neighbours - episode 3

Please note that any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. 

This soap is a work of fiction.

It couldn't possibly be happening.

In our last episode we discovered that the end of our court sometimes resembles a huge car yard. We also met some of the characters who live in our little circle.

Tonight we move on to meet some of those who live to the left of our house.

A few doors down is a character who once went to the same school as TO. She has not twigged that she went to the same school as TO, even though she has had 28 years as a neighbour to make the connection.

This might be a good thing. For the most part, she and her husband keep to themselves. Unless, of course, the former schoolmate goes from letter box to letter box helping herself to copies of the local paper. Or there is a hard rubbish collection. Or someone has a tree removed. That sort of thing. She might be a one-man neighbourhood watch collective, but she is no gossip.

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To our immediate left is Mr S.

Mr S looks after his house meticulously. Well, he's not as bad as the lady I once lived opposite in Thornbury. She swept her gutter every day. Sometimes she got carried away and swept the gutter right round the block til she got back to where she started. But I digress.

Mr S is very particular about looking after the nature strip outside his house. He is also very particular about who parks in front of his house. Which is to say, no one should park in front of his house except him.

Mr C and Mr S have sometimes had words when Mr C has taken it upon himself to park in front of the house of Mr S. Mr C always leaves enough room for Mr S to park his car there as well, but it seems there is a principle at stake.

One day Mr S called Mr C an ignorant caveman. Mr C called Mr S a C.

Another day Mr C temporarily parked his car and horse float in front of the house of S, while he worked on the roof of his carport. Mr S told Mr C to move them. When Mr C refused Mr S threatened to slash his tyres. Mr C went to the police station and asked them to record details of the exchange.

Mr S likes to take photos of Mr C's vehicles parked out the front of his house. Only Mr S knows if he took a photo of Mr C's worktruck the day all of the tyres inexplicably but simultaneously went flat.

Sometimes, as we have seen in a previous episode, the elderly couple across the way with the steep drive are in need of ambulance care or transportation. On one such occasion, the live in carer daughter, making room at the top of the drive for the ambulance, parked her mother's car in front of the house of S.

No doubt Mr S took a photo of the offending vehicle.

Later that afternoon when she had finished with the day's stressful medical dramas, the daughter went to return her mother's car to the top of the driveway, and discovered a council notice warning that as it was unregistered it would be impounded if not moved within 24 hours. Although the mother was now unable to move let alone drive, she had re-registered her car faithfully every year. Perhaps it was because she was unable to move she had not bothered to affix the new stickers every year.

The daughter removed the council notice, and affixed a current registration sticker to the windscreen. She then carefully placed the car outside the house of S so that it took up two car spaces. And there the car remained for a few weeks until needed.

Apart from the curious incident of the cat in the night time, we have tried valiantly to remain neutral through all this. Despite a thing about a tree. Oh, and a thing with a flagpole. Undoubtedly a string of unfortunate co-incidences.

Not so long ago Mr S went to one of TO's workmates across the road and asked her to tell everyone else that he would sue them if the conspiracy of racist harassment continued.

Said workmate, possibly relieved that she not only lived on the opposite side of the court but also has a huge driveway and double garage, refused to get involved.

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I'm always impressed that garbage truck drivers can do a 12 point turn at the end of the court, despite the narrow circle, and the number of cars parked either parallel to or at right angles to the kerb.

At the request of the council, we all place our wheelie bins on a straight section of the court so the truck driver can actually empty them. To Mr S, having so many people put their bins on his nature strip is simply further harassment. No doubt he has been taking photos so he will have evidence for his planned civil action against conspirators.

Of late, we have sometimes come home and discovered that our bins have not been emptied. Perhaps Mr S takes before and before photos.

TO and I went to council a few weeks ago and explained the problem with the bins and the nature strip and the conspiracy and our own cowardly desire to solve the problem with as little fuss as possible.

The council receptionist, who probably listens to crap like this all day everyday, said she would arrange for council to write to each person in the court about bin placements. The letters would be generic, as if in response to a complaint from the garbage contractor.

Unfortunately the letters did not arrive before the great bin bunfight.

In the next episode: Fruitcake takes photos of a farce, and Ms C films a fracas.