So everyone can hear it: http://www.paranoidangel.me.uk/noise2.wav. It's a 259k file - ignore the first 2 and last 2 seconds where I was getting to the other side of the room where it's loudest. And turn the volume up - I might need to fiddle with my audio settings, but I could do without the background noise for that.

If anyone can tell me:
a) what it is
and more importantly
b) how to stop it
or
c) where my neighbours are so I can get them to come home and stop it.

I might have stopped being rational about it - must be time to leave the house.

My (upstairs) neighbours woke me up at 5.20am last Wednesday morning. They usually get up at 6am, so I wondered if maybe they were going on holiday. There was blissful silence after that, so my conclusion is that they have. Everything was great - I got more sleep, I was more awake, it was nice.

Apart from Saturday night when the noise started. It was a few months ago when I first heard it and since then it's been maybe every couple of weeks that I've heard it, although sometimes not for very long. The longest until now was when I was off ill with a head injury. It started after the neighbours left for work. I heard them get home - door slam and footsteps, then it stopped mid-creak.

I should explain at this point that I can't really describe this noise very well. Someone on the street was doing some hammering at the weekend and it was that frequency, but the noise isn't banging it's more of a creaking sound really. I have never heard it before in my life and have no idea what it is. Except it seems to be coming from upstairs, and it's loudest next to an outside wall, so no one else in the block hears it, I suspect.

I discovered Saturday night that a fresh set of ear plugs blocked it out enough to sleep. Sunday I though it had stopped because it was quiet for three hours. After that it was off and on. Last night it was on for a few minutes every half hour. And by half hour I mean on the hour and half past pretty much exactly.

This morning it didn't make a sound for a 50 minutes I was awake and in the house. So I was hopeful it was improving at least. Tonight I've been home for over an hour and a half and I don't think it's stopped for asa much as a minute yet. I have a headache and can't concentrate - when it does stop that all magically goes away and comes back when the noise does.

So now I am really hoping the neighbours are only going away for a week and will be back tomorrow, because anything is better than this. The only bright spot in tonight is that I have to leave the house in just under half an hour.

From Jen:

Name a character that you know I write or have written, and I'll tell you:

a. What initially prompted me to like the character enough to write about him/her.
b. One of his/her best traits.
c. One of his/her worst traits.
d. How easy/difficult I find it to write the character.
e. The story/chapter/paragraph/phrase where I feel that I truly captured the character.
f. My plans (if any) to write the character in the near future.

Yesterday, I went to Reading and bought a new TV. Which turned out to be more complicated and take longer than I thought it would. It's 23inch flatscreen widescreen. I can't quite get over the fact that I've spent so much money on a TV given that at the moment my viewing is half an hour a week. Although, I will be plugging my computer into it and watching videos from that on it, since I will then have a bigger TV screen than computer screen! Although it's not being delivered until Tuesday 25th Sept. That evening I have Rotaract, the next night I'm going to the ISIHAC stage show. Friday I'm going on a long weekend to Cardiff, so Thursday I'll be packing. So not quite sure when I'll have time to plug it in...

Oh, and it has a Freeview tuner, so I'll be able to watch four Freeview channels at once. And four analogue ones.

I also went to the Friar Street Bookshop (science fiction) shop, which is pretty much the only reason to choose Reading to shop at over Oxford. And they were having a closing down sale! I don't know why. I mean, I rarely bought anything from there as they were expensive, but they were much nicer than Forbidden Planet. Anyway, they had every at 808% off so I bought £80 worth of books for £16 (the first eight on this page, the four before it were the ones I got in Borders in Oxford last weekend).

When I got back, I happened to come across a couple of people I knew in town, one of whom told me they had the Town Hall open for English Heritage day. I've been in there before, but they had the back room open (that I never knew existed) so I got to see the mace, the copy of which is in the House of Commons. And we discovered there had been a small school in what was now just a ceiling! And the mayor (who I know) told us her opinions on her chair.

So it was a good day yesterday, and I thought I'd have a Chinese takeaway, since I have hardly any food. I felt tired and full after that and went to bed early. It wasn't until I was woken up at 12.20am with that annoying intermittent creaking noise from upstairs that I felt sick. The upstairs neighbours have gone away, I think, so I spent the night making plans as to what to do to get the noise stopped. I dreamt a couple of ways, both of which I've forgotten, but then they were both completely nonsensical. Fortunately, ear plugs blocked out the worst of the sound, so it was just me keeping me awake. I woke up 12 hours after I went to bed and I think I'm going to spend today reading and watching videos because I'm still tired. I think, contrary to what I thought before, I am still intolerant to mushrooms. Also, the noise has stopped. Which is good, I just don't know what happened with it.

P9070606,
originally uploaded by paranoidangel.

Tonight, I defrosted my freezer. There's actually a long story behind that.

Read more...

I've just been in the newsagent buying the paper and I happened to notice the title of a magazine in there. I looked closer because I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. It was called:

Hobby's

It's enough to make you go around with a big black marker in your pocket and join the Apostrophe Protection Society.

Tanaqui emailed me this. I don't do email forwards but I do do memes for all the difference that makes...

Read more...

P8240587,
originally uploaded by paranoidangel.

I have finally uploaded my photos from Winspit from the bank holiday weekend.

Yesterday I went to Oxford to do touristy things. I usually go to shop, get the train or go to the pub and there are loads of touristy things I haven't done. I've written it up at the Wallingford Rotaract Blog so I'm not going to repeat it here.

I went swimming today with my prescription goggles for the first time. It's very weird being able to see. On the plus side, I can now swim back crawl in a straight line as there are lines on the ceiling I can follow. On the minus side, I can no longer swim front crawl in a straight line as the floor is not in the right place - it's far too close! The end wall is also far too close from underwater, so I keep stopping before the end.

I watched two episodes of The Dead Zone season 4. I had to watch the Previously as I haven't seen any for a couple of years (or whenever it was Channel 5 stopped showing them). I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I saw something about there being a sixth season, but as 4 has only just come out on DVD, it'll be a while till I get round to those, I think.

I finished the epic and sent it to beta! So now I have plenty of time for video watching. And thinking about what to write next. The things I have planned are:

• A Doctor Who/Chalet School Austrian era crossover, where Sarah, an ex-Chalet School pupil is teaching at the Annexe for a year, and Harry, an old friend of Jem's has just started at the San. That, potentially, is going to be long.
• Three & Jo and Seven & Ace in French Revolution France, with no sci-fi elements at all, because I love the DW historicals and wish they still did them. I need to read my French Revolution book before I start, though, because everything I know about the time I know from The Scarlet Pimpernel.
• An AU Steven and Dodo thing where he leaves the Doctor at the end of The Massacre, but encounters Dodo anyway. I started thinking it would be short but the more I thought about it the more I thought I'd need to put in, so I don't know any more.
• Something short at last - I thought that maybe Harry was once married, long ago before he joined UNIT, and the fic would explain how that came about and how come he's never mentioned it.
• I still want to get back to some LOTR things I was working on before I got distracted by other fandoms. Ditto Atlantis.