Journey Into The Unknown

Helen Devries29 Comments

I had been staying with an old friend in north London…..but had had many errands to run while there. Those to central London posed no problem….but I wanted to visit a specialist shoe shop which was situated in the further reaches of the capital.

Terra Incognita.

For both of us.

Accordingly we consulted Transport for London’s journey planner, according to which we took three buses involving two changes.

Fine…except at that change two it did not explain that we had to cross the road as a result of which we had an interesting journey in the wrong direction.

We passed from discreet Kensal Rise to run down Willesden – all fast food, nail bars and Turkish barbers, then out into the wilds.

We passed shopping streets full of halal butchers…..then south asian suppliers….Polish stores…..Roumanian supermarkets….and finally kosher bakers – at which point we realised we were going the wrong way and retraced our steps – using, fools that we were, the Transport for London journey planner once again.

Mission accomplished, we returned to Kensal Rise, gentrified for some years now. No halal butcher, no south asian supermarkets, no kosher bakeries. A plethora of expensive ‘beauty’ parlours, cafes and restaurants….the last fish and chip shop closed and shuttered. The new residents do not shop locally – unless in the organic butcher. They order from upmarket delivery firms for their groceries – and from decidedly downmarket delivery operations for their drugs.

On the way to the shoe shop we had noticed a number 302 bus – the first one of the three on the TfL list – in the other lane just a few stops short of our destination. Accordingly, on the return leg we checked the bus stop signs and found one at which the 302 would call. So the three buses and two changes had been inaccurate.

The next day we wanted to go to Somerset House to see a Seurat exhibition – and consulted TfL again. It suggested three buses and two changes and took us on a roundabout route. My friend, who has an encyclodaedic knowledge of central London bus routes, announced that that was rubbish. Two buses, one change and a direct route.

Once could be an aberration…..but twice? Looks more like a sneaky way to raise revenue.

One thing struck me about the buses…..I used various services nearly every day for three weeks and on only four occasions did I hear passengers speak in English, either to their neighbours or on their mobile ‘phones. A curious phenomenon.

One Sunday, we went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square to see the Stubbs exhibition…..extracts from his work ‘The Anatomy of a Horse’ published in 1766, the fruit of eighteen months’ labour in dissecting horses, the better to know how to depict them acurately.

His best known work is the stunning study of ‘Whistlejacket’, a racehorse owned by one of George III’s ministers

But the exhibition also displayed another of that minister’s horses…Scrub.

Both studies were to be part of equestrian portraits of the king…thus the pose in the ‘levade’ position….but the minister fell out with the king and the horses remained without riders.

We had noticed that a stage had been erected in Trafalgar Square, which had been closed off and imagined that it had been booked for an open air concert.

What it had actually been booked for was a celebration of breaking the fast during the month of Ramadan, and thus offered free food and a great deal of praying. Entry by ticket only.

The sight of massed upturned backsides roused great deal of reaction….one conservative M.P. opining that it was less a celebration but, by siting the event in central London, more a sign of domination. In a period of social tension over immigration, both legal and illegal, the failure to set an enquiry into organised ‘grooming’ gangs in motion, and attempts to reintroduce blasphemy laws by the back door in respect of Islam, perhaps it would have been wiser, in the interests of social harmony, to have kept celebrations to the mosques.

Business apart, I enjoyed being back in London, despite being buffeted by freezing winds every time I ventured outside the house and a damp cold which chilled me to the bone. I could shop for things unobtainable in Costa Rica – hello, jars of Marmite! – find shoes which fitted me, and indulge in the delights of black pudding, white pudding, hagggis and kippers…..

Now, if only Waitrose and Marks and Spencer would open branches in San Jose, life in Costa Rica would be truly ‘pura vida’!

Back to Blighty

Helen Devries36 Comments

It did not start off under the best of auspices.

Herded into a far flung unheated waiting area of San Jose airport – the only amenity the loo – at 6.00 a.m. to await the departure of the plane for Montreal some two hours later, the early morning chill enhanced by gusts of even chillier air as outside staff passed too close to the automatic doors to the tarmac, I watched as my companions in misery arrrived.

Mostly Canadians and British returning from holidays, there were an alarming number of people in wheelchairs – genuine users with plaster casts, pressure boots and assorted bandages, as opposed to the usual chancers who leap from their chairs like Lazarus once the queues for boarding begin. It looked as if the waiting area was an annexe of a hospital outpatients departure.

Why had we been herded into this unhospitable area became clear. For whatever reason, the ‘plane upon which we were to embark had not the privilege of an airbridge…..we were to be bussed to the far reaches of the airport and expected to board by mounting the steps. You would think that noting the number of those requiring assistance when booking the flight it would have dawned on someone that this was not a helpful idea…..but dawn it did not, or dawned and disregarded as only inconveniencing passengers.

Accordingly the halt and the lame were loaded onto a bus, only to be submerged by the able bodied passengers crammed on afterwards, and the adventure began. The able bodied disembarked and legged it up the stairs. The walking wounded – me included – were urged to the steps with a minder to carry the bags. Half way up, the steps were blocked by two women gabbing. I asked them to let me pass…..no joy, so poked one with my stick. Blockage shifted and finally made it to my seat, exhausted by the effort.

The totally immobile were either carried up the steps by two helpers, or in the case of the lucky ones, loaded on the hoist that brought the fodder aboard. Conversation later in Montreal revealed that the people concerned were not exactly delighted by this feature of their trip…….

Still, despite all, the transfer at a snowy Montreal was painless, and I finally made it to London Heathrow and thence to the house of a friend in north london. No, not the north London of the chattering classes, but recently gentrified Kensal Rise, boasting the obligatory Gails over priced coffee shop, an organic butcher and any number of tanks in which the yummy mummies panzer their young between one and the other.

Easy to slide back into London life…..charge up the Oyster card and public transport is yours!

We decided to go shopping for fresh fish. The fish shop opened by the owner of the organic butcher had had but a short life…..people no longer seem to want to cook fish themselves in Kensal Rise…..so we took the bus down to the Edgeware Road – little Lebanon – where the shop fronts have arabic subtitles and most of the women customers wear head coverings and long clothing, meeting on the bus a gentleman who saved me from annihilation by a lady wielding a shopping trolley damned nearly as wide as herself and who revealed himself to be a spanish speaker. You meet all sorts on a London bus.

The fishmonger, a middle eastern gentleman, had a vast display of fresh fish and shellfish……but took a step back as two bare headed women entered his shop, culture shock writ large upon his face. However, he recovered himself and proved to be most helpful, scaling and gutting our choice…..though it was an odd sensation, being regarded as somehow abnormal a few bus stops north of Oxford Street…..

Still, normality returned as we took the bus further down the Edgeware Road to shop in Waitrose. Not a head covering in sight among the customers, just on the lady on the only manned till and, oh! the delight of a British supermarket after the banal offerings of those in Costa Rica! The palate jaded by variants on rice and beans could rejoice in row after row of sheer temptation, and rejoice it did!

Heavily laden, we crossed the road and took the bus home to stock the fridge with our booty. I am on cooking duties while here and intend to make the most of the opportunity, while taking the chance to indulge in the vast array of preprepared meals for the days on which we are going to be home late. Scoff if you like, but given the opportunity not to have to make cannelloni oneself or scrap around to find the spices for ‘exotic’ foods, I’m seizing it with both hands. Roll on the Marks and Spencer ready meals……

One drawback…. I had forgotten how cold it could be in early March. Despite taking heavyweight – by Costa Rican standards – clothing and a padded coat which made me resemble a boiled maggot, the chill got to me and I trotted into a charity shop up the road from the house to buy a woollen sweater. The eastern european lady running the joint had no change, so I arranged to call in on the following day to pick up the two pounds fifty pence she would owe me. Next day dawned…..a different eastern european lady on duty who ‘knew nothing about it’. I shall return until I the trap the first one…..

I took buses acrosss the city to Liverpool Street station to meet up with Adullamite – Tynecastle to you, Tom – who kindly came in from Essex to meet me. I felt guilty as on our last meeting I had said I would travel down to meet him on his home turf, but, ever the gentleman, he would not permit it as I was, if no longer hors de combat, somewhat fragile still and having to use a stick to get about.

It gave me a lot of pleasure to catch up with him and his news…..well laced with that pawky Scots humour which makes his blog something to which to look forward….and a genuinely kinder man you could not wish to meet. Now I just hope he did not catch pneumonia by insisting on accompanying me to the bus stop and waiting there in the cold!

In my days of using Liverpool Street station it was a gloomy, grimy hole…..these days it is light, clean and welcoming – and about to be wrecked by some office development being installed above it. Why build more when offices lie empty all over London!

On thing has struck me and pleasantly, at that. The thoughtfulness of people on the buses, from drivers to passengers, in not hurrying me and making sure I am seated before the bus sets off again. Apart, of course, from that woman with the shopping trolley. Perhaps I have just been lucky so far, but it gives a good impression of London.

Oozlem Bird Directions

Helen Devries36 Comments

Costa Rica has – in theory – street names and numbers. They are even marked as such on maps – not, I suspect, however, maps produced in Costa Rica.

The capital, San Jose,once had cast iron plaques on street corners. These, like many of the cast iron manhole covers, were removed by enterprising gentlemen for purposes of their own, so not only did you not know where you were, but it was probable that the sewer you had just fallen into could not easily be identified.

Built on a grid pattern, as San Jose began to expand following the earthquake which wrecked the old capital, Carthago, anomalies crept in. Someone would buy a piece of land, put up buildings and run an access road between them…..the grid began to become irregular…..no longer a compact city, people needed to know how to get to your house or your place of work, so a new system arose.

The house we bought in San Jose was officially on Transversal 19B – which has since morphed into something else entirely – but, as no one had a clue where or what that was, it is – for purposes of directions – in front of the American Bar across from the park of the Escuela de Chile.

How this is supposed to help you if you are a stranger in town is beyond me, especially since, although the Escuela de Chile is still there the American Bar has long gone the way of all flesh – which is mostly what frequented it.

This came to mind recently, when applying for a certificate from the elecricity board – ICE. If the anglophone reads that as ice…it is appropriate as it normally moves at the speed of a constipated glacier.

I duly produced the necessary information….my ID card, an official plan showing the property and a map where X marked the spot.

Shock, horror! The young lady on the desk could not accept a map!No, she required ‘exact directions’!

Accordingly I supplied the information that it was to be found two hundred metres south of the local school. Well, it is….but there are two crossroads inbetween…..

Two days later a gentleman from ICE ‘phoned me. Where, exactly, was the property?

Trying to avoid foaming at the mouth – it inhibits comunication – I gave him directions from his office to the site. To a man with local knowledge it obviously rang a bell….

‘Ah, there’s a lot of bananas growing on one side…?’

‘Yes.’

Rashly I asked if a map would not have been easier. Yes, for him it would have been, but the IT system could not accept maps.

Could not the young lady have just passed him the map as well as entering the ‘exact directions’ on her computer?

She could have done, but to do so would be to admit she had received it and the sytem did not allow her to give a reciept as said system did not accept maps….

The Immortal Memory

Helen Devries21 Comments

Burns Night is with us again, a celebration of the life and work of Scotland’s great poet, a night of cullen skink, haggis and whisky, all in abundance, for this is a fitting night for the Selkirk Grace to be said.

“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be Thankit!”

An evening of ritual…..the Address to the Haggis, the singing of Auld Lang Syne….but also of fun – the Address to the Lassies and the lassies’ rejoinder in the Address to the Laddies, for this is not just a night out for the boys!

And this echoes Burns’ own attitudes for, apart from his incurable weakness for a pretty face and its consequences, leading to being upbraided as a ‘fornicator’ by the Presbyterian church, he had a high regard for women as evidenced in his poem ‘The Rights of Women’ of 1792.

“While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.”

A high regard which is not shared by the unholy alliance of the Scottish National Party and the despicable Greens which have brought about a total disregard for the rights of women in a country that was once the fount of the Enlightenment.

Their rights, from privacy to opportunity, have been over ridden by the demands of men masquerading as women…..the patriarchy in a frock…..demands supported and encouraged by the institutions and government of Scotland even in defiance of a ruling of the Supreme Court.

Tonight we celebrate…..tomorrow, back to the fight!

‘But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions;
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ca ira! The majesty of woman!’

‘

O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!

Helen Devries25 Comments

I had been planning to go to the council offices today to pay the rates….best to get the pain over as quickly as possible. Last year they rose like a vertical take off jet out of control – there should have been a bottle of smelling salts on the counter – so I can’t say I was very optimistic about this year’s likely outcome.

However, I was spared the journey. Local news showed the gates to the offices firmly shut as the police are raiding the joint – and not before time!

There have long been rumours of dirty work at the crossroads – though given the neglect of any roads which do not lead to councillors’ properties perhaps another phrase should be sought – through a succession of mayors, but the current one takes the biscuit.

Her involvement with the loathsome meter parking scheme is, it is suggested, but the tip of an iceberg – and this would seem to be the case, given that the police are also raiding her joint, removing papers and computers. They appear to be raiding every unit associated with the council, including the works yard on the outskirts of the little town and, mysteriously, a heavy goods vehicle repair garage on the other side of the country. The staff in offices of an associated body tried to block the doors to prevent access -goodness only knows what that was in aid of – but the police prevailed.

The current mayor is – or was – standing as a member of the National Assembly in the forthcoming general election, but ‘in the interests of transparency’ is no longer associated with her party, whose view is that the whole thing is the result of an internal problem in the body of the council – move along, nothing to see there – but, to be on the safe side, to accept the situation as it relates to the forthcoming election.

Considering that the investigation is said to be founded on suspicion of money laundering, traffic of influence, award of contracts and dubious goings on using council heavy machinery that might have been a wise move.

Still, they may be right about internal problems giving rise to the investigation…..there has been a well publicised falling out which ended up in going to court …..and who better than an insider to know where the bodies are buried. But not, I hope, by the council’s heavy machinery.

Early local reaction has been varied….’Gotcha!’ being a popular choice, while others doubt whether she will be carted off in the dog van as her party has a stranglehold on the judicial system from which she will emerge like the phoenix.

My favourite response came from a lady who could not imagine why there was an investigation as the current mayor was only following in the footsteps of her predecessors –

They’ve all robbed us blind, so why pick on her!’

Merry Christmas!

Helen Devries46 Comments

Thank you for keeping me company through the past year…..your comments usually beat the original post!

May I wish you all a merry Christmas, in whatever way you like to celebrate it, and hope you enjoy this carol, from the pub carol tradition of the Sheffield area….

.https://youtu.be/rNonVdwRT9A?si=dMWJQjOl1iNJm2Xb

I would have liked to put up the video, but WordPress is not co operating! But it is worth the effort of clicking the link.

Christmas Is Coming…..

Helen Devries43 Comments

And just to improve the shining hour, the transport police, backed by the regular and municipal police – however did they dig that lot out of their cosy billets, one wonders- have been conducting a ‘drive safely for Christmas’ campaign in the little town and nearby surrounds.

By its effects, it should have been entitled ‘you won’t be driving anywhere for Christmas’, as they have been running a blitz from morning to night – even at lunchtime – and in the rain, to which they are normally as allergic as the gendarmerie in rural France, checking driving licences, insurance stickers and roadworthiness certificates with a zeal which has driven anyone forewarned to stay at home or seek the back roads. Thus a remarkable increase of traffic on the road in front of the house by which one can escape from one end of the town and emerge well down the main road on the other ….as long as you are on the radio network to make sure the rozzers are not lying in wait for you between the offices of the Tribunal Suprema de Elecciones and the Cabinas Escarlatas – ‘total discretion, hot water, television and make your own earthquakes’ as you try to take the next rat run via the old bull ring.

This does not bode well for local traders. As if the parking meters were not enough, we have just had the Feria de Chicharrones where miniscule gobbets of fried pork are hidden under mounds of yucca and cabbage and sold for eye watering prices to visitors maddened on beer and guaro. Centre of the town closed off for over a week, and now, just as things were recovering, the ‘safety’ campaign! Even if you have all the requisite bits of paper, you hesitate to venture into town in case you inadvertently park on what was once a yellow line which disappeared years ago, but still exists on the maps used by the polizei. The only safe places are the two supermarket car parks, and Don Julio’s private one, but none are convenient for lugging bags of Christmas tat from the shops in the centre.

So tomorrow I shall be heading into the maelstrom of San Jose to do the end of year essentials…..pay the rates, drop into the cheapo cheapo emporium to stock up on joints for the water system in case of problems during the holiday period, buy sacks of chicken carcasses, giblets and ox kidneys for the dogs and, if all goes well, drop into an upmarket supermarket on the way out in a search of proper – not vegan – shortbread and oatcakes…..this the limit of my Christmas shopping.

Long gone are the days when I would be expecting a number of people over the holidays…..long gone the days of making black bun and boning and stuffing a pig’s head to be cooked in the oven and served cold as a cut and come again, let alone a Yorkshire Pie. It will be a quiet Christmas and New Year……new reading laid up ready, tea and shortbread, and cricket on the radio!

Further to improve the shining hour I just turned from the laptop to check my bag for tomorrow’s excursion and, as my eye passed over the table, discovered that the pork I had put out to defrost in order to cook a goulash in the slow cooker tonight had disappeared. Just a damp mark left on the table – and every dog looking innocent and lying still……I shall have to up my game!

Herrick could have warned me…had I remembered his poems about Christmastide….

Come, guard this night the Christmas pie,
That the thief, though ne’er so sly,
With his flesh-hooks don’t come nigh
To catch it.

From him who all alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of nightly fear,
To watch it.

Hors De Combat

Helen Devries31 Comments

That is exactly what I have been for the past few months…..in and out of hospitals like a fart in a colander – ever had the impression that they would rather you did not take up residence? – in and out of – mostly in – wheelchairs, and decidedly fed up with life. If that was it, I thought, better to nip down to the motorway and propel myself out into the traffic.

This being Costa Rica, however, that was but a pipe dream.

The motorway in question, leading to the capital, consists of many gated toll stations, where those who wish to pay in cash are herded into the least advantageous of the starting stalls for the race to find a place in the two lane highway – which only opens up again to give access to yet another toll station. These two lanes have access from any number of secondary roads – for those not wishing to pay the tolls – supermarket access lanes and various commerces who seem to have built their own parallel roads, much used by drivers of bus services desperately trying to keep to their schedules.

Given that, and the fact that a slight accident brings the whole shebang to a halt until a traffic policeman can reach the site to take statements, pushing oneself into the path of moving traffic in the hope of anihilation is, as I say, but a pipe dream.

Accordingly, I have been reading…..revisiting old favourites, having a bash at books rashly bought after being recommended by ‘The Guardian’ and throwing them aside once more, upbraiding myself for wasting my money on navel gazing tripe and downloading books from Amazon. I don’t like Amazon’s business model, decidedly disapprove of my money going to keep Bezos in expensive tarts, but have found no other alternative. I used to order from ‘Better World Books’ – first from the U.S. and then from the U.K. as they had free postage, but the gilt wore off their gingerbread many moons ago. I would order from the U.S. ‘sale’ list…..and the order would not arrive. Call BWW, ‘oh it must be in customs’…..Customs my backside…it had never been sent. Tried the U.K. outlet, which was much better, and then came the Covid scare and the postal business collapsed. I have looked since, and the prices, even given the free international postage, are exorbitant.

Thus, then, the television.

The BBC.

Which seems to have got itself into something of a pickle.

Back in the 1990s it had a world beating scoop. Its leading news programme, ‘Panorama’ broadcast an interview with the then Princess of Wales in which she laid bare her version of her marriage, leading to subsequent separation and divorce.

Despite considerable doubt being expressed as to just how the interview had been obtained, the BBC stuck to its guns that all had been above board following an internal enquiry.

However, doubt remained, especially on the part of the princess’ brother, Earl Spencer, and in 2021 an enquiry led by a senior judge found that the journalist responsible, Martin Bashir, had shown her falsified documents, claiming that her closest members of staff were being paid to spy on her. Despite the BBC claiming to have a document from the princess absolving Mr. Bashir, the judge found that he had been guilty of deceit and in breach of BBC editorial guidlines, while the internal enquiry was found to be ‘woefully ineffective’.

Her sons maintain that the paranoia induced by the production of the false documents led to their mother’s refusal of proper protection which in turn contributed to her death.

The BBC were obliged to pay damages to a number of persons traduced in the interview, but despite a judge finding that their reaction to a freedom of information request into documentation surrounding the interview had been ‘inconsistent erroneous and unreliable’ the BBC continued to maintain that they had not acted in bad faith.

Well, water long under the bridge you might think…the royal family can huff and puff as much as it wishes…as far as the BBC in concerned it ‘was in another country and besides, the wench is dead’.

But now someone with much more huff and puff has come along with the BBC in his sights.

President Trump.

Who may be in another country, but is very much alive.

In the between election period of January 2021 in the United States, people apparently questioning the legitimacy of the result entered the buildings of the Capitol, with resulting violence.

President Trump was addressing crowds in the area on that day and in reportage prepared for the BBC by an independent production company – October Films Ltd. – and subsequently broadcast it appeared that two sections of film had been joined, the effect of which showed him advocating violence.

It now appears that the two sections dealt with differing periods in the day and that no such advocation of violence was made.

The matter had been drawn to the attention of the BBC by one of its own employees but decided that as there had been few complaints, it would do nothing.

Rash, for as the Chairman of the BBC Governers has stated, President Trump ‘is a litigious fellow’, and so it has proved.

He is suing them for one billion dollars.

Now, whatever one’s opinions of the then Princess of Wales or the current President of the United States, one thing is all too clear.

The BBC has failed in its duty to provide unbiased reporting of events. It has gone further….it has manufactured ‘news’

It is very important for public life in the U.K. that there is a news service which can be relied upon to be as accurate as possible and to give adequate representation to the manifest varying views of those who pay for it – the general public.

The BBC has failed in both respects.

Mistakes will always be made…..human nature is such……but a refusal to put things right is unacceptable in any institution whether private or public and this seems to be the attitude of the BBC.

It would be a disaster if all public broadcasting were to fall into private hands – just look at the state of the print media! – and the BBC has always benefited from the reluctance of the public to leave ahold of nurse for fear of finding something worse, but in this period of flux, where none of the institutions of the state command respect, the risk is not just that they will let go of her hand, but will use theirs to seize both baby and bathwater while they are at it.

Another Cunning Plan…

Helen Devries33 Comments

When we were small, the BBC had a programme for children in the afternoons called ‘Listen With Mother’, which always always began with the phrase….’Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.’

So make sure you are sitting comfortably and we shall begin the tale of the hero of Costa Rica’s own all too long running soap opera.. The Neighbour.

After several unsatisfactory experiences of letting our old house – everything from non-payment, to trashing the place – we had decided to sell, and found a buyer in the person of a retired Nicaraguan widow who wanted to settle in the countryside to keep poultry.

So far, so good.

In order to help her, her son, who worked with one of those organisations which find employment for less able people, found her a young man in his twenties who, while several sandwiches short of a picnic, was good with the poultry and generally helpful around the place.

The Neighbour, always keen to stick his nose in other people’s business, met the young man, and offered him supplementary work which the young man accepted.

So far, so good.

Then the young man came to his employer and asked her to pay his debt to The Neighbour.

What debt?

The equivalent of three hundred quid.

And what had he done with the three hundred quid?

He did not know, but he did not have it any more and The Neighbour wanted it back and he said the his employer had to pay it as she was responsible for her worker.

Our Nicaraguan lady is no fool. She went to see her old employer – a very wealthy lady and no fool either.

On her advice, she took that lady’s retired secretary and went to see The Neighbour.

He greeted them enthusiastically.

Hello Girls! What can I do for two lovely ladies?

They had heard, said the secretary, that he had money to lend.

Indeed he did. He had so much he did not know what to do with it, except to help his neighbours.

Ah…in that case, perhaos he could help them….

Of course he could, nothing too much trouble to help such lovely ladies. How much did they want?

About one thousand quid each.

Not a problem! He had the money here, in cash!

Yes, but how much interest do you charge?

No interest at all! Just, you understand, for my security, the deeds to your property.

So you give us the money and we give you the deeds?

Yes, that’s it. Nothing more simple! Except,senora – to the nicaraguan lady – I need your deeds for the money I lent to your boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

That young man who lives with you. You are responsonsible for his debt.

You have anything in writing?

No need for writing between neighbours……just give me the deeds!

The following exchanges were short and sharp……..The Neighbour very disappointed at the lack of trust shown by his neighbours….especially as the three hundred quid belonged to the lady then living with him…who took off into the void shortly afterwards. Without her money.

Shortly afterwards, he hurt himself while doing something or other round the water tank which supplies the entire neighbourhood. According to him he was about to clean it in the spirit of public duty which always marks his character. According to others he had gone up in a drunken rage to cut everybody off. With broken ribs, he was immured in his house…..no one would bring him anything.

But all was not lost. The pest who tried to take us for a ride when Danilo was ill has installed himself and girlfriend in The Neighbour’s house. While making sure everything is nailed down or locked up, the bets are on as to how long it will take The Neighbour to get them out again…..