Making the most of wakeful hours...

Hiya
After a record period of over two months in which my awful downstairs neighbours had been behaving very decently indeed, coming and going at "normal" hours, or coming and going quietly, and after about a month in which their dog did not howl and bark for hours and hours on end at all times of day and night, the Full Moon seems to have brought out their antisocial side again.
At any rate, I was awakened by someone coming in at 01:30am. The dog had evidently been cooped up in their small flat and was now jumping all over the place. The pounding of its paws on their laminate flooring is a sound of thunder, especially in the otherwise perfectly quiet house.
Progress, however, and credit where credit is due: it did not bark, for which much thanks.
Whoever came in took the dog out through the back door, encouraging it loudly to "Go for it, go on, go running!" -- the dog's paws were churning up the gravel beyond the paving slabs -- "go over! Guid gurrl!" -- the "go over" meaning for the dog to jump over the fence.
I could hear the man talking loudly to the dog all the way up the lane, across the burn and over into the houses beyond, and again less than five minutes later, just before he came back into the house.
He is evidently drunk, speaking really loudly to the dog, or to a mate, or on the phone downstairs in his flat -- sometimes I do wish I had Superman's x-ray vision, truly, to see what exactly is going on there!
Things calmed down a bit and I was falling asleep again when five raps coming in quick succession from the direction of the kitchen roused me again, followed by men's loud voices.
Things have now calmed down -- the soft click of the light switch -- but I'm on tenterhooks, totally wired, and exhausted. And disgusted.
Affaire à suivre, I suppose. No rest for the wicked, as they say.
Hope you all who read this can enjoy peaceful, quiet, restful nights.
Oh, and yes, I am aware that I'm moaning, and have much to be grateful for, and that millions of people all over the world never know when the next shots will be fired, or the next bomb will drop on them, or when their loved one will die of AIDS -- I am more than aware of all that, but it doesn't make it right for me to be deprived of sleep by neighbours who behave as if they owned the place (which they don't) and as if they were the only ones to live in this house. Urrrghhhh!

Win some, lose some...

Wahayy! I'm not often gleeful and I don't often actually almost hate people, I'm not that sort of person, really (mind you, those of you who know me well also know that I can have quite a temper if properly provoked, but I've been working on it and, anyway, it's an entirely different story altogether).

So: you win some:
The young lady (let's be polite even though she probably doesn't deserve it) across the landing has left the premises. A friend of mine is looking for a flat so I thought I'd get in touch with the owner of the flat across the landing. And, lo and behold (or lo and listen), she tells me the young woman has flitted, leaving the place in a great big mess: carpets stained, bedding stained -- yuck and yuck again. This tells me something: do not let a flat, sell it outright...
However sorry I am for the owner, I am elated to know that maybe my friend will get the flat. Failing that, hopefully someone really nice and pleasant will move in and help us get this house sorted. Because we've made huge progress here, even though it doesn't show just yet. But nights are generally much quieter these days, and with that young lady gone, she won't be bringing her falling-over drunk friends in any more, so even weekends are more likely to be livable/sleepable. :)

However, you lose some:
I'm puzzled. Here I am, trying to do the right thing by the tax man. So I transferred a not unsubstantial sum of money into HMR&C's accounts, only to find the exact same sum transferred back into my account a few days later. Go figure! They don't want my money? When the roads have huge potholes and are falling apart at the edges because of the hard frost we have had, and services are being threatened with massive cuts and closures? I have no idea what went wrong. What worries me is that I cut things a tad fine, paying in at the last minute, so if the tax man doesn't have my money, will I get hammered with, a) a fine for late payment (even though I wasn't late) and b) with a substantial sum of interest, to boot?
I suppose I will find out in the morning. Their offices open at 8. Oh, boy, do I look forward to making a phone-call to an 0845 number!
So I'd better stop here and get myself under the covers because I have to be ready to roll by 8 so as not to keep my colleague waiting to take me down the road to a meeting. Rendez-vous is ten minutes' walk away, at 9:15.
Keep fingers crossed!