Our adjoining neighbours of the past 17 years moved out last year as we came out of the first Covid lockdown, and we got a new family in. They are lovely and although they are a generation behind us which makes us feel old, we seem to have dropped into an easy friendly neighbourliness over the past ‘distanced’ year. In fact, they fed our cat last week when we were away for a couple of days. Always a good sign.
This week, the neighbour on their other side changed. The family who lived there have done a bunk to the countryside – Devon I believe – as did the previous occupants of that house a few years back, and also as did our adjoining neighbours. (Thinks – should we do the same? We can’t quite give up all our local activities and love of London just yet.)
I have briefly met the new neighbours and ascertained that there are two children (probably at primary school or early secondary at a guess) and a mum and dad and a friendly-seeming brown dog. I know they have moved just a short distance from North Kingston (which is exactly what we did 18 years ago) and they seem very pleasant.
The one thing I have not yet worked out though – how many cars do they have? Given that we only have on-street parking here, it matters. However, I realised that we are actually much luckier than most in this road. The houses are relatively wide, and this gives generous space in which to park one car immediately outside one’s own home. And there is a side road just opposite which affords overspill parking if needed for multiple cars, and everyone seems considerate of all – leaving any surplus cars there.
If we lived back in North Kingston or in a more central part of London, I suspect this would have been the first thing I checked!