Sheep Upstairs

I'm not sure that I have even met the lady (man? person) who lives upstairs from us, but I feel that I know her really well. She is Little Bo Peep. And she has a flock of little pointy-footed sheep who hide from her. I have heard the sheep pattering away on the wooden floor - by the sound of their feet there are about three of them. And then she puts on her mother's shoes that are obviously too big for her and clatters around looking for them. Or maybe they shed, and she has to go around to every part of the apartment picking up their little bits of fluff ...

But, really, I am quite baffled. The only activity I can think of that would require as many hurried trips back and forth across the bedroom is ... no, I don't know. "She's tidying up", I suggest to Peter. But what, and why so often? Maybe every day someone (the sheep?) opens her undies drawer and scatters its contents to the four corners, and then her other clothes as well, and the rule is that she can only pick up one item at a time and carry it daintily back to its place - ?

The very first morning I woke up here I was intrigued, and a little concerned, that I could hear her humming, slopping around in slippers, and sweeping the floor. Concerned because, if such small sounds carried so well, what about - ? And that day she started renovating the apartment. For the next week and more we had to be up and out of our apartment about 7am, or not try to hold any conversations herein. When the noise of drilling, sawing (electric, that is) and hammering finally settled down we got to know her better : we know that she does not have carpet on the floor, and she does not take off her shoes when she comes in ...

Wuxi is so much noisier anyway than LongHu was, with traffic noise and all kinds of people noise. In LongHu one day I was startled to hear a cuckoo say "Cuckoo!" - because I hadn't heard one since I left England in 1970 and it hadn't occured to me that they are in China too. Peter was also startled because he had never heard one and didn't realise that they really do say "Cuckoo" just like their name and just like a cuckoo clock. And it was pleasant to hear them because, just like in England, they herald the coming of summer - after a very severe winter as we had that yeat in LongHu. The only other troublesome sounds in our LongHu apartment were when people outside cleared there throat (and spat) - people don't seem to do that quite so much here - and when George (upstairs) wore his cowboy boots, and then took them off one (Thunk!) by one (... ... Thunk!)

So its the little nearby noises that are much more of a problem than the outside "white noise". This afternoon, still feeling queasy from a few days ago, and regretting just slightly the delicious "jaozi" (meat dumplings) that I had so enjoyed at lunch time, I took a little Sunday afternoon nap. Well, for a few minutes at least. Aparently Little Bo Peep found a patch of wall where she had to hammer in some picture hooks for some of the pictures she found while tidying up. She was being thoughtful, tapping ever so gently, but aahhhh!

Its ok, I'm awake now. I think she's gone out. And the sheep seem to be asleep.