We've no complaints, they're good neighbours, have been good neighbours for the past two decades. We've watched their children grow from infants to young adults. We've always wondered at the disparity in temperament and personality between the young parents; he pathologically anti-social, and she gregariously cheerful.

We have long had a neighbourly arrangement that when we go away on holidays in the summer, she will undertake to ensure that the exterior of the house looks lived-in. She helpfully waters the many garden pots we place around our gardens and removes flyers and advertisements from our porch mailbox. And we return the compliment on those occasions when their family goes off for their brief get-a-ways.

He must authorize anything that anyone in the family, including his wife, undertakes to do. If he forbids her to do anything, she must heed him. And she does. He will not offer, nor will he agree, should anyone ask him, to help anyone in any manner, nor will he lend out a tool to anyone, even if the tool is a simple garden device which she uses, not he. He will go out of his way to avoid meeting anyone's eye, cross the street rather than greet someone he has known for many years.

He is basically a decent fellow and undoubtedly means well, but he has been cruelly endowed with a cringing inability to socialize with other human beings.

What puzzles us the way they've allowed their property to deteriorate; in some ways to the point of no return without the investment of deep-pocketed emergency repairs. Their roof's condition is unbelievably awful, with deeply curled shingles to the extent it should have been replaced years ago. Their windows have not been regularly painted on the exterior and the result is deep rot has taken hold. Their gardens which were once her pride, have been allowed to run rampant, weeds overtaking the perennials. An exterior door leading to the garage, not steel core, but paper-thin plywood, is rotting away. It's sad and a pity.

She does what she can, she informs us. She believes that once he retires from work outside the home he will turn his attention to finally replacing leaking plumbing, door handles that have broken, and other bits and pieces of annoying break-downs. That is unlikely to occur, since his white-collar job leaves him ample time to do simple tasks around the house, but which he never does accomplish.

The cause is certainly not a lack of wherewithal, because their mortgage has long been paid off. They replaced their van a year ago with another van, along with a convertible, to give them two family vehicles. It seems to be exterior display of a frail ostentatious kind that is of importance, to the neglect of underlying solidity. Is this an expression of their values? Evidently, although not conclusively.

Puzzling, indeed.