Maybe I'm not as nice as I think I am.... The Fairy Light incident of 2016.

I have a confession to make... Maybe I'm not as nice as I like to think I am. You see I am in the middle of a war with my neighbour. Over a string of fairy lights. Yes you heard. A SINGLE STRING OF FAIRY LIGHTS.

This is not what my house looked like. Although you would have thought it.

Let me start at the beginning.

1. I am not a neighbourly person. I will be polite but I am happy to smile and say hello when we make eye contact, but I don't want to have to chat every time I walk out the door. Sometimes I don't want to talk. I want to be able to be outside my house and not have to get involved in a conversation about nothing.

2. Considering my hate of being neighbourly I have a kazillion neighbours, one lot behind who are Irish and fab (we smile and wave), an ex bikie on the other (name Spider and he is a delight- the only time we have talked this year was when he told me I needed to put trace elements on my lemon tree. He was correct), a rental across the road which is currently empty after the happiest refugees in the world moved out, and block of 4 units also across the road (lovely wavey relationship with the lady whose name I don't remember. It has gone past the point of being able to say I don't know her name. The lady at the shop who overheard me telling my friend suggested I go through her mail.) and the crazy lady next door. I will call her Crazy.

3.This is about Crazy. We have a history. I have lived in my house since 2004. Her mum lived there for years. She lived there when she was young. She feels she owns the street. She does not. 

4. She is "hard work". She is a complainer. Like all the freakin time. About everything. She is the sort of person that will ring the council if the builders start working 5 minutes early. She parks her car on her dead verge so no one can park there. I shit you not. I have always been polite because that's how I was raised. I smile, I never complain back. I might bitch a but and encourage my dogs to poop on her dead verge- but never complain.

And then there was the incident I like to call "THE GREAT FAIRY LIGHT GATE"

I put up a string of fairy lights as my token Christmas spirit. (My feelings towards Christmas is another story.) Any way to cut a long story short 1 days after my SINGLE string of lights went up I had a letter in my letter box telling me " I was disturbing her sleep." oh and my dogs bark. (Well derr- the key is in the word DOG- and so does hers- but I don't complain).

I ignored her but turned my lights off at 11:30 the following night when I got home from a work function- which by the way was taking 120 Year 9 students on a river cruise. The next day I had another note in my letter box. She wanted them turned off at 9. I was seething. 

When I was watering my lawn she came home and wanted to talk. I said no. She said yes. I told her no and that she didn't want to go there. She decided to go there. We had an arguement. Out the front of my house. The last time that happened was when I told that behind me neighbours (not the lovely Irish couple- the before the Irish lovely couple) that it was not appropriate for their friends to run naked down the street.( because it really isn't). To cut a long story short- I told her she had no Christmas spirit, and was nasty and needed to stop thinking she could control everything and to calm the fuck down. She cried. I finished watering my lawn. We haven't spoken since.

So back to why I am not as nice as I think I am....... It is now the end of February. The string of fairy lights are still up. Decorating my fence.  I don't turn them on. They are just up.  To keep her on her toes. Because she may never know when they go on.  

I am a bit torn. I do feel mean. I do feel petty. But I also feel a little smug... And I still let the dogs poop on her lawn.