Sleep

My neighbours and I appear to see the point of a weekend rather differently.

My weekends are - predominantly - for sleeping. Yes, writing, reading, surfing, onsening (or whatever the verb of to onsen is), dancing around my bedroom, drinking and losing at poker are all on the list too, but Saturday and Sunday morning are both reserved for sleeping. I get up at 6.30am every weekday morning; I reserve the right to sleep until at least 11am twice a week.

Except that my reservation is being pointedly ignored by the old couple who live next door to me. Their weekends appear to be bookmarked predominantly for standing outside my bedroom window and holding long conversations in Japanese at 7am on a Saturday morning. And, while they are absolutely lovely at a Godly hour of the day, I don't have any interest at all in what anybody says at 7am on a Saturday morning - I don't have any interest at all in 7am on a Saturday morning full stop - which renders them both very unlovely to me right now.

The problem here is three fold. First of all, the noise stops at around 9am; just long enough to make sure I can't go back to sleep. Last weekend, they had obviously had a tiff, because the old man went outside to their small garden - which happens to be directly outside my window - and started inexplicably moving one pile of wood to another piece of wood, and - when he had done that - moving them back again. Then he started sawing in them, just in case I had adjusted to the previous noise. He stopped at exactly 8:53am, just as I was about to set fire to both piles.

Second of all, I can't say anything. Literally, I can't say anything: I have no idea how to say "please, for the love of GOD go back to bed" in Japanese. Metaphorically, I also can't say anything: they are a lovely couple, they are Japanese, and that would be the absolute height of rudeness in any culture, let alone this one.

Thirdly - and perhaps most importantly - I am terrified that at some sleep-deprived stage in the next few weeks, I am going to lose my temper and do what I did at University when the builders woke me out of a bad hangover at a ridiculous time of the morning; namely throw open the window in a state of semi-undress and scream at the top of my voice "what the fuck is wrong with you?! Stop that sodding racket or I'll come down and give you something else to make a fucking noise about" (at which point my then-boyfriend hid under the covers and refused to come out until I had apologised to them for swearing).

And if I do that, I will be kicked out of Nichinan and put straight on a plane back to England, after being lynched and arrested first.

They've stopped now, obviously. It is perfectly quiet; I can hear the birds singing, the trees swaying, the spider hopping across my carpet (seriously, it is hopping - I don't know what is wrong with it). The old couple have done with waking me up - now that I can no longer go back to sleep - and have high fived each other and returned to their beds for some much needed kip. It's tiring work, keeping the foreigner awake and cross at stupid times of the morning.

I have no option really; I'm going to have to start getting up at 7am on a weekend morning too, or buy some ear plugs.

That, or I'm going to have to learn a whole lot of Japanese swear words and find a man who can hide under my covers until I have apologised for them.