My terraced yarden was quieter!

[Hogwartsian]

I have just moved from a Victorian terrace in the city to a suburb/slightly rural neighbourhood. On a hot day in the terraced house, I would sit in my little yarden and just hear almost silence. It was blissful!

Sitting in the garden of my new house, all I can hear is repeated power washing, lawn mowing, and various other power tools.

I feel duped! Anyone else experienced similar? I am missing my lovely quiet yarden so much!

Haha! We have had them. Owned by the water company, filming works on our town’s flood defences. Thankfully, I was dressed.

God’s Own Country.

It wasn't obvious that anyone other than the OP had a yard!

Anyway, I hate the word yarden, technically have a yard myself but have always called it the garden. I don't mind the noise caused by others enjoying the outside unless it's loud music or the idiots who keep racing their mopeds up and down the road at 3am

IMO it’s a brilliant word, for a small outside space where someone has taken the trouble to make it attractive with potted plants, etc. On a garden designer’s website a while ago I saw before and after pics of some really tiny spaces that had gone from dingy and depressing, to spectacular.

Yes. I learnt this the hard way! Last summer, sitting in my yarden (love that term OP) in just my knickers on a cool evening reading my book and a drone goes over the top. No more tits out in nature for me.

There’s a bloke locally who posts footage of various stress that he flies his drone over and other people ask him to so and so street next, they’ll then comment on the messy back yards etc.

We've just moved from a surbuban street which was so noisy, just as you described! Especially as one side were complete knobs, jetwashing cars every weekend, always had DIY projects on the go, a motorbike and multiple vans. Plus swearing and regular bonfires.

We've moved to a village and it's so peaceful. Mainly because everyone (but us!) have gardeners come and do the hard work during the week when I'm working!

Kind of but not really 🤔

Used to live in a terraced house on a new build estate. Lovely and quiet surprisingly. We now live in a village and it’s awful. When it’s DIY and lawn mowing I don’t mind, we get plenty of that. Kids playing, fine. It’s the shouting, screaming and the absolute worst- loud music blaring. It genuinely makes me ill. I am dying to move but am so scared we’ll end up with the same problem somewhere else having lost a lot of money in the process.

i used to live in the city. My Yarden and a patch of sun, but surrounded by people who preferred to be in the park across the rd, so it was quiet.

I now have a proper garden in a village. It’s a new build estate.its better the jones. I now have the dog chorus. One barks they all join in. One person mows they all do it. I just want to chill in my sun trap.

I have listened to kids having a meltdown. Then the parents. Another family had the kid screaming all day. Earphones and podcasts are my friends.

As I’m the only one on my block with grass there’s no mowing, the gardens are small new build ones, they have either fully paved or have artificial grass - i have grass and wildflowers I cut twice a year for the bees and butterflies

I know exactly what you mean. I live in a detached house with a large garden, and all I’ve heard is tree surgeons working on various properties all week. My next door neighbours had six kids and now they have many grandkids, and the noise of them all in their garden after school and at weekends is horrible. I spend time in another terraced house sometimes. It’s only got a tiny back garden, but it’s totally silent.

I’ve recently done a similar move to what you described and my theory - for where I live at least - is that people just end up going to b and q to buy power tools for something to do. Because I know I’ve started doing more b and q trips than ever before because it’s the nearest shop. Honestly they should have a cafe.

People clearly have too much time and money. Honestly I think power tools are so antisocial.

Well they also make tricky jobs a lot easier, power washing is very satisfying. We only use ours occasionally but there's no way I'm going to scrub all the outdoor furniture and clean the patio with a bucket and sponge. I'm also not going to cut my lawn with a push-along lawnmower.

Im envious of those with peaceful gardens.

I don’t mind my neighbours grandkids playing or the sound of my neighbours chatting but the ones that back onto my garden are horrendous. There’s a family of six and they are the loudest people ever, Their kids are quiet but the adults including 2 late teen boys shout very loudly and swear from half twelve to midnight every single bloody day. No special needs just arrogant twats. My neighbour asked them to stop swearing and they told her to fuck off 😳.

jt was far quieter living in town.

This is definitely a thing. We moved to the countryside - nearest house is about 100m away down the valley. On Friday I had to read them the riot act over the number of bonfires they'd been having (one a day for the past week!) and ask them to please desist over the Bank Holiday as it is sweltering and I want to be able to open my windows. I never had that in central London. Bring back the odd waft of weed :)

I've had similar. The house became known as 'the party house' and would have row after row with a neighbour rather than tone down the language, calm the volume after 10pm, and not think that an outdoor party until 3am is 'normal'. Seems some folk genuinely like the attention and arguments...

Feel your pain. Power washing obsessed over the road from us constantly hosing down his toy and parading round it to check himself out, to the back of us a guy who owns motorbikes, two doors down are getting their garden done. Nobody speaks quiet now either. They address and speak to each other like they are two streets away. I’ve had headphones in most of this weekend to drown out this shit. I want quiet on my week off.

Please don’t let me hear the word “yarden” again.

Why can’t we just say the proper words like “garden” or “patio”?

It’s the first few days of summer. People are doing work in their gardens. I’m sure it will all quieten down once summer is underway.

what is a pissing tube? I have all sorts of images in my head.
From a roof terrace, having a pissing tube might make perfect sense.
Is it plumbed into the sewage system or does it just have a freefall outlet?

As in, the bloody tube. London tube.

Not an actual tube for pissing in

Yes!! Completely agree. We live in a suburban semi with a large garden. There's the constant drone of a lawnmower - when one stops, another starts, and if it's not a mower, it's someone angle grinding or jet-washing, someone bouncing a ball into a basketball net, then a load of dogs start barking, (everyone seems to have a dog!) accompanied by the constant squeaking of next door's trampoline. We've just come back from a couple of days in a terraced ground-floor flat in Brighton with a 'yarden'. Not a sound, apart from a few twittering birds. It was so unexpectedly peaceful.