Love / Hate

I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with Billericay - I love going over for the morning to search through the charity shops and buy a few tasty treats in Waitrose, but I absolutely hated living there. 

I think a lot of the problem was to do with the fact that we had a VERY unpleasant, if not somewhat deranged, next-door neighbour.  He was a man of limited stature and, very unkindly, I started referring to him as The Hobbitt.  The poor man was rather hard of hearing so always had his television at full blast - so loud in fact that we didn't have to bother having the sound on in our house if we happend to be watching the same programme!  Obviously he couldn't help being a bit deaf, but the blasting telly was not the only nuisance factor from him.  He appeared to have a collection of metal ladders which he used to get out of the garage and polish every weekend - I kid you not.  He was often to be found up a ladder too, tinkering with something or other on his house - usually right next to our windows - at some God-foresaken time on Saturdays or Sundays.  He was also a demon grass cutter and would tool-up (don knee pads, tool belt - sometimes two at a time, ear protectors, and a French Foreign Legion-style hat) on a ludicrously frequent basis and proceed to cut everybody's front lawns in the row of houses (they had open-plan style gardens), whether you wanted him outside your living room window or not.  When the spirit moved him, he would also proceed to cut the field grass on the patch of wasteland opposite the houses!!!!  Yes, an odd ball to say the least.  I was not at all upset when the landlord said he wanted us to move out as he was moving back in - rather him than me was what I thought!  We subsequently moved to the next town down the line and have been as happy as pigs in muck ever since.  Especially as now we've got the nicest next-door neighbours in the world.

Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, I had my fortnightly morning-out in Billericay today and thoroughly enjoyed myself as always (although I still tend to keep a weather-eye out in case I should encounter my ex next-door neighbour.)  Today I managed to find two large pieces of material which should make up into some nice spring / summer book bags.

They're certainly very 'loud and proud' prints, both in shades of mauve.  One piece was 65p and the other 45p.

I also found this charming little chap to add to my collection of Scottie dogs.  One day, when we're in a bigger house, I'll be able to get all of them out again.  I've even got a nice set of shelves to display them all on but that, and the majority of the Scotties, is packed away in the loft.

Billericay - you're such a nice little town, as long as I don't have to live there!!

Comments

[Heather]

Ah yes! The joys of Billericay, lovely town for shopping especially the charity shops which are normally quite good as I recall and I hope to get there myself soon, but with Basildon just down the road, well need I say more? I used to live there so do feel quite well qualified to comment!
I love the purple print fabric you found.

[Gill]

Ahh, neighbours, we've been pretty lucky with most of ours but did have a family living next door for a couple of years with the Mother from Hell. She was a nasty woman and treated her kids badly, thank goodness they moved on but it was a difficult time as we couldn't help but get involved to try and help those poor children. I find the idea of moving to the middle of nowhere very appealing these days!