What must the neighbours think?

I am sitting here at a quarter past ten in the morning and I can distinctly hear the clattering of cutlery coming from next door. I am astonished that I can hear the simplest of sounds and my hearing is not that of a bat (it is bats that have super-sonic hearing right?).

Anyway after the clinking of metal stopped I paused feeling as though I were being watched by said neighbours (these are the neighbours whose wife is apparently agoraphobic and doesn't venture outside more than once or twice a month, and the husband peers his head over my back garden fence at the most inappropriate times - no more topless sunbathing for me then!).

It all seems a tad 'odd'. I know the husband escapes to the bottom of his garden to his shed to do goodness only knows what but now I fear that the wife who barely leaves the house has heard so many things from the other side of her walls. Me generally. Me shouting at Doo when Doo was here, Doo shouting at me when he lived here (even when he doesn't live here as it goes). Me chasing the stray cat intruder out of my living room by banging pots and pans together, me shouting at Youngling, Youngling shouting back at me. Me shouting back at Youngling to stop shouting at me, and so on. What must they think?

Surely they know that I am now a single mother (Doo apparently told them he was leaving even before he had told me so there you go) struggling with a sometimes unruly toddler, two cats (three if you count the sodding stray), and a sometimes shouty ex on my doorstep. So why then do I feel so embarrassed? Is it because I really care what they think? Not really. In all honesty I realised a long time ago that we are meerly neighbours nothing more and nothing less. We didn't even exchange Christmas cards this year (unlike the older lady to the left of my house). This didn't upset or offend me. In fact it saved me the trouble of making another card (I handmade pretty much all but a few). I think I am just disappointed in myself then. For I wouldn't want to live next to a loud inappropriate neighbour disturbing me morning noon and night. But then I wouldn't want to live in the middle of a field with not a house in sight.

I don't think they like change and what with me being 'the new girl' who is considerably younger than they are and what not. Maybe they were just born disgruntled? Don't get me wrong I will always be polite and exchange pleasantries but I don't think I will invite them to any BBQ's this summer.

What are your neighbours like?

Take care, and keep the noise down will you!

Kate

xx