The Monday Peeve is a prompt hosted by Paula Light of Light Motifs II and it is a chance for bloggers to get all those annoying little gripes off their chests.

It’s holiday time and our quiet little seaside hamlet is full of visitors. There are permanent residents like us but many people own holiday homes and visit at weekends or during the holidays. Other places are permanently let as holiday accommodation.

Naturally that means it is noisier, people invite their friends and have parties. Naomi and I are not party types ourselves but we don’t mind if other people have them provided that they are considerate of their neighbours. We usually sit up pretty late too so it’s not that we expect it to be dead quiet by half past nine. One group of neighbours who visit regularly love to play backyard cricket and volleyball. We often hear them shouting and laughing outside well after dark. They never bother us though. They have their fun and are back inside the house by ten or eleven o’clock.

The annoying things about holiday parties are when people are inconsiderate. Just before Christmas some neighbours had a party on a Thursday night. The party goers were probably teens, it was the last night of school. It was loud and went on till well after 2:30am. When you can still hear music inside your house with the doors and windows closed it is too loud. They did not have to get up early the next day. Naomi did as she was going to her volunteer job in Devonport and had to get up at 6am.

The other annoying thing about party goers is that when it is time to go home they don’t leave quietly. They rev up their cars, they yell or stand around talking in loud voices for ages before leaving. We can hear all that. It makes the dogs bark. Why can’t people just go home?

Vandalism is less common around here, we’re lucky, but there has been at least one occasion this year when partygoers have left a mess in the street although I think the family cleaned it the next day; more alarming I heard a story about a rope being strung across the street. That could have been dangerous.

It’s just a small peeve because for eleven months of the year it’s pretty quiet here. It is only from just before Christmas to the end of January that these things happen usually but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us cross.