Can I hear if I'm noisy?

So, as I have mentioned quite a lot recently, I am making a wedding cake this week.

Last night was the top tier and 60 hand-made chocolate roses. It was also the night that saw me put my Dualit mixer straight through the bottom of my best mixing bowl.

Harumph…

It’s a wonder my cakes ever come out edible if I’m honest as I’m a bit of a disaster in the kitchen. Indeed, it was requested that I didn’t do home economics GCSE for fear I would bring my school’s league table placement down, so I did sewing instead.

Then there was the time I thought a cake would rise if placed on the bottom of the oven, and that a pressure cooker didn’t need as much water as the recipe said, and that microwaved chicken is edible…

I could go on, but that’s all in the past.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is that I don’t really do recipes. I tend to get ideas from one and just do my own thing. Sometimes this works – my wedding cakes are a good example – and sometimes it doesn’t. But then how was I meant to know that eggs explode when…

…but that’s a totally different story and the kitchen ceiling looks much better after a repaint.

Anyway, regular readers will know that I have a rather frustrating neighbour. She’s like Mrs Mangle from Neighbours, but 100 times worse.

I have tried the nice thing – for nearly two years in fact, but recently, for various reasons, I am struggling to maintain my smile when I see her. It’s more of a grimace if I’m honest.

You see, she really does complain about everything. For example, my small vibrating alarm clock fell out of my bed the other night and hit my carpeted floor. She emailed to complain.

I have a front door, which gets opened and closed on average twice a day. She complains about that.

I exist.

She complains about that, too.

The problem is though, perhaps I am being noisy and I just can’t hear it. Perhaps my tiny 100g alarm clock really does make such a crash when it hits the floor that it’s capable of waking the dead.

I don’t know…

And this means I don’t feel totally secure in this battle.

I try to be quiet. I tiptoe around, don’t wear shoes in my house, installed an underlay so thick that Blanco and I had to plane all my doors, and I never play loud music or have raucous parties.

In fact, I’ve never had a party, I fix things when she asks and in return all she does is moan and leave three bikes in the hallway.

But back to that party point – my neighbour clearly doesn’t know how good she’s had it for the last 18 months, so it’s time for a party I think!

Watch this space…