I woke up a couple of nights ago to the sound of distant music.
Well, it was probably my full bladder that woke me, but the music was something I noticed as I regained consciousness.
I was quite surprised, as our neighbourhood is a very quiet one, with an average age well into the golden years. There is one chap a couple of houses down who is fervently religious and not quite in his right mind. He is thought to be the source of some rather convoluted religious tracts we all found in our letterboxes a couple of years ago. At his most florid, he has a tendency to dance to loud folk music like no one is watching, but he must have a had a successful change in medications recently because he hasn’t done that in ages.
I put on my dressing gown and went outside both the front and back doors but could hear nothing. It was coming from inside the house. A terrifying sentence but it was hard to imagine anything sinister about the faint sound of music, barring faeries I suppose. I went back to bed. At first I thought it had gone, it was really so faint as to be barely audible and it was easy to convince myself I was imagining it. I checked my phone and iPad but they weren’t making any noise. By now Simon was awake, and he confessed he could hear it too. Naturally I then assumed that it was his fault, he’d left some piece of electronic equipment playing, even though he vehemently denied it. I made him check all the stuff beside his bed, and merely harrumphed when he repeated his assertion that he was innocent. Maybe it was a folie à deux after all? Eventually we both fell back to sleep.
We went for a long bike ride yesterday with a friend who to our surprise was much fitter than he looked, and he set a cracking pace. Luckily I had my e-bike so I could surreptitiously set it to boost and keep up quite nicely, but poor Simon was on his recently repaired muscle bike. By the time we got back home he was exhausted and I was quite worried about him. I asked him if there was anything I could get him, and he asked for electrolyte solution. A looked through all the likely places such as the bathroom and kitchen cupboards, and eventually searched through my bedside table. And that’s when I found this.
It’s an old transistor radio, and it was playing music, very quietly. I must have accidentally turned it on the last time I was scrabbling around in the drawer, looking for something. Pretty outstanding battery life, too. Simon was less than impressed but it was nice to have the mystery solved. Sadly we had no electrolyte solution but luckily a beer did the trick almost as well.