April 27, 2007

In my street

I live in the suburbs, but it's pretty anonymous living here really. In my street there's a real mixture of people and housing: villa's, flats and everything in between. Today I learned that my neighbour, just 2 doors down passed away just over 2 weeks ago. I knew his name and sometimes we exchanged pleasantries like 'how are you' or 'nice day, isnt' it', but that was it. Mind you he pretty much kept to himself. But anyway, apparently he had moved to a care facility a couple of months back and he died there at age 92. I must say I was wondering where he was as I hadn't seen him in a while. But then I knew he had always wanted to visit his daughters in Australia so I thought that maybe he'd finally gone to see them as he'd been planning to for a while. It makes me sad that I had no idea he'd moved to a care facility, let alone died. Makes me realise how I miss having neighbours that you know. I barely know my next door neighbours. On one side I sort of know them and their little girl and Annabel have recently become friends (yay!) but until today I hadn't been in their house since they bought it about 2 years ago. And my neighbour on the other side (an elderly lady) I don't even know her name! How sad is that?When I grew up we had so many kids in the street. Everybody knew each other and parents would often just pop over for a coffee or something. I wish I had that here. Then again, I don't feel comfortable letting my kids play out on the street like I used to when I was little, eventhough my street is a dead-end cars still come hooning down it (esp. the guy in the flat behind my house). Don't really know where I"m going with this post. I'm just not accepting of the fact that this is a sign of the times we live in now? Each to their own? Or perhaps it has more to do with the demographic of my street? Great variety of socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, age, etc.

4 Comments:

At 11:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

can I say I semi know my neighbours and ugh at one lot. We do pleasantries because I dont like men who are assholes. Enuff said. I am polite to the neighbours at the back. I too wish we had nice neighbours that we could get to know. The last lot we were friendly with but the moved back to the South Island. Awesome people.

 
At 11:27 AM, Blogger Sharon said...

How sad. We were quite friendly with our previous neighbours but not so much with these ones. Given the constant state of chaos of my house, I don't really want people just dropping in!!

 
At 7:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's the same with me and my neighbours!! I don't like the kids being out in the street without me being there too and I was always in the street as a child!!

 
At 8:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know what you mean, for many years in Melb we didn't actually have neighbours beside or behind us and then we move over here to NZ into a quiet street where we have cuzzies 2 doors away and the kids friends from school all around us ad they can all play out on the footpaths. It really is like taking a pleasant step back in time. Love the casual coffee drop in! Everyone is welcome here, they just have to ignore the creative chaos! (and packing boxes)

 

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