Fear

We're having a great time on holiday, really. The only thing is that it's reminding me of one thing that I'd forgotten about since living in HK. Fear. It started with N. being paranoid of letting us out of her sight in the supermarket. Closer interrogation led to the fact that her dad had warned her that there were 'bad people' in - well, it doesn't seem clear if it was France / Paris / Spain / Aeroports, anywhere except for Hong Kong.
It culminated in the fact that I haven't been able to sleep for the last 2 nights. Why? Because I too am scared of the 'bad people'. H is travelling and working and I'm alone in this huge villa with way to many glass doors and no neighbours that I know. So I bravely go off to bed each night, and then somewhere in the middle of the night I wake with a jolt as I hear something somewhere in the house creaking or dropping or moving, and that's it. Too scared to move, to put on a light, to investigate, I stay awake and suffer the bad mood the next day.
When we lived here, it was the same, but worse. The house was even bigger and it was surrounded by open cork oak forest. H travelled even more. The alarm was impossible to put on, since you needed to break the circuit in order to put it off again, which mean annoying the security staff. The house truly creaked as the wooden beams expanded and contracted as it got cooler at night. Then as now, the place became invaded in the summer. Not only with tourists from Madrid, but also by the unsavory characters that follow the rich and famous in order to relieve them of their worldly goods.
Living in a high rise in 'safe' HK is so much easier.