Springfield

I don't like kids. That may seem a odd statement for someone who works in a maternity dept but I don't mind babies. Its when they start showing signs of independent thought that I go off them. I especially don't like the little c**t that lives next door and his friends.

Here at chez minstrelcat we live between 'The Simpsons' and 'The Flanders'. 'Mr Flanders' looks just like Ned Flanders from the Simpsons cartoon, except that he always looks as miserable as sin. They are Mr & Mrs Suburbia - very conservative and very dull. 'Mrs Flanders' is like a quiet version of Margot from The Good Life - she gardens in marigold gloves and deadheads the lobelia.

'The Simpsons' are the one with the brat. 'Mr Simpson' is actually fairly pleasant but his wife is a screeching harridan. You should hear her when the rat, sorry, the yorkshire terrier, gets out. 'Mr & Mrs Simpson' took the inspired decision a couple of years back to purchase their brat a full-size trampoline and site it right alongside the fence between our two gardens. So now, almost constantly between the beginning of spring until the end of autumn, we have the endure the brat and most of the kids in the neighbourhood bouncing on it, peering over the fence and shouting silly comments. I have gamely tried to ignore this menace but yesterday I was in the garden pottering about and planting lollo rosso and it really got to me. I had been feeling down for a couple of days and the brats kept on and on and I got upset.

I'm not sure what to do. I'd like to be able to go out in my garden for a bit of peace and quiet. We don't have much to do with the neighbours on either side but I don't want to fall out with them either. Adam says he'll go have a polite word with them but it's not as if they can tell off the brats as most of them aren't theirs.

Meanwhile, I'll have to cheer myself up by imagining the brats being decapitated with a chainsaw.