Maintaining good relationships with the people that live in your neighbourhood can be difficult at times. Having good neighbours, however, can make your home life happier and certainly more interesting.
In the wake of the fire department incident at our house that I wrote about a few weeks ago, it brought to mind another incident that my husband and I experienced while we lived in Victoria. We lived in a family-oriented suburban neighbourhood that was not, in the least bit, trendy. Our backyard was connected to at least five other yards and our sun deck was enormous and high up enough that it felt like we were on display when we happened to have a few people over to enjoy some beverages in the hot Victoria sun.
One memorable day, I came home from work to find all the blinds drawn on one side of the house and my husband on the phone with a friend. I asked him why all the blinds were closed and he told me to go and check the kitchen window. When I peered through the blinds feeling a bit like a Peeping Tom, I discovered one of our neighbours sunbathing very much in the nude.
It's a little bit shocking looking out your window (when you're not even trying to be creepy) and seeing a naked person. Apparently, my husband was out on the deck enjoying a beer and happened to see something out of the corner of his eye (he too thought he was alone) and he glanced over his shoulder to find the nude neighbour enjoying the day and tanning her very ample chest. My husband blinked and immediately went into the house to close all the blinds and sat inside and called all his friends.
From that day forward, every person who would come to our house would try to catch a glimpse of our elusive nude sunbather but she only seemed to come out when it was just us at home. I think she liked us.
Eventually she moved away and the only neighbourhood person we had any contact with was the cranky, old man who called the police on us. He took umbrage with the fact that we had cut back his wretched trees that were encroaching on our property. First he came to yell at me personally and then when he saw my husband coming down the stairs (the neighbour was a small man and my husband is very tall) he slowly backed away and retreated to his cave to call the authorities. Fortunately, we didn't get fined or thrown in the Big House and you can bet the man watched us closely from then on.
I bet if I were topless sunbathing, he wouldn't have called the police.
