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Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

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Moving House

Moving stress

November 2, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Curtain twitching neighbour

Moving house is supposedly one of the more stressful things we put ourselves through. Add in one of those awful weekends life likes to chuck your way from time to time, and you have the recipe for Xanax.

As weekends go, the one that just ended was rubbish – even by my low standards. My husband broke down in a torrential downpour on a major motorway with no hard shoulder. One of these new fangled smart motorways that killed 38 people in the few years. My dog picked up a skin infection that is now costing an arm and a leg in mature cheese to disguise the crushed up pound-coin-sized antibiotics a sadistic (and now extremely well-off) vet prescribed. I dropped and broke three highly pressurised glass bottles of traditional lemonade (living the high life). You wouldn’t believe just how much mess that causes. And just how far the shards of glass will travel. And just how sharp they are when you sit on one. And how hard it is to administer a plaster to your rear that stays put.

To top it all, our soon-to-be ex-neighbour from hell decided to have one last go at sending me over the edge.

Neighbour from hell

When people talk neighbours from hell, they usually mean some antisocial creep who plays loud music, smokes way-too-much weed and/or smears windows with excrement. Or variations on those basic three themes. My appalling neighbour does none of this. He’s of the ‘nice to your face, vile behind your back’ sort. The kind of person who used to dominate the 90s gay scene.

Over eight years, he’s policed a dim, barnacled, smelly area of no-man’s-land between each flat in our ancient under-maintained building. The kind of place you could keep a prisoner of conscience secure in the knowledge they’d crack within hours and spill every secret. Our neighbour spends each and every waking hour making sure nobody dare set foot in this precious scrap of hell.

We wanted to make sure the space didn’t put off flat buyers. We came to an agreement with the people who own it to clean it up and fill it with plants.

Neighbour wasn’t pleased.

Usually, I’d be able to tell such a man to shove his displeasure firmly up his hoop. Sadly, he gets to say whether we can extend the years on our lease as we sell and get moving. I have to lap it all up. And rather than tell me to my face, how did he choose to announce his irritation? That’s right. By email. Through his solicitor.

Moving shame

Dear reader, I’m ashamed to say I threw myself on his mercy. I rammed my tongue so far up his rear end it came out of his mouth.

So far, the matter looks to be resolved, and it’s only cost an extra £1700 in legal fees to send a letter to five or six different people. Still, if it means we get on with moving house and away from this awful man …

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to set down what life in Britain is like in 2021. The NIMBY (Not in my back yard) culture that expects everything should run only for the benefit of those in power slides down even to my lowly level on the ladder. That and I want to make sure I don’t forget the details and the rage so I can use it in my next book.

And use it I will.

Filed Under: Anxiety, Diary, Stress Tagged With: Brighton, Diary, Moving House, Neighbours, stress

Think of the neighbours

May 6, 2021 by Mo Fanning Leave a Comment

Neighbours

It’s time for the Fannings to leave Brighton and float up the country. Hopefully coming to land somewhere in the middle – far, far from neighbours.

Like Alexandra Small in my upcoming book, we’re moving from the home we’ve never really loved enough to want to make it forever. While Allie’s hand is somewhat forced after losing her job and her husband all in the space of a few hours, the need for quiet guides our hunt. I’m dread invites to ‘supper’ from former public schoolboys wearing red jeans. I end up sat next to a skinny branding consultant called Justin. We’ll chat about hot yoga, Tom Hiddleston, the hazards of buy-to-let, and the novels of Elena Ferrante. There’s always some woman crying about an imaginary problem she won’t remember in the morning. We don’t fit in.

I’ve had neighbours most everywhere I lived. In Amsterdam, we were crammed in tight, under a hockey teacher who made vigorous love each Sunday afternoon at 3pm to her otherwise placid looking companion, and next door to a man who wore very little in the house, but surely should have. We overlooked one of the five most fascinating places … to pass out wasted. Smoking strong Dutch weed is perfect if you need psychological help, but have made a conscious decision not to get any.

Cigarette stealing spaniels

Years ago, in Manchester I lived next to lesbians whose King Charles Spaniels made it their mission to steal my Marlboro Lights – I was drinking a lot back then, and found it charming.

Our temporary bolthole is my late mother’s house. Or ‘the money pit’ as I like to call it, with a leaking roof, dodgy heating systems, rising, falling and ingress damp and taps that refuse to switch off. Or on again. New neighbours have made matters worse. They have five cars between the two of them and an addiction to solar lighting. I swear the lady of the house is on a mission to create the summer version of those Christmas houses that were all the rage a few years back.

Anti-vaxxer neighbours

And they’re anti-vaxxers. It’s tempting to pass comment as they stage yet another family barbecue on people who’ll eat sausage but decline a vaccine … because they don’t know what’s in it.

Mr Fanning has used the lockdown well. He’s learned how to plaster a wall, plumb in a sink, move electrical sockets and lay paving slabs. I’ve reorganised my spice collection and reupholstered a chair. Badly. And lost most of a fingernail. Something they seldom mention in those smug YouTube videos.

There’s one month to go before we put the place on the market. By a curious twist of fate, that’s when ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ hits the shops for real. I’m expecting to have the audio book on sale around about the same time, so that’s three ways to show you love me more than any of those dreadful neighbours.

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning

Filed Under: Diary, Modern life is heck, Rebuilding Alexandra Small, Writing Tagged With: Brighton, Diary, Moving House, Rebuilding Alexandra Small

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About Mo Fanning

Mo Fanning (@mofanning) tells jokes on a stage and writes commercial fiction. He’s the bestselling author of The Armchair Bride and Rebuilding Alexandra Small. Mo makes fabulous tea – milk in last – and is a Society of Authors member and cancer bore.

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Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning
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