The link between today’s photo (which, incidentally I’m rather pleased with) and my story of the day is tenuous to say the least. This has 'aged' rather nicely I think!

It tells a tale of how the youth of today simply don’t know how to ‘burn the house down’ and party any more!

Our next-door neighbours are on holiday at the moment, leaving their home in the tender loving care of their nineteen-year-old son. He’s off to Uni in a few weeks time and, when there seemed to be quite a stream of young folks ambling up to the door all afternoon, DM came into the den and said ‘oh blimey, I hope they’re not having a party tonight’.

A short while later, the dogs went wild and there was a ring on our doorbell. A nineteen year old (Tiff) stood before DM, shuffling about quite a lot and proclaiming that he was having a party and if we’d care to join them we’d be very welcome. We sort of felt as though we might not really fit in with Tiff’s young friends so we politely declined and settled in for a night of loud music and raucous behaviour. We’d made up our minds that we would get no sleep so were resigned to having a long night.

It was completely pissing down here all day and we were amused to watch the youngsters next door heading off down the garden and setting up camp in the greenhouse to smoke! That’s not very rock and roll we thought.

There also seemed to be a rather large bias in terms of boys to girls – we only spotted two girls all evening.

The music started thrumming through our walls and we tried to drown it out by turning up the telly.

Then it grew quiet. No shouting, no music, no nothing. We assumed they’d gone down the pub and would be returning noisily at closing time but no, they were in the garden smoking and chatting. We got worried. This isn’t how you have a great party. There was no-one chucking up in the flowerbeds, no cavorting, not even any noticeable canoodling.

I must say, I like to think of myself as a bit of an expert at partying – my own parties had something of a reputation for being quite wild and I went to more than my fair share of rock and roll parties with bands in the early 80s. To be frank, this party going on next door was duller than the Radiohead backstage party I went to shortly after they became famous!!! (And that’s saying something, I’m not sure I’ve ever had a less exciting time than I did that night.)

DM and I discussed what to do – we considered turning up on his motorbike and riding it round their living room. We considered ‘popping in for a drink’ then encouraging them to dance naked on the lawn. We even thought about turning up our own music and having a little party, just the two of us, but livelier than all the goings on next door.

We went to bed and the music was so quiet we slept until 3am when I was woken by the front door next door slamming and ‘goodbyes’ being shouted.

This morning, there were no signs of a party at all.

I am very amused that we’re old enough to be their parents yet we could have livened them up no bother. We know a thing or two about ‘burning down the house’!

Last year we were at a party that had a lot more oomph than the one next door!