This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Thanks to Miranda who sent us this wryly amusing article which made me laugh out loud when I read it. They say that life is better after 50 but it often depends on who lives next door! Other posts by Miranda can be read and enjoyed HERE.
I’ve decided that ‘the jury’s still out’ on having neighbours. I’d like to give them the thumbs up but I’m being severely tested. I’ve put one of my neighbours ‘in the freezer’. I heard my husband say, “Once in, they are in for life! No-one has ever been known to emerge from her freezer.”
My daughter and her family recently moved to Oxfordshire. Within a few days of them settling in, feathers were ruffled. My wonderful son-in-law seems to have attracted all the pent-up frustrations of a middle-aged furious female neighbour.
First misdemeanour was the audacious visit, during the pandemic, of a business colleague. This visitor is an architect. He was discussing my son-in-law’s property development business. This work meeting was conducted outside with a low wall separating the two. The architect wouldn’t enter the house because he had to take special precautions. His wife was being shielded for a very serious heart condition.
However, furious female neighbour (FFN) interpreted the proceedings completely differently, mainly because she hadn’t bothered asking.
She decided that Philip (my son-in-law) had welcomed a friend around to play, despite strict rules against socialising during this pandemic. He had let this ‘friend’ brazenly park in his own private parking space and then taken him up to his house to breathe Covid over each other!
She felt it her duty to inform the other neighbours of this outrageous behaviour via the Car Park Committee’s WhatsApp chat line.
The second misdeed was priceless.
FFN is obsessed with the aesthetics of the car parking area allotted to our little cluster of four houses. She probably feels particularly partial to this plot, as her front door is directly opposite it.
When we bought our house a few months ago, it transpired that none of us legally owned the plot where our cars are parked, as there’d been a ‘balls up’ with ownership transference from the developers. After many years it’s reverted to being the Crown’s land. In fact, the Queen owns our car parking spaces!
I think, in the light of the information that we unearthed, the Queen should be included in the Car Park Committee.
Philip has a Ducati motorbike which is protected from the elements by a cover. Apparently this rather smart motorbike cover is an ‘erection’. In FFN’s rule book you are not allowed to erect a structure in or on the car parking area.
The WhatsApp chat line was smoking hot from missives bombarding the luckless other neighbours.
Philip trotted round to FFN to address the misdemeanour. She slammed her front door in his face after accusing him of ‘doorstopping’ her and ‘bringing his bad energy’ to her door!
As none of us have a clue what she’s banging on about, the ‘erection’ remains exactly as it was found, protecting the bike. My husband looked up ‘erecting a structure’ and apparently all cars are erections! Or every car has a ‘structural frame’ separate from its body.
So …. I think we should confer with The Queen what to do with erections on her plot of land, don’t you?