So it happened. Here I am.
Went through the usual sad rigmarole last night: dinner before 6pm, throw my backpack and modem in the car and get out quickly (in case the neighbours turn up early), then to wherever (this time the car park near the river) to wait it out until 9.30pm, then do the drive past. The usual Friday Threat Friday routine.
After 9.30pm if the neighbours – who bring turn the area into an industrial zone – haven’t turned up then I stop and unpack the doona and sleep in the garden shed.
This time, last night: there they were. The car there. The light on.
So I couldn’t stop, couldn’t stay in the place I pay rent for, and spent the night in the rest area next to the highway, which is my usual place to stay when they’re down. Pretty cranky about it – what a competent ‘manager’ who runs the place is, right?
And woke to this:
It was a bit chilly. Later, this:
What to do now? Have to vote in local council elections today. Then I try to do something positive for the day, then back here this afternoon to put dinner on at 4pm, the usual blood-sugar management time, and stay the night again.
From experience, the hard part is waking on Sunday morning knowing they’ll go back home (hoping) and sitting it out until say 11am before being able to go back into the garden shed.
They will not defeat me, I am in the right legally and morally but they do not know, the kid ‘manager’ is worse, and I could either take them to the Tribunal or just put up with it and keep the peace. For now, I’m for peace.
UPDATE Sunday 15th Sept. ’24
Just so happened it rained while I was living in the highway rest area:
That’s the view roughly in the same direction, through the van’s window. Howler of a Southerly. And freezing. I like using the little camping gas cooker outdoors, but had to use it in the van.
In the morning, this morning, I took this photo through the same window. I like it because it looks like an Impressionist painting:
And then a bit later the morning light showed up the freshened view in that direction:
Then the arduous wait until I felt it was safe to go back to the garden shed, when the neighbour is almost certain to have gone home. This is a terrible period, every Sunday morning when it happens, because if I turn up and the neighbour is there and he reports to the kid ‘manager’, or if the kid ‘manager’ is there anyway, I could get questioned for being away and making the neighbour feel bad. Thus, it would be my fault and another strike against me, which this time would be close to eviction. I’m not kidding. I get the blame for providing the solution to the neighbour’s illegal and immoral activity. That’s the mentality here.
But as it is, I left the above spot at 11am and drove back ready to meet a problem just in case. And found the neighbour had gone! Absolutely fantastic.
Forced out and healthy and safe to be back again.