Neighbours

No not the naff telly program. Hugely and hugely inexplicably popular over here.

I mean the people living on the adjoining and nearby properties. Over time I've gathered up bits and pieces of information and they weave quite a pattern. For me, for remembrance, I've jotted this lot down.

They come in all shapes and sizes, a perfect cross-section of society. Two young couples in their early twenties. One buying and renovating, the other renting and biding their time. An elderly widow who is hard of hearing and arthritis riddled. A couple in late middle-age; their child or children gone off on their own, pottering about in their end of terrace cottage after downsizing their life. A bachelor in his forties who has his washing done by his mother, an elderly gentleman not good on his feet any longer who has the local taxi company ferry him to and from the local Conservative Club. More young couples either buying and renovating or renting and biding their time. At the end of one terrace Tony & Mark have their extended and immaculately renovated cottage and at the end of the other terrace lives Cat Lady, who is another elderly widow (or divorcee, in her case I'm not sure). Between Cat Lady and the Conservative live Judy and Mac.

They are in their eighties now, but unlike all the other wrinklies they are astoundingly sprightly in both body and mind. They now live half the year in our town and half the year on the other side of the world in Perth. Over there Mac teaches windsurfing. He's an inveterate builder of model planes with 20ft and longer wingspans that he takes out into the country side to fly. They acquired their home in Perth after becoming fed up with there previous 'winter' domicile which was Goa. The walls of their house here are covered in Mac's awesomely detailed paintings of scenes from Goa and the local flora.

As a couple they've always fascinated me, and partly for the simple reason that they are so alike. This might seem obvious but in their case the 'alikeness' is extreme and extends to their build, colouring, mannerisms and the cadence in their voices. Their vocabularies are almost identical and their enthusiasms are equal. They also row quite delightfully and unashamedly and I suspect that they enthusiastically kiss and make up afterwards. The worst thing either will say of the other is "you silly old fool", though in the heat of the moment those few words can be injected with quite an impressive amount of passion and venom.

Sadly they didn't have children but they've channelled their energies and interest into a wide and deep rooted network of good friends and acquaintances. They had a business for many years that they sold to fund their retirement and live well if frugally. At their age they've a whole range of skills and knowledge sets that most younger (including me) people can only envy. They also have experience.

Judy speaks fluent French partly because of her education and partly because after school she took herself off to Paris to work at one of the big old and famous hotels there. Mac lived on the left bank too for a while and presumably speaks French having made a living for a time from hawking something (which wasn't very clear) about the restaurants and cafes. For a time he lived in somewhat bohemian Notting Hill in London in a bed-sit that was effectively nothing more than the closed off end of a corridor. He was a lorry driver for a time before beginning to make headway.

They are the sort of couple who always know what's what. They know how things work, what represents good value for money, how to make do and mend, and all of this seemingly effortlessly. Yet superficially they are also quintessentially Englishly eccentric. Neither could give a stuff about the clothes they wear, though Judy can look fabulous when she sets her mind to it, or what others think of them in any shape or form. In return they assume their fellow man deserves respect until proven otherwise and adopt a stance at the same time of live and let live.

Judy and Mac took care of Monty while we were away. Initially the plan had been for them to come in and feed him, give him his last few tablets, keep him company and generally keep an eye on him. They'd been unsure that they'd be able to make their house 'Monty-proof'. But in the end they gathered him and all his paraphernalia up and took him back to their house, into which he very quickly settled. He spent the nights asleep on their bed between them and the days on the bench behind their kitchen table.

Not only that but yesterday Mac drove me over to the vets - not once but twice. In the morning we dropped him off so that he could be anaethetised, x-rayed and have his stitches removed. In the afternoon we collected him not entirely sans stitches and brought him home.

I'd already planned for and bought a bottle of champagne and a thank you card; the need for which became more pressing when Mac insisted on paying the last of the vet bills. Between us he and I can take out the last of the stitches on Friday (if this sounds unbelievable let me tell you that I've taken stitches out of my own arm and it is really a doddle; yes this is something you can try at home children).

Anyway I think these two people in their eighties are an inspiration. They are Carpe Diem personified. They've lived all over the place and done so much and they haven't stopped yet.

Not everyone at their age can be as physically or mentally active as they are. No one can say that Margaret who lives three doors from me and is in her early seventies would be in better shape than she is had she adhered to a better diet. She did the best she could, ate the diet she'd been raised on and is now all but immobilised by her arthritis. Walking from her door to mine can bring her to tears. She's all alone with nothing but a parrot and the TV for company for large parts of the day. Her two sons, their wives and their children do keep a very regular eye on her but the adults work and the children are all in school or doing further studies.

Margaret's an immensely kind soul whose husband was a complete bastard. For years he ran the local cinema and flaunted a string of mistresses about town. He broke Margaret's heart. She was a poorly educated girl from the North when he married her and nothing happened afterwards to give her the slightest chance of breaking free of the relationship and standing on her own two feet.

She quickly had two sons to raise and by the time she'd done that job she'd had the will to live beaten down too severely to be recovered. Instead her two sons rallied round and protected her to the extent they could.

Then her bastard husband became ill and by the time we moved here he was a broken shell of a man who on warm days would be shuffled from their house to a seat in their garden. He'd had a stroke that had almost paralysed him. Margaret continued dutifully to feed him and otherwise care for him until he died and then she cried.

By the she'd realised that things weren't entirely right in our house. She knew that I was the one working while he was the one lying about the house with hand down his pants all day (okay, she might not have known about the last bit, but she probably guessed). She knew that he neither worked, nor looked after our child, nor did any meaningful work of a maintenance/improvement nature about the house. So one afternoon not long after her husband finally died Margaret told me all about the affairs, the openness of them, the hurt she'd felt.

She's a good soul, with a kindness that soars above the pain she's constantly in, and I hope fervently that she gets her reward. I'm cross with myself when I'm impatient with her. She'll grab me as I pass her house and never for a quick word. Sometimes I'm fretful for the 'lost' time I've got a dozen things I could spend it on.

But Margaret doesn't have a malicious, vindictive or brutal bone in her body (unlike me) and the least I can do is give her a little of my time.