My last post and responses to it ("in this age of isolation, when we don't know our neighbours as well as we could...") reminded me of the following little story...
When I first came to live in Governors Bay I was working full time at the university. I would leave home about 7.00am and return about 4.30/5.00pm. I really didn't know my neighbours at all. Then I resigned and started working part-time from home. At about the same time my friend Gloria (about whom I have written at http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/04/gloria.html) asked me to look after Rosie Goat.
When I first came to live in Governors Bay I was working full time at the university. I would leave home about 7.00am and return about 4.30/5.00pm. I really didn't know my neighbours at all. Then I resigned and started working part-time from home. At about the same time my friend Gloria (about whom I have written at http://headoftheharbour.blogspot.com/2009/04/gloria.html) asked me to look after Rosie Goat.
Rosie was tethered in a large, sloping section further down the road. Her on-site owner had died and her new owner lived further round the harbour in Cass Bay. Effectively I inherited Rosie's care. Twice a day I would walk down the road with a plastic bag of 'treats' (a selection of rolled oats, weetbix, biscuits, apple, carrot...) and a leafy branches from the native trees in my garden.
While I could write at length about my initially rocky relationship with Rosie (!), the point of this story is that the simple act of walking down the road to feed and check on her marked the beginning of my getting to know my neighbours along Merlincote Crescent - and the beginning of an on-going process of coming to 'belong'.
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