N is for Neighbours (A-Z Challenge 2020)

In January of this year my hubby and I decided that it was time to move on to the next stage of our lives and move house.  I deliberated long and hard about whether it was a good move to take part in the A-Z Challenge this year (pun intended) given that we could be very busy, but decided on balance that having something to focus on might not be a bad idea.  Of course the decision on a theme was much easier to make – Moving House!  

Then Covid-19 put a stop to any ideas of moving so I’ve had to regroup and rethink my posts.  Which means I’m not as prepared as I’d liked to have been but here goes:

N is for Neighbours

Knowing your neighbours is pretty important when moving house but who ever really knows their neighbours?

We don't actually have a lot of contact with our neighbours and, with no houses on the other side of our road, we don't have that many close to us.

The immediate neighbours to the right are a family - parents and 2 grown up sons.  They keep themselves very much to themselves and the fence between our gardens is high so we have no interaction across the garden fence.  They used to be ok about taking in deliveries for us although that hasn't been put to the test since they refused a wine delivery we'd ordered.  No idea why.  

Our houses are terraced and don't have massive front gardens so parking is on the street.  These neighbours have 2 cars and they are obsessive about having one of them parked directly outside their house.  So much so that they will play musical cars depending on which car they plan to use and, if they are going out in both cars, they will leave their dustbins out to save the space!  

Of course I like my car outside my house too but if there's no space when I get home I park as close as I can.  I might move my car into the space if it becomes free but only if I've nothing better to do.  My neighbour will think nothing of putting his 2nd car outside our house, even when he doesn't need to.  Are you sensing my irritation here? lol

Our neighbours to the other side are a couple similar in age to us.  Again we don't see a lot of them as they both work but we are able to chat across the garden fence if we're both in our gardens.  We've had no major issues with them although again they're more take than give - we've accommodated scaffolding in our back garden for them to carry out works on their property twice.  However, when we asked if the end poles of scaffolding on the front of our house could be put just on their side of the boundary they refused.  I hope they never need access from our garden again.....

I think it helps if you have things in common with your neighbours.  At our first house there were several people close by who had children around the same ages as ours so we got to know them better.

We've been fortunate though that we've never had any "neighbours from hell".

Now we're in lockdown we see even less of our neighbours.  Fortunately none of the people on our block would fall into the vulnerable category - we'd be checking on them if they were.

I think our kids class hubby and me as vulnerable as we're both over 60 now and hubby has mild asthma and sleep apnoea and I take medication to keep my blood pressure under control.  We don't think of ourselves that way.  

Our son has been doing shopping for one of the elderly residents in his block of flats.  They know her reasonably well as she is very involved with their residents association.  On her shopping list just before Easter she had various items and then finally "a little boy Easter egg for Rory".  We were all touched at that.  

How about you? Are your neighbours friendly?