Neighbours

So we have finally settled into our new home. Kids have their own rooms though Alexa is poorly and has been sleeping next to mummy for two nights. She didn’t seem much better today either so a trip to the emergency docs this morn was needed. Incentive charts in place – sticker for every night slept in own bed so Alexa must be feeling really poorly if the opportunity to get a new Kamen Rider Wizard figure in 15 easy sleeps has been jeopadised by two nights in mummy’s bed. Nice to know I am more important in her world than a Kamen Rider doll!

Having that one extra room is great – kids have all their toys and belongings in their rooms. No more train track in the living room though naturally bits and bobs make their way in here but the living room will hopefully remain looking like a living room and not a play room. There’s a corner of dead space in the living room where the door opens into the room so not possible to put the dining table there. I managed to convince Tadashi to set up his computer in this space and he agreed. No more computer in the bedroom – yeah! Trying to sleep through the whirring noise of a computer is a pain. Though we now have the problem of his computer drowning out the sound of the telly! I tried to explain to him that P.C. means “personal computer” and that the noise coming from this pc should not be heard by everyone in the room.

It irritates the pants off me that he is not aware of the people around him. Yesterday he was in the park with James – a few parents from hoikuen were in the park too and they were both gone for hours. This was great – but I was nursing a sick little girl and busy too. When they got home he asks about dinner. I had got as far as putting on the rice cooker but hadn’t thought about what to make. Tadashi (and James) are both incapable of waiting for food to be prepared so he says he’ll go to the supermarket and pick something up from the bento corner. Good idea. I remind him we have rice so anything to go with it would be great. They get back and start to unpack the shopping. They had only bought dinner for themselves. I repeat they had only bought dinner for THEMSELVES! This was a problem I thought we had solved. Early in our marriage Tadashi would often arrive home with a bento for himself and nothing for me. Or I would mail him and ask him to pick something up for dinner and he would come home empty handed saying that he went to Yoshinoya (or similar) for dinner completely unaware that dinner is a family thing and that I don’t just make a single serving of dinner for him. Sigh! Recently he gets home so late that I don’t cook for him and he told me ages ago that he would get his own meals en-route home because he was on a diet. Fair enough. I hate having to cook for somebody that can’t ever sit down and eat with his family. Not even in the mornings when he could try to eat at least one meal with his children. I really can not imagine walking around being so oblivious to the things around me. Not caring about anything other than myself. It worries me that James was involved in the selfish shopping trip yesterday and that he could develop the same lack or concern for other people that his father has.

Anyway this wasn’t supposed to be a post about how useless my husband is… Sigh. I really want to moan about my neighbours. The neighbours down stairs. When this apartment became available – I knew early on that the family before us had bought one of the apartments in the new mansion round the corner. I had been keeping my eyes peeled checking the JKK website for the chance to move into a 3LDK. So we got it and now we have a more spacious apartment – Yeah! More space for the kids to run around. This is the problem. Charging up and down the hall from bedroom to living room and back again. The kids upstairs from us do the exact same thing. I can hear them. I can hear them right now as I type this blog. It isn’t irritating, it’s just part of life living in an apartment block. It doesn’t sound like he/she is about to fall through the ceiling. The people downstairs can hear my kids. Their reaction to this? To bang loudly and furiously on the ceiling with a broom or similar. There has been no communication between them and us. Out of all the families I have introduced myself to – with a “I have just moved in” gift, they are the only family who are never in when I go round or who choose not to open the door. My next door neighbours are lovely – older couple. The ones next door but one are lovely too – met them yesterday. She is Russian and her husband is a very tall guy I have seen every morning for god knows how long, but didn’t know which floor he lived on. I went round with gifts nothing exotic – some Tokyo Skytree biscuits. Less than thirty minutes later the Russian woman and her hubby were ringing my bell with a gift for my kids – a Tokyo Skytree puzzle! They gave me a better present than I gave them! That’s not how it is supposed to work! Anyway, we chatted for a while and it was clear to me that they are very friendly and we are probably going to get along great. This morning I found some treats for the kids in the letterbox of our door. I’m presuming they are from the couple  next door.

Friendliness is what I have experienced for the 7 years I have lived here in this building. Everybody is lovely, and it was this community that I wanted to continue being a member of – particularly as James starts school next year. The mums in this building are great. The working mums are even better and ironically usually have more time to offer a helping hand. The day we moved apartments, my neighbour on the 4th floor tells me to send the kids round in the evening so she can look after them while I get the new place organized. Tadashi goes off at about 5:30 ish to pick up the kids – rare treat for the kids to have daddy pick them up. I asked him to take them to the park, buy them an onigiri or something, or even take them to a restaurant for dinner. Just keep them out of my hair for a while. My neighbour on the 4th floor has two kids and a full time job and she is a slave to baseball (for her son) at the weekends so I didn’t want to ask her unless it was really necessary. She rings me at about 6 o’clock wanting to know what time the kids are coming over. I explained that they were out with their dad and she says send them over when they get back. She also asks if they have any food allergies! She has included them in the  family dinner. Very very very lovely woman. The kids get back and are thrilled to be going to Tomoka chan’s house for dinner. The offer of a pre-bedtime bath was there, too! Genuinely lovely people.

So how come I now get the neighbours from hell below me?? My friend Tamiko lives next door but one from the bangers and I asked her about the family there – they are a family of four with two grown-up daughters. She says they’ll like me! I haven’t yet told her about the banging on the ceiling. I think it pisses me off most because they didn’t come and say anything – “could you keep it down a bit?” They just went straight for the broom and banged on the ceiling. Part of me is not expecting them to be friendly or understanding because I can now distinctly remember a conversation with the woman who lived here before us – she told me the family downstairs were not very nice about living below a family with young kids. One of the reasons for them to make the decision to move was the family downstairs. Obviously in all the excitement  when the place became available I had forgotten about this conversation, but it all comes flooding back to me now.

I have a song stuck in my head these days…”Neigbours, everybody needs good neighbours…” How very true. Wish me luck, I’m off to try and introduce myself to the people downstairs for the 4th time. Hope they are home so I can finally put a face to the broom handle!

 

Update: The man down stairs is extremely rude and spineless. I have no idea what he looks like or who he is because he didn’t come to the door. His mouse-like wife opened the door and he just shouted from within about how noisy my children are. I shouted back inside that we all have the same problem. He continued to shout at me though never appeared so I walked away leaving his wife clutching the cookies I just gave her. I hope they fucking choke on them! What makes me absolutely furious is that I probably say good morning to the rude bastard every morning and I don’t know it’s HIM.