15, forgetting to switch the alarm off, and I struggle to find the off button!

    1. Where I live now it is very quiet at night. No traffic, rarely any sirens, no people, so I am unused to night sounds, other than the occasional owl!

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