Wednesday, December 20, 2006

In my neighbourhood

Slept in late today after not getting to sleep until around one this morning. Slept like a log though and woke up feeling refreshed, with the dog clicking up and down on the wood floor needing a wee and my mother putting her full weight against the bedroom door - it took her about thirty seconds to figure out it was actually locked! My dad came round with Albert for a while, and tried to ask me lots about what was going on with DL and I. I wasn't very responsive at all, so he gave up in the end. After that I walked down to the local shops with Una and my mother, and it really was a trip down memory lane.

I was raised, and my mother still lives, in the kind of neighbourhood where everyone knows everyone. It's not even a small village, just people are very friendly and if you're a member of a well known family you're always recognised. Well all the older people remember my grand parents, and all the rest know my mum and her eight brothers and sisters who all went to the local school, and their children and children's children. Whenever I come home I inevitably get from my mum, "oo I saw so and so the other day, he/she's dying to see you, we'll have to go and say hello for two minutes," which usually ends up being more like an hour making polite conversation with some one I hardly know but who seems to know all about me. So today was exactly the same on our trip down to the shops, we just had to go in to the farmacy and say hi to the woman who's always worked behind the counter and watched me grow up, we just had to stop and chat to people on the street, we bumped in to an aunty and cousin who I haven't seen in about three years... Now my family are all fairly close, but my uncle G has never bothered with the rest of the brothers and sisters for some reason so we hardly ever see him or his family, but they were the ones who we saw today. Unsurprisingly they can't make the family meal that's happening on Saturday, and he won't visit anyone over xmas, miserable git. We were also stopped by Stan, on old man who has lived on the main road for years, and who again has watched me grow up. Part of the conversation was:
Stan: "So have you got a boyfriend yet? I thought you'd be married by now!"
Me: "Are you kidding? I've got more sense than that, come on."
A topic very well handled I think, although I was tempted to say, "no actually I'm a lesbian." Don't think it would have gone down very well though somehow. It was such a lovely walk though, I usually get really pissed off at being stopped, but today I really didn't mind. It's kind of nice being here after so long, it's been over four months since I was here last, and some of the people I saw today I hadn't seen for years.

I'm now going to go and see my next door neighbour's, C and D, who are my substitute grand parents. You can garantee that within five minutes of being there I'll get:
C: "You haven't lost any weight have you? Look at that belly!"
D: "Have you got yourself a young man yet? Are your friends looking after you?"
You've gotta love em though, lol.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm back home now, as you know and we are only a drive away from each other so lets meet up sometime and have a good old chat... like usual, it'll probably just be me pouring away at my troubles! But I promise to let you get a word in sideways! =D

Can't wait to see you!!!

Hai-Man

Anonymous said...

sending happy holiday wishes to you.it will be a tough christmas for you, no doubt, but i wanted to let you know i was thinking of you anyway...poet