Noisy Bastard Uphill Gardeners

Sorry about the noise, I'll explain in a minute.

Now I dunno if Uphill Gardeners is their name or not, but firstly it's a great derogatory term and secondly they do, funnily enough, live up a hill, Sandy Hill in Farnham.

Uphill, as I shall call them forthwith, are my elderly next-door's friendly neighbourhood gardening folk. Friendly, that is until they;

1. Park their van across my drive. OK, it's a very wide drive, but if they stop just one of my cars getting out then that's just not on, is it?
2. Charge my elderly neighbour the same amount (£25) to mow just her front lawn as they do to do the front lawn, back lawn AND trim the hedges. The full monty only takes 30 minutes meaning they're on a decent rate of pay, so to spend 5 minutes mowing a very small front lawn is ripping-off our senior citizens if you ask me.
3. Power-up their petrol hedge trimmers at 7:40 in the a.m. and then continue to make a noise for another 20 minutes.
   

And that's what got me up and pissed me off this morning. Uphill Gardeners revving up a petrol hedge trimmer at 20 minutes to 8.

It was a hot, hot night with all the windows open and, after a fitful sleep, to be awoken by their racket nearly a full hour before the alarm normally goes off meant I was NOT best pleased.

First off I slammed the kitchen door shut which was satisfying but not enough to subdue their din. They were working within six feet of my kitchen door and were wearing ear-defenders. Then I went out and told then how pissed off I was, only to get a feeble sorry and a defensive "We're allowed to make noise from 7am to 11pm"

Well that noise I recorded was in the hallway of my home so you can imagine the sound in the kitchen and in the garden... no friggin' wonder I got woken up!

After I went back indoors I heard the bastards (one young guy, one middle aged woman) moaning about me. The cheek of them! They woke ME up and I rightfully gave them a piece of my mind and then THEY whinge about being told off. Aw boo hoo. So I go out there AGAIN and remind them how inconsiderate they are.

The woman then quips;

"Haven't you got a job?"
Yes, I have got a job but it's not as easy as yours.
"Well you should try this some time, then we'll see how easy you think it is. We're only up early so we can get the job done because it's going to be hot today."

What? Pushing a mower and trimming a few hedges is hard work? Being out in the sunshine is hard work? And it's going to be hot outside in the radiant sun and the fresh air, blue skies overhead, being at a different place every half an hour and clocking off early... So just how many years do I have to spend at college to become qualified in order to trim bushes, cut grass and have a copy of "The Sun" on the dashboard of my van?

I've done much tougher physical work in my time, lumping hod loads of bricks up & down ladders all day, digging foundations with a shovel, pushing around a few tons of cement in a friggin' wheelbarrow (not all at once, mind you ;) )... Now THAT's hard work so these lawnmower-pushing plebs can stick their gardening implements where the sun don't shine.

What goes around comes around, so I very sincerely hope their van doesn't get broken into again or they'll lose their livelihood of stealing from old grannies.

Amen.