Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Yesterday something strange happened. I didn't feel like writing about it yesterday and I didn't let it bother me too much. But today I'm getting paranoid.

There's a wall next to our house. It covers the side of the front garden and a little of the back and covers the back of our neighbour's garden (they live on the corner of the street and we're kind of at the end save for the corner house and garden). We have one garden to one side and we have about four gardens that back onto ours on the other side.

This wall is very old and poorly constructed. It's what separates our property from the neighbour on the corner. It's cracked and the mortar between some of the bricks has crumbled away. It functions as a wall but as nothing else. It's quite high. I wouldn't advise leaning on it and you sure as hell can't sit on it (not that you'd want to). It serves as an easy walkway for cats though.

Since before I was born this wall has had nails in the top, points up and I used to think it was to keep cats out but they're too widely spaced for that. The cat's just picked their way through without a care in the world.

The story goes that there used to be a boy who lived in one of the nearby houses and as a short cut home from school he would go into our garden and climb over the wall to get home. I'd say that's sheer laziness since it's not that far to walk around the corner but surely climbing such a high wall takes effort so I'm not really sure which is the lazier option. Either way it's idiotic.

Now. Napoleon, as you may or may not already know, is a builder. If there's one thing he should know about it's brick walls. He knew that even back then this wall was too weak for climbing and was therefore very dangerous. I don't know whether they spoke to the boy about this or not, I guess they must have. Anyway, to deter this boy and any other children who thought it would be fun to climb Napoleon stuck nails into the wall points up.
These nails served their purpose for a considerable time, even after I was born.

Now, some years ago the neighbour on the corner was clearing up his garden and for some reason he decided to hammer the nails down flat. I don't know why he did this. I wasn't in a position to ask and we couldn't complain because once he'd bent them down flat we couldn't very well bend them back up again so we left it be.

Yesterday I'd woken up late, again. Had one of my less breakfasty breakfasts of stir fried noodles without the stir fry (basically fried noodles with seasoning) and was ever aware of the fact that time was getting on and I had to take the dog for her morning walk before the schools ended for the day (for me morning is afternoon but in this case morning refers to the dog's first walk of the day. (I'm taking her for all her walks after mum's eye procedure)).
It's fast approaching 3pm and I'm just finishing breakfast. I'm onto the last 2 noodles (I like either ribbon or udon noodles by the way, you can get those up one at a time with chopsticks, my favourite utensil for eating most noodles)..........noodles. Oodles of noodles. How many times am I going to say noodles?

Focus.

So. Just finishing breakfast. My desk is right by the window so I hear what goes on outside. I hear a scuffling kind of noise and it sounds like the neighbour sorting out her bins. Not uncommon. I turn and just see a guy (I say guy because I can't specify age. Young guy) having just jumped off of the wall and down into the street accompanied by the noise of something breaking and he just saunters off down the road without me getting more than a glimpse of the back of his head.

What the hell was he doing up there and how the hell did he get there? He wasn't looking in was he? Who knows. I look outside and the corner of the wall has come down with him. I don't want the bricks left out in the street so I go out and gather them up and hide them behind our hedge. I've no doubt some local hoodlums would've used them for vandalism. One of the bricks nearly hit our car.

A little while later I took the dog out in the back garden and found a footprint that doesn't match the soles of any of our shoes. Does that mean he walked through our garden? How the hell did he do that? Our garden's overgrown and full of thorns on all sides. It's not easy to get in and out of. I'm not sure about the daytime but at night time, with the light on, if you look in through the window you can easily see my desk...where I sit pretty much all of the time. That guy or one like him could be out in our back garden watching me right now and I wouldn't even know it. I used to find it comforting that no one could get into the garden easily. The gate doesn't open. The thorns make it difficult to get in. I really don't understand how anyone could've been in there. It scares me.

To be honest we can't be sure if that was a strange footprint or not since it wasn't too clear but just the very idea that someone could've been in our garden.

I've been thinking of investing in a paintball gun. My sword is all well and good at close range but if that guy comes back and repeats what he did yesterday I'd like to be able to shoot him from the comfort of my own home. A real gun would be illegal....and lethal. I'd need a license. Besides, he'd probably try to sue me or something. You can't really shoot trespassers. But, I figure that shooting a trespasser with a paintball is far less illegal. And the paint will be good identification if the police are called.

Ah. I think that's all.

Bluebiird out.