The sounds of Summer!

Ah Phoenix, and there was I thinking blackbirds . DH was out yesterday ( after The Wedding) power washing the drive,with his new toy. He was a sight for sore eyes in his disposable overalls, crocs, with the obligatory socks, wide brimmed sun hat and safety goggles. (You can never be too careful). Mind you, for a trainee power washer, he did a fair job. Now, all I've got to do is wash the front door, the garage door, my flower pots, and the poor muddy plants in the border. Still, it kept himself happy for a couple of hours.

It’s freezing here and I ve put my gas fire on this evening

I'm with you Phoenix on the strimmer sound.We have lovely neighbours ,so feel bad moaning,but they are both retired and so why oh why do they need to cut the huge lawn and use the strimmer mid afternoon at the weekend?!It's just happened again.DH and I finally settled outside with a glass of wine and the papers and up revs the motor.I just don't get it .I felt very bad last weekend using an electric sander for an hour sorting out our decking ,but I chose late morning to do it .I think it's in Germany that power tools can't be used between certain hours at the weekend?I wish that was the case here.NDN has finally stopped now so heading back out to hear the birds.

As I sit in the garden right now with a glass of pretend Pimms I can hear......
several neighbours enjoying their gardens. Bird song of several types. A slight breeze in the trees. Buzzing bees and the soft trickle of water from our water feature. Bliss.
Oh, at least I heard a cuckoo this morning.

I too hate the sound of a strimmer. I sat outside earlier, to the sound of a couple of strimmers, a dog barking, a kid crying, and someone's BBQ stinking the place out.

Now, at almost 1/4 to 9, everything is quiet...only birds singing. Everyone else has gone in! Time for me to sit outside until it gets too dark...

Heard first cuckoo this morning too

I've been hearing a cuckoo the last couple of days. There should be courting pheasants soon.

I think I heard a cuckoo this week too.

I do love to sit out and listen to the birds - and agree that strimmers et al can be a pain. There is a paddock behind us and a neighbour next door with a huge lawn and they seem to mow them one after the other - it would be better if they did it together and get it over with!!!

But.......the birds in the wood behind the paddock give them a run for their money as far as volume is concerned.

Thank goodness we don't have neighbours. I was strimming for over an hour this afternoon while DGS cut the grass with the ride-on. Between us we were making a fair old racket.

With a poorly DH still fighting a serious infection in hospital it's all hands on deck to keep the mother ship afloat in his absence.

I do agree with the above posts though. I hate other people's noise.

Merlot Yes, it’s only other people who are annoying isn’t it, I have noticed that.

Am on holiday at the moment and the plaintive cries of seagulls are adding to the sounds of Summer ( they begin at dawn, a bit unreasonably) also some chattering magpies.

Living in a holiday resort all summer long the beauty and fresh air were constantly marred by mainly inconsiderate visitors
........why does every car have at least 10 slamming doors?Barbecues that give off the vilest smells?
Traffic move at a rate of knots ALL hours God gave us?People in general talk across one another and in a few octaves higher than at home?
Why do they allow their dogs foul just anywhere and everywhere when away from their home?
Why do they totally disregard the folk whom actually LIVE in an area?
Believe me the list is endless...............

So we moved to what is best described as a pastoral green belt in the heart of the country with just cows and sheep as neighbours..............we then find...........
Tractors that hold up streams of traffic?
These high velocity machines that rumble past at all God given times of night?
Manure spreading being ever so "fresh" and pungent?
Sileage making always co -inciding with the day you have visitors hoping to show them the "Peace and quiet" of country liv ing?
If its not hay making with its noise.......and fumes,it is potatoe setting or potatoe picking......and droves of people arriving to the sound of high pitched chatter?
Again it goes on and on.

There is no place offering perfect peace I don`t think!!!!

DH and I sat on the patio yesterday and after a few minutes it became apparent that there was absolute silence, I asked him if we were missing something important on TV because it was uncanny. A normal Sunday would be lawn mowers and power washers with dogs barking.
Noise of any kind is not allowed during the afternoon in Germany. Last summer my GC were visiting my sister in her block of flats and they were told off by a resident for not walking quietly enough up the stairs and for not keeping silent in a communal area

Thanks for making me laugh out loud all of you with wonderful descriptions of your husbands in sexy overalls and goggles! I needed something to make me laugh this morning, having sat in the garden for TOO long yesterday drinking TOO much wine and I feel horrible as a result!!!

While|I realise that people who work have to cut their lawns at the weekend and at the evening I rather thought that the power tool, the noise of which we had to sit through all Sunday afternoon, was a bit much.

I agree about the nuisance of Sunday afternoon noise but I suppose many hard working people have a lie-in on Sunday morning.
The noise that really gets me in summer is the pounding music blasting through open car windows!

Our area is getting more poncey by the minute, not a good thing, but the advantage is that many of our neighbours have gardeners so they don't make a noise with power tools at the weekend.

It's reasonably quiet here when we sit in the garden. We hear ducks and geese from the canal, which is rather lovely.

We live next to a fairly busy road so that can be a bit off putting for sitting in the garden. But the worst thing is the pub with a beer garden over the road! All summer and quite a lot of the winter the noise at weekends in particular is horrendous. Why do people feel the need to shout at their mates sitting next to them (usually obscenities)? We knew the pub was there when we moved in but they have done up the garden area, got an extended licence for the weekends and set out to attract the "younger crowd" with bands, cheap booze etc. The L.A. flats where we live are for over 60's (not sheltered) and we have communal gardens that we cant really use in the summer. And dont get me started on being able to have the windows open when its warm!

It could be worse, folks - there are people who get up at 6 in the morning and take the opportunity to cut the grass!

I agree with you completely, but this is the price we pay for " the simple life". Years ago it was usual to hear the old fashioned push lawn mower... not a nuisance, people clipping their hedges with garden shears. As for power washers, anything needing cleaning then was done manually ..washing the car..swilling the garden path etc. I still enjoy doing some of these things the old fashioned way. Our greatest bugbear of all, more in the autumn is the leaf blowers, worse things ever invented...talk about boys and their toys...although our local council are equally guilty for this, and at the first fall of a leaf it seems out they come one and all... getting quite carried away....bring back the broom and shovels . Doing a lot of these things the old fashioned way was much better for us health-wise...burned up lots of calories as well.

apparently our new strimmer is the best thing since sliced bread, but I think he can forget the Poldark look

I understand your chagrin but do try to be grateful that people are caring for their gardens. I have neighbours who don't and the sharing of their weeds and unkempt overgrowth is hard work and somewhat aggravating. I'd settle for the noise any day.

Oh to have a garden to sit in again. I so miss having a garden I would put up with other noises.
I have had my guest house for nearly 11 years now. I make the frontage very pretty with lots of pots and baskets and a bench, but it is more for our guests to use (and often strangers passing by who think it’s a public bench).
DH and I do sit on it occasionally but but you are very much in view and often get comments like good life you have (when we have just done breakfast for 12 and cleaned or changed 7 bedrooms)
We have a bit of a space at the back but it is always cold as the house is south facing.

We have the noise of visitors on the beach and the prom, although as we're set back and higher than the prom itself, it's not too bad.
However, the young man two doors away has ripped all the turf out of their garden and is laying flags all over the whole thing. He spent from 9-20 yesterday morning using a 'plate compactor' or 'whacker' flattening the hardcore he had put down on Saturday afternoon.
It's a good thing he knows me quite well, so didn't take offence when at 3-30 (after 6 hours of listening to the noise from his garden) I went and had a word about the noise. Actually I told him that if he didn't turn the 'whacker' off, I was going to bury him under his new patio,