"And then he said..."

It’s been quite a while now since we moved out of the flat we rented for nine years and into a house of our own - but for one reason or another we’re only just in the process of giving notice.

Today we were back there cleaning carpets and painting window frames - and we were reminded of exactly why we left.

Same killer motorway traffic a stone’s throw in every direction, same ghoulish upstairs neighbour looming randomly out of the shadows with her dog, same feeling of being under everyone else’s noses (partly, admittedly, because we have the curtains down for cleaning), same odd detritus of other people’s lives under your feet (discarded latex gloves in the car park tonight, close by where a couple can sometimes be seen sat in a car in the dead of night and where we once found a discarded condom wrapper - unsavoury thoughts follow inevitably).

But most of all, the same bloody moronic pounding thumping dance music through the walls and floors, like having your teeth drilled (trust me on this, I have a season ticket to the dentist at the moment), making you want to go downstairs, knock on their door, smile sweetly and say “excuse me, could you possibly turn your music down before I STUFF YOUR FEET UP YOUR NOSTRILS?”

And now I’m back home, at my desk in our office with a mug of hot tea, in the blissful uncrowded silence of the outskirts of an unassuming market town, thinking ‘ahhhhh… THIS is better’.

Which is probably why I’ve managed to write something again, five years and ten days since I first set up shop on DeadJournal.

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I can remember when products were built to last and didn't stop working just because they'd been thrown across the room in a cold fury a few times. I say this because my phone finally started malfunctioning beyond a level I was prepared to tolerate, so I had to replace it.

Having said I didn't want a phone with gadgets, I ended up having to buy one with a camera - and of course I'm now bemoaning the low quality of the pictures it takes. Still, at least it's got me taking photos again.

Here's some recent shots:

Dancing on the ceiling
The dark shapes of fitters roped to the roof inside the Business Design Centre hang cables in preparation for an exhibition.

Nothing to show for it
A fitter stands in the middle of blank exhibition stands that will soon be filled with all the clutter and colour of a trade fare.

Why I hate living here
We have equal opportunity bigots here - they hate everyone, whatever their colour or creed. This bus shelter graffito, along with National Front stickers nearby, targets Muslims - but everyone gets it in the neck eventually here.

Reflections on a long wait
On a wet, chilly evening, the bus indicators reflected on the ceiling of the shelter - and demonstrated that how cold you got depended rather on where you were travelling.

They've landed!
Not, in fact, an alien invasion - just the old and new Feltham. The glare from a hotel marketed squarely at airport travellers shows behind what used to be a toilet block - and now seems to be an art studio, or some such thing.

Lights, camera, action
Wet Tarmac and sodium lights give the local cinema complex an unworldly look. This view, coincidentally, is exactly the one seen by the central character of my quarter-written novel at a crucial life-changing point in the narrative. Not that you need to worry about that.

Round and round and round about
There is a roundabout out Uxbridge way that has without a doubt the worst traffic jams I have ever had the misfortune to have to weave a path through. It really is a case of move forward by inches and every car for itself.

Ducks in a row
I'm not sure if they wanted the car wash or just to top up with unleaded, but these ducks marched across the forecourt of the petrol station where I was having my lunch in a very purposeful manner.

Do as you're told
This sign is on the garage of a house on one of my regular leaflet rounds during the council elections. There's nothing else on the outside to suggest the place is still conducting whatever dubious business produced the sign - but I'm certainly not canvassing there!

Don't even try it
Our local general store has the most enormous guard dog you ever did see. Shame it's usually asleep across the shop door…

I long since learned that being beaten up turns you into a coward. I proved it again tonight: it's an unpleasant feeling that leaves you bitter and twisted up inside.

It's, what? Six years since I was attacked on a train on the way back from a Susan Kramer for Mayor campaign rally. Something like that, anyway. A gang of six or seven young scamps decided to play baseball with my head, using stolen bottles of cheap sparkling wine. No particular reason for choosing me.

Call it a score draw if you like - seventeen stitches in five head wounds for me, short spells in Feltham Young Offenders' for two of them. I also, by happy coincidence, got the front page of the local papers in the week I was selected as the local Parliamentary candidate, since it coincided with the sentencing. That was quite nice.

It's not been so much fun since then.

I was entitled to quite a bit of compensation, thanks to the scarring next to one of my eyes. Not a fortune, but enough for a holiday. Or two. Possibly three, if one was at Butlins. But I couldn't bring myself to fill in the forms or have a new set of photographs taken, so that was the end of that.

And I still find rowdy groups of kids intimidating, even when there's absolutely no threat from them. Strangely, I don't find the ones that are out for trouble any more frightening, although they do make my guts burn with anger and hatred to a quite alarming extent.

I'm pretty certain I'd intervene if I thought someone else was in danger - I remember an incident which I'm pretty sure I wrote about where I thought I was going to have to - but I know there's circumstances where I would have once taken a stand that I would now walk past.

There's a bus stop on the main road where I live, and the bus route it serves comes straight out of one of the estates where the residents finally made me give up on local politics - as I often say, I couldn't see why we were flogging our guts out for them when their ambitions went no higher than producing endless ugly fatherless babies, torching cars and putting National Front stickers on lampposts.

It's frequently vandalised - sometimes completely trashed - although at the moment it's not in too bad nick. Tonight as I approached it on the way home from work there were four youths at it, waiting to head off towards the town centre. The bin by the bus stop is one of those with a metal base and a heavy plastic sleeve that slides over the top. The kids had the sleeve off and were kicking it around. I had to walk right past them to get home.

The old me would have challenged them, told them to leave the bin alone - possibly even have got angry with them. The new me walked by, as close to them as you are to your computer monitor, without saying a word.

I turned down the drive to my flats, and behind me I could hear deep hollow 'booms' as they had their fun with the bin. Behind me walked one of my neighbours, too far off to identify. He, too, had walked past without saying anything.

Beloved Other Half says I shouldn't beat myself up over it, that no-one should expect to come through what I came through and still be equipped to take action under those circumstances.

I know what I say, though…