The Banging

Last night about 11pm I heard banging close by. To me the banging sounded like a car being smashed with a bat. No, I thought this is suburbia, I’m over dramatising the sound? There is some roadwork vehicles parked down the road, and I thought some lout might be throwing rocks at them, a much more logical explanation of the banging.

I knew it was close by but I couldn’t see peeking out the venetian blinds in the dark, and being by myself with a small child, I didn’t chance opening the blinds any further and drawing any unwanted attention my way. There was no yelling or shouting, no police sirens following… maybe someone was doing some late night DIY??? It stopped, I went about cleaning the kitchen.

I didn’t think any more about the banging until this afternoon.

Boo, Scruffy Mutt and I went on our daily jaunt to the park. Boo loves it when there are other children in the playground, and today was one of those days. There were three feral children (all with snotty noses) in the playground and a baby of around 12 months being cared for by a girl of about 17.

The little boy, was about 18 months old (he had playground sand embedded in his nose snot, sorry TMI) kept jumping on the Scruffy Mutt and pulling his hair, he was finally dragged away from the poor dog by the older girl (who was the mother of the baby). The two girls who were about 5 and 7 were really sweet. We had earlier seen the smaller one walking to the park by herself with a bottle of green cordial and a plastic bag of food. She offered Boo some Malteser’s from her pocket, I admit I was thankful when Boo said no thank you!

The older girl was really talkative, and on the way home from the park was telling me all about how David came over to their house last night and smashed up the car with a cricket bat… I knew that was what the sound was!!! They live just up the road.