One word? When seven would do…

It’s a Nic’s neighbours special post. Ooh what a treat. 🙂

No idea if I’ve kept you all fully abreast of the goings on in our street of late so here’s a nice update. You may want to settle in your chair with cocoa and a nice biscuit.

Don & Maureen, who live opposite and are the childrens’ most regular lavender stall patrons are fine. No news about them for you. Next door to them Owen and Carolyn (the one’s who went away for that weekend and left the car with the car alarm that went off for hours and days behind) are rarely seen. We still maintain low level curiosity about what they do for a living, why they don’t have children and why they never seen to do anything remotely coupley together. Next door to them live The Thank You Neighbours, who several of you have now had the good fortune to meet. We bumped into them today when we were off to Beavers and they were off to the local shop to buy ‘some ham and a few other bits’ which makes me wonder as to the nature of the ‘other bits’ really when they’d been so specific about the ham. I was much complimented on my new shorter hair, which they’ve noticed and decided they really like but not seen me to to talk to to tell me properly. Apparently it makes me look ten years younger, which I hope is an exageration as really I’m quite happy looking 33 and wouldn’t be that keen to be looking 23 with two children the ages of mine and a husband who is over 40 😆

Next to them live the nurse and the policeman – fabulously gender stereotyped couple 🙂 He was out fixing his roof recently – he does lots of outside-y tasks without a shirt on, which frankly he is unwise to do, but then I imagine neighbours think similarly of me dashing outside to get jeans off the washing line in my pants some times or putting the blue boxes out in a vest top without a bra so I guess I shouldn’t comment really! Anyway, he had the chimney taken down and was patching the roof with tarp. as the roof tiles had been delayed. We have a huge great pile of roof tiles in our back garden (where the rats live :roll:) from when we had the loft converted so we gave him a load and he cancelled his own delivery and brought us a rather nice bottle of rose wine to say thank you. The nurse (who never really says much but she works shifts so I assume she is always tired :lol:) went out on a hen night recently and was collected by a pink stretch limo and waved and shouted Hellooooos at us in a very friendly manner so must have been either drunk or well rested as it was very out of character. She’s not done it again since though.

Next to them lives Keith the unfortunately names foxy builder and his ‘missus’, who had a nasty motorbike accident recently and both ended up in intensive care for a while. They seem to be on the road to recovery now and it did lead to Keith answering his front door in his dressing gown and even spending some time chatting to the Policeman neighbour on the front path wearing it, so it wasn’t all bad. Their house has been up for sale for ages – they are apparently buying a camper van and going off travelling, but doesn’t get many viewings and seems to not be selling. Poor Keith.

Further up the road we are not so familiar with the intimate goings on, but it wouldn’t take much effort to learn 😉 A nod to David and he’d be on the case with all the gossip, and Davies’ room is perfect for citing long range binoculars 😆

Across the road lives Dragon Lady and her husband, they aged a lot while we were away and she now walks totally bent over and he gets collected by a community bus each day to go to a daycare centre. They still feed the birds every day though and have had four racing pidegons living on their roof who must have got lost mid flight for about six weeks too. Next door to them live a mad family who have given us many hours of entertainment with their comedy carrying on. They currently have a lodger who works nights at Sainsburys and there is always an assortment of odd characters pulling up day and night for the older man who lives there to look at their cars. They put the house up for sale about a month ago and a sold board went up this week, so we have ringside seats for the new neighbours whoever they may be and their moving in and settling period. Rubs hands together with glee!

And finally, next door. When we first moved here there was a family with two youngish children living next door, we never knew their names but called him ‘Ashington Motors Man’ because that’s where he worked. They split up and she moved out leaving him with the two children, by that time teens. While we were away he met a new woman and moved in with her, leaving his son in the house while he was at uni locally and then selling the house. The new neighbours moved in while we were at Kessingland last year and aside from David (thank you neighbour) accosting them and even inviting himself in when they first arrived, and the whole street talking about them being ‘Mitchells’ which is a well known Lancing Mafia style family we’ve never really heard much from them. The only room you can see their house / garden from is Davies’ bedroom, which means that when they have 3 boys leaping on the trampoline at 9pm and Davies is supposed to be in bed, he is more often than not standing at his bedroom window looking wistfully down at them. I’ve no idea how many of the children actually belong in that house – it always seems to be be different children every time I peek out. He often bangs on the window and waves to them and they exchange hand signals quite often.

So tonight he was trying to communicate with them and find out their names, long after he was supposed to be asleep in bed, he came down with a piece of paper and pen and asked me to write ‘what is your name?’ on it to hold up to the window 😆 and he got some yelled out answers too :). He is now very keen to go round there and play with them, but I’m not altogether sure how we arrange that one, I’ve told him to try shouting over the fence to them next time they’re in the garden at the same time as him and invite them round here first. They are lots older than him and although the idea of having next door neighbours he can play with is quite appealing I am slightly concerned at him attempting to climb out of his bedroom window after he’s gone to bed once he’s been aquainted with them properly!