Describe Your Para: My little suburb of the UK

I guess it's all relative at the end of the day. My area might look like a row of palaces in comparison to someone else's mud hut. But in relation to wealth in the UK I'm probably in one of the less safer, and less affluent neighbourhoods than I have lived in before. Our house was nearly burgled on Christmas, something that I've never come across in the past, mainly because I've never accumulated enough wealth to have anything worth stealing, that, and for most of my life I've either lived in small villages or rough council estates.

That aside we live in quite a sleepy little part of our town. Sandwiched between two of the most impoverished estates in our area, with a sheltered housing complex to the north of us, and a school to the south of us. Not much happens here apart from the occasional drunk swearing at his partner whilst they are walking past, or the regular boy racer, revving his little engine as hard as he can, often late at night and whilst we are all winding down for the day. You can often hear their engine wails in the distance as they join their group and play a game of, "who's dick is the biggest?"

I get on well with my neighbours of course. I'm not one to shit where he sleeps. A phrase coined from an old Jehovah Witness neighbour I lived beside that I got on well with and I asked him why he's never been at my door.

Raymond, people can be quite terrible. I'm not one to shit where I sleep.

Good solid advice, something that I've had to convince my wife to take on board. Sometimes our neighbours fight and there's Police usually involved, and yes, there's violence. I have to hold her back at times because I don't want to get involved in any family feuds. I have a family to take care of and the last thing I need is getting involved with the internal conflict of our next doors. Let them get on with it. It's their problems to sort out.

To the left of us is an old and frail man. This street was once a council estate (government owned property) but in the 1980's there was a big drive for people to buy their houses from the government at low and reasonable prices -- thus people being able to own their own homes rather than being on an eternal rent cycle. My neighbour, one of these men. Lived in his house from a very young age, now his to die in, enjoys a solitary and peaceful life. We often see him relaxing in his garden or tending to his weeds. We check in from time to time because there's nothing worse than living alone as an elderly person. It also gives us something to feel like we're adding to the community.

There's free parking on our street. No-one owns their parking spot and it's quite the bum fight to get a space outside my house. Neither those to the left or right of me have a car and the neighbours across the road from me feel it's their right to take up all the spaces until I'm left with none -- whilst a lot of them have two, or even three cars to their household. But again, I do not shit where I sleep so I just quietly get on with it and park where I can. It's not too bad in honesty. I usually get a spot out in front of my house.

Here is my car. Something I'm quite proud of in all honesty. It can rip most local road cars to shreds in a one on one so I always laugh inwardly when some boy racer tries to outmaneuver me. I just let him go. No need to flex when I know what's right.

The locals here think we're quite posh. My wife speaks the queens English and can often be mistaken for someone that is upper class. When in reality we were both born in government led estates and went to public schools, our roots are just as common as the rest, but I still laugh inwardly and then tell my wife when one of our neighbours asks if I take my son to private school. As if we can afford that ha.

A quick walk to the local shop and you can marvel at the cannabis cookeries nearby. Cannabis is illegal here, but as you pass one or two houses (and some people) you can smell the pungent reek of the weed from their houses, and sometimes I can feel a little light headed as I walk by. Not that I'm judging them of course, I'm one to talk, I've smoked enough of that plant in my past life to put a police drug team a run for their money.

But I do quite like my area in all honesty, one that I've come to call home in the last three years. For all its faults there's a lot to be said about living a peaceful and quiet life!

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