We're sandwiched between two families who, as neighbours, we can only think of as being 'good' neighbours in the sense that relations, though somewhat distant, are still cordial and have been over decades. Quite unlike the warmer neighbourly relations we enjoy with others on the street where we live. On the left live a family whose house was built before our own and who had lived in it for two years before we took possession of our own home. He is a hermit by nature, she tends to be gregarious, so our friendly relations are with her; he avoids eye contact and verbal association with anyone on the street. On the right lives a family where the husband is a relaxed, sweet-natured person, while the wife is an exhibitionist-driven elite. With the exception of the hermit, we like them all. When we moved to the street their children were between infancy and kindergarten-age. Those children are now fully-independent adults, and a credit to their parents.

People do tend to be idiosyncratic about their values, and it's exactly those traits that give their neighbours fodder for casual chat, usually named gossip. It's of a completely harmless variety for the most part. Even when we had neighbours across the street whose children's activities more than bordered on the illegal, those children were well-behaved, though the clients of one who dealt drugs tended to clutter the street with unwanted traffic, yet no one really complained, much less contacted the authorities.

It is the propensity of our neighbours on our right to ostentatious display that has us scratching our heads with disbelief sometimes. Every opportunity that presents itself to mount a colourful, yet tasteless display seems to appeal to them, even though he is modestly disinclined to such activities himself, but compelled by his wife who excels in giving him orders which he as a loving husband complies with. It was her idea to make of their very capacious backyard a family retreat, so a swimming pool was installed and lavishly-built little buildings to house the operating (heating, pumps) system and wide, generous stone lips for the pool along with walkways and patios adjoining it.

The largest deck I've ever seen was produced, with variously descending levels, and behind the deck they had contracted to have a 'cottage' built abutting the back of the house, with direct entrances from one to the other; very charming, an countrified oasis of their very own. What need to go anywhere for vacations with that kind of infrastructure? It came complete with large plastic palm trees that light up at night, and other accouterments too numerous to list. The contractor had overlooked perhaps informing them that without heating and cooling their cottage would be unhabitable in the winter and during the summer months would become a heat-box, so its use has been rather limited, but it looks very nice.

At Hallowe'en, ghastly music glooms over the front lawn, scattered with coffins, skeletons and other creepy-crawlies. During the Christmas season they jump the gun on everyone, setting up Santas, reindeer and angels, well-lit and in prominent display. The spruce that was so charming when it was immature, decked out with coloured lights is now a colossus of a tree and yesterday, our neighbour had parked in his driveway, an industrial-sized, bright orange steel rental contraption with splayed support legs, and a cherry-picker on long supports operated either from the basket or below. Where most of our neighbours have been busy removing their Christmas ornaments and lights with this more moderate weather (cool and wet as opposed to frigid and snowy) she had decided it was time for her husband to make a permanent commitment, to reach the very tip of the tree with coloured lights, impossible by any other means to attain to.