Potty

Okay. For the year and a half we have been living here, we have endured the hell of eleven houses being built next to us. We knew this was going on when we moved in, but figured we'd survive. I did not realize the construction would be going on for so long. These houses are SPECIAL. The people who buy them are SPECIAL. We live in a heritage house in a sweet old village founded in 1905. Somebody managed to get a hunk of land out of the agricultural land reserve, and got approval to stuff (and I do mean STUFF; these lots are teeny!) eleven houses on the piece of land next to us.

Granted, the houses are quite nice-looking. They will soon all have white picket fences. However, too many 2200 - 2400 SF homes are crammed in here. And people with children are buying them. People with children who like to play outside. Children who need a big garden to play in. Not a postage-stamp size lot.

A couple of the lots are bigger than others, but mainly they are really really small. Three houses run the length of our entire backyard (we have 1/4 acre.)

Now, trampolines are HIGHLY popular in Anusford. One of the new homes in this subdivision has one shoehorned into its backyard, but it is so big it actually extends out into the alley behind the house, impeding traffic. When I saw that one, I said (before the houses next to us were finished), "You watch, honey, every one of those three houses next to us is going to have a trampoline in its backyard, with kids jumping up well above the height of our fence." "Pshaw!" said my honey, or something to that effect.

Now the first of those three homes is occupied. Lovely people! But what did they stick in their back yard? A TRAMPOLINE! We endured a couple of weeks of the kids bouncing and screeching outside our bedroom window, occasionally until 11:00 pm. But then this week, the trampoline miraculously moved to their side yard (which is a gazillion times the size of their back yard.) Now it's next to our parking pad, hallelujah, and I hope it stays there. Well, really, I hope it disappears in a mysterious act of arson, but...

Here's my disclaimer: I do not hate kids. I really like kids! We volunteer as a Big Couple for Big Brothers and Sisters. I don't begrudge them their trampoline. BUT IT'S UUUUUGLY! UGLY! UGLY! And it's NOISY NOISY NOISY! Apparently, when kids get on trampolines, they scream for the sake of screaming. I mean long, loud, unintelligble screams, in fact, more like screaming contests!

It's okay though. The trampoline was the straw that broke my honey's back and made him realize that yes, we now live in suburbia (something we swore never to do). He is determined to move next year, to our dream acreage in the country. For that, I have the trampoline to thank.

Less attractive than the trampoline is the Porta-potty that has been sitting jauntily next to our fence (down the right) lo these many months. Some days I get a nice whiff of construction-worker pee-pee, aged to fine perfection. They do pump it regularly, but it's not always soon enough.

The cute little white roof can be seen from our yard, a vision at the top of our fence.

There are many construction wonders around here. Just this morning, a dump truck unhitched its pup-trailer right in front of my house and scared the crap out of me before I'd had my second cup of tea.

So there you go. I live in a quaint heritage village surrounded by farms surrounded by unbelievably ugly suburbia (clear-cut those mountains!) We get many interesting farm smells on a regular basis (mostly chicken manure), blueberry cannons in July and August (to scare off the birds who dare eat the blueberry crop), Westjet planes preparing for landing over our roof a few times a week (that didn't start up until THIS year), helicopters from the helicopter school, rich wanker teenage boys in Honda Civics who drag race up Wright Street in the middle of the night (village speed bump be damned!), endless construction noise (I've decided those Bobcats with the reverse beepers are the worst) and did I mention the trampolines? For this I left oceanfront in Nova Scotia. I am not bitter, I am not bitter. No, not meeeeeeeee!