Letting fireworks off in our garden.

[raltheraffe]

Yesterday I was letting some, admittedly large, fireworks off in our garden at about 7pm. Fireworks were going vertically upwards and not into neighbours gardens.

Anyway all hell breaks loose. Guy comes out of his house screaming at my DH that he is a "fucking nobhead" and starts banging on our gate which was padlocked.

I went back into the house and locked the front door. Went upstairs to son's bedroom. Window was open as I had been painting sons walls earlier. and curtains had been removed due to the DIY.

Next thing he is shouting at me "oi you, fucking nobhead at the window". By this time the neighbours 2 doors down, who cannot stand me, had come out and were joining in on the trouble.

I replied "go away or I will phone the police" as there was now a small crowd at the front gate. I then shut the window and turned the light off in the room.

Next thing the guy jumped the fence and came in garden banging on front door. I did not answer the door.

They hung around at the front gate for about 15 minutes then got bored and dispersed.

I can appreciate that they may not like fireworks as they may have pets that could have been scared. However another neighbour set some fireworks off (far more than I did) and no-one complained.

Not sure what to do now.

My parents used to hold a bonfire party with fireworks every year when I was a kid. Everyone in the village was invited. They set up a bar in the car port all strung with fairy lights, and served stovies and soup in paper cups.
The local kids made the guy and took it round the neighbours for a penny, which was really a donation for the fireworks. Everyone donated scrap wood for the towering bonfire as well. It was a great night.
Happy memories.

I wish my garden was big enough for a bonfire but it isn't.

It's all a question of degrees. If your neighbour lets off fireworks a lot then you'd be entitled to complain about it. One evening a year is ok.

I expect to hear fireworks going off for the next week or so, as everyone takes a turn.

I want to play the drums. All night long. So I will, because I want to, even though I live in a terraced house with an elderly lady one side and young family on the other. If they don't like it - tough, I can do what I like.

Effectively that's what you're saying Pictish. But people have to consider others living in the vicinity. This is what's wrong with people in this world - a very strange sense of being entitled to do whatever they like, even if it inconveniences or upsets others.

I think it is very sad :(

That's nothing like what I'm saying *Leela, but if you wanted to play drums for 20 minutes one evening once a year at about 7pm, I would be ok with that.

But the issue here was the op ignoring that one accepted date and just doing it for the fun of things.

Fancy diverting from the mumsnet approved date and having fun just for the sake of it!
Who does she think she is?

Im pretty sure its nothing to do with mumsnet the date for Bnofire night, I know the site is powerful but not that powerful.

Our local display is on the 4th!

Should I contact them to call it off? Please advise.

Oooh how very dare she!!!

It is to be expected that fireworks are gonna be heard in the run up to the 5th November. Just have to suck it up.

Op's neighbour was a Dick. If I went and ranted at my asshole neighbour everytime he dones something that annoyed me I'd be carted off.

*does. Silly phone!

Not read the whole thread, but whilst it is unacceptable to shout at you like this, I hate it when people set fireworks off on random nights. Firstly, my dog is petrified of fireworks. On new year and bonfire night I use various techniques (and a lot of music) to keep her calm. My neighbours 2 doors down we're letting big fireworks off last night at 8.30pm which woke ds and terrified the dog! Cue mayhem in my house

But I don't agree with the neighbours shouting at you!

Scarlet, the OP was sick and a family member took advantage of her illness to nick the money, I seem to recall.

Lemi, I have a PhD, yes really, and I couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone do the brewery's accounts. I can read Medieval religious Latin and tell you a lot about Frankish monks, though.

No, I'm not a sock puppet, and I do think the OP was unreasonable but I'm not keen on this dog piling.

I think it's understandable that some people don't like them. It's not nice to see your pet upset after all.
But I think you can dislike them without being sour about it, and thinking people who set them off are selfish or wrong. They're not doing it to piss you off...it just happens that it does piss you off. Well, you're pissed off, and not to put too fine a point on it...so what?

My ds2 gets frightened by dogs. All you dog owners persist in having them claiming to enjoy them or something. My neighbours have a dog and now and then, although not very often at all, it barks in the garden!
I think they should get rid of their dog. Other neighbours have dogs too. They're all selfish because it upsets my son.
AIBU?

Starling, to be fair i have no common sense at all, which was kind of my point - academics have no savvy. I can't read latin but can tell you an awful lot about the nervous system if a fruit fly - both really useful skills but if i can do my dp's accounts it just shows how easy it is!!

.

Pictish YABU and can hardly compare letting off fireworks to owning a dog.. Slightly ridiculous. Unless of course that dog was barking at night and waking your child up, it would be reasonable to be pissed off then.

Yes I got sacked in a disability discrimination case from being a doctor. I now run a business but struggle with accounts so am doing aat 2 in accountancy

Still need you to clarify the bit about being at university for four years. Accelerated degree?

Why wouldn't a qualified doctor go back to being a doctor if they won a disability discrimination case?

Really sorry to be putting you through the wringer like this, I believe what you are posting, but I'm actually trying to help you. Yes, empathy is a social skill. Or lateral thinking if you like. You can have all the qualifications in the world but if you lack any ability to think laterally, and by that, I mean the learned skill of considering the consequences of your actions, you will probably find yourself embroiled in dispute after dispute both professionally and personally. I can't really think how you were accepted into a medical degree in the first place, since the UKCAT and interview process tend to weed out those without much empathy and they really try to recruit UK students now who have a desire to help people. Are you from overseas? Is English a second language?

In doing your medical degree, you will have had some form of professional competence or standards training, where you would have been made aware that any kind of criminal conviction, such as one for breach of the peace, would make either registration difficult in the first place, or subject you to some form of hearing. Not saying you would be struck off, but the BMA would want some form of reassurance that it wouldn't impinge on you professionally. Which is why I find it astonishing that you would let off fireworks like this. Never mind the animals who might have reacted badly. Don't you have any conscience towards animals or think that your neighbour went mad perhaps because of how his pets reacted (after hearing about your loose dog running at women with babies in prams?)

As for your blind DH or DP (I forget which) buying fireworks. It may be obvious to you the reasons for this, but as other posters have pointed out, its not so obvious.

Well it did once - last year! It barked in the garden and woke up my children!
They should get rid of it, yes?

Pictish - what about horses and wildlife? I might be a bit precious about my dogs but it really has a devastating effect on wildlife.

Ok I'll give you that.

To be fair to the op she has responded gracefully. Id have told everyone to fuck off to fuck by now!

I may have a phd but I'm currently working as a cleaner

No, they shouldn't get rid of it, they should teach it not to bark at inappropriate times. Just like I didn't say fireworks should necessarily be banned, just not let off at inappropriate times.

Can you copy and paste the bit where I said 4 years, as I remember writing 5 years.

After I was sacked it took months until it went to tribunal, and then I was exonerated.

The problem is it was not the first post I had suffered discrimination in, it was the second. The first case was nowhere near as serious, and I was not sacked. Just took a lot of crappy behaviour. After the second case, which the Deanery described as the worst case they had ever dealt with I had no intention whatsoever of practising again. In fact I would rather be in a NMW job than go through that again, it was that bad and very upsetting.

Some people seem to misunderstand what I have written. It is impossible to get sacked from the entire medical profession, the nearest thing I guess would be having your name erased from the GMC register. This was not a GMC issue. I was sacked from a 6 month SHO post.

As for me getting a criminal record now it would have no bearing on my job as I am s/e. I do not have a record and what I did is not legally a breach of the peace. A breach is when a police officer is involved and they use the term breach of the peace if they believe you will commit a further breach. So, for example if someone was kicking off and shouting in public, and the police were called, and they continued kicking off to the police, then breach of the peace would have occurred. Many people misunderstand the legal definition of the term.

I can appreciate why some people find it odd a blind person buying fireworks. However DH likes all the bangs and noises that they make, simple as that. DH was born blind, he has not recently lost vision. He also insisted when HD TVs came out we bought one, which I found very odd indeed as he cannot appreciate HD, I asked him at the time and he said "why can't I have a nice TV". Still makes no sense to me, but I do not live with the disability day in day out, so I cannot fully understand what it must be like for him.

I also want to clarify this accountancy thing. I am not an accountant, and I am not training to be one. AAT2 is a far more basic qualification that focuses on data entry. My Sage accounts last year were so rubbish, my accountant started from Prime Records and a clerk had to spend weeks re-inputting all my data from bank statements and receipts. At the end of it I was hit with a bill for £1200. If I can learn the basics then this year it will only cost £200-400 for an accountant to sort through my records and draw up the P&L and balance sheet. Plus it will help me understand more about minimising costs and maximising profit, which is essentially all business is about.