Friday 7th: Listen

Today's photo-a-day topic is 'listen,' and I have posted a picture of a section of my kitchen (actually, if you've been round mine, you'll know it's a fairly large proportion of the entirety of my kitchen). 

Something I quite like doing is just sitting in my flat and becoming aware of the noises that are going on. 

I live in the city centre, so it can be quite a long list.  Right now, for instance, if I concentrate: 

*  my fingers on the keyboard (though maybe that doesn't count because it's all a bit meta)

*  a motorbike

*  a blackbird

*  the oven fan

*  cars, about one every ten seconds

*  a different bird

*  someone either pulling a wheeled suitcase or going very slowly on a skateboard

*  a train whistling*

I live in the sort of building that's used in TV dramas to show that This Is Grim.  Ninth floor, council tower block, city centre. 

And I blimmin' well love it. 

I love the view and the airiness and the not-being-overlooked and the thing where there's just enough of a community without it feeling jollied along and forced.  I love the fact that my neighbours are an incredibly mixed bunch of people - some of them horrid, some of them a bit scary, some of them hilarious and flirty and some of them just shy, one of them absolutely the best breakfast-in-a-cafe companion, some Eastern European and some so utterly rooted in Norwich that if this were London they'd be pearly Kings and Queens.  

And I even quite like all the noise.  We tend not to hear each other - I can hear next door coming in, because his front door is at right angles to mine, and sometimes you hear people waiting for the lift, but pretty much the noise you hear comes from outside (yes, yes, I know we're meant to be constantly plagued by other people's dub-n-bass at all hours, but I'm afraid it's not like that).  

Occasionally you overhear the best conversations from down in the street (yes, you can sometimes make out chat).  There's a fair amount of normally good-natured drunken bellowing at weekends.  And once I heard an exchange so shockingly hilariously inappropriate between two people who were having a very loud argument that I still grin bemusedly whenever I think about it.  But it involves language nice girls don't use . . .

Hm.  This was meant to be about 'listen' and has gone a bit stream-of-consciousness about living in a tower block.  And it's not one bit spiritual.  And I don't care.  I'm rebellious.  

* when I was small I sort of assumed that a train whistle blowing was just the train making an "it's good to be alive" noise.  Just a sort of spontaneous whoop of trainly joy.  In my head it kind of still *is* that.