Bits and pieces

View of vineyards in the Venetian Hills.

I haven't posted for a little while here, mainly because I haven't had much to say. I was summoned for jury duty last week, thankfully was not picked, but it seemed sort of stressy anyway, because it was out of my routine. Then I had to go back to court on Thursday for a pre-pre-hearing tutorial, regarding the pre-hearing next week of the appeal about the proposed pre-school. It's all quite depressing, we don't really know what kind of tricks the developer and his lawyer will pull in court. We're going to get a lawyer too, which of course costs money. It makes me so angry that this selfish, greedy, wanna-be-rich man (pre-school owners get fat subsidies from the government) can come into a peaceful neighbourhood and put ordinary people through this. We had a woman from another suburb come and talk to us. She lives next to a pre-school and her experiences with the noise problem were horrific. Unfortunately, few studies have been carried out on the impact of pre-schools sited in residential neighbourhoods; everyone seems to assume they are a good thing because they involve small children, and who doesn't like small children, right? 
    This woman was told by Noise Control that she could not lodge complaints against a pre-school, even if the noise exceeded the permissable decibel level because pre-schools are a "public good". The problem is, most pre-schools now are being run as commercial concerns for private profit, so should be subject to the same constraints as say, a block of retail shops or a small factory making widgets. Very noisily.
  So this and the jury service have sort of knocked me off my psychological perch. Added to this a team meeting at work, at which I realised once again how very eccentric and un-mainstream I am. Not a team player at all, I have no patience with all that team stuff, where I have to pussyfoot round other people's agendas and feelings and personalities and negotiate. What a waste of time! Shit or get off the pot! (I sound like Lucy in Peanuts.)
  So today has been a much needed Coddling Day, spent in bed reading Ira Levin's A kiss before dying, sort of trashy but engrossing, and sleeping a lot. The weather has become very cold now, so I excuse my laziness by telling myself how much electricity I'm not using. And not paying for.