Nosey Parkers

When Werner had moved into the flatlet - 3 houses from my house, he began coming around for coffee in the evenings. We would wait for the kids to go to bed before he came over.

Not intentionally trying to deceive them, we rather, wanted to give them some space to get used to the new “friendship”.

Drum roll music – Dum dum dum da: Now enter – THE NEIGHBOURs.

What a piece of work they turned out to be too.

My neighbours LOVE the Prof (notice the present tense!) Perhaps it was the fancy title they liked to bandy about – “ I live next door to a professor you know”.

Be that as it may – they were the only people (together with the Prof’s family), who took the Prof’s side. Mrs Neighbour one day kindly told me: “you know Yvonne – perhaps this is for the best – the marriage was killing him (the Prof), you know”. Hmmph – I think the marriage had been doing a good job of killing ME – what with the cluster headaches.

So, the neigbours were are very pro – Prof neighbours. Mr Neighbour is home during the day, and makes it his business to know the goings on both at my house as well as in the street in general.

That all seemed very cute when he came over to see if I was “ok” when workmen came to the house – but turned into a pain now that I was trying to start a new life.

Werner and I fell into the habit of drinking coffee in the computer room. At that stage – the computer room faced the street. It had the most beautiful view of the rose garden. We would sit there, switch off the light, and look at the garden.

We began to notice that the neighbours made it their business to figure out what was happening at my house. Mr Neighbour walked out of his property – all the way into the street, to the front of my gate, peered up the driveway, saw Werner’s car parked there, huffed his nose into the air, stamped his foot and did an Hitler like about-turn before flying back into his house to report to all and sundry that Werner was present.

Other times, Werner would suddenly say: I see someone at the fence. Then we would see Mrs Neighbour peering through the palisade fencing – and the light just caught the glint off her glass frames.

At that stage – Mrs Neighbour was giving Marinda a lift to school in the mornings, and the Prof was taking Arno and Marielle.

The neighbours antics all seemed hilariously funny , until one morning when Mr Neighbour felt it his duty to report to Marinda of the goings on, which he had seen.

“Do you know that THAT man visits your mother here EVERY night?”

So…did he EVER stop to think what he was about to do when he did that? Apparently not.

When I fetched Marinda from school she asked me – so does Werner visit here every night? For a heart beat – I was tempted to answer her and say “no”. But just as fast as I had thought it, I remembered our family policy: the truth always pays you back. I told her the truth. Well, she huffed, I don’t like it, but ok – just as long as you tell me. So – I would wake her up every morning with : Marinda – Werner came over for coffee last night.

Not that that was out in the open, the secrecy was gone, and Werner no longer needed to wait for kids to go to sleep. Thanks Mr Neighbour – you did us a huge favour!

The present day? Well, they are still there. The are so nosy that they have even figured out how my alarm system works. When the light is green - we are home, when the light is red, we are sleeping or gone. Just the other day, thinking we were not home, they scared me silly by phoning me on my cell phone and reporting that they had seen a man running up my driveway, into the back yard. In a panic I slammed the trelly door shut and phoned the alarm company to come help me find the "man in my yard".

Needless to say - no man was found, not even a trace of him. The neighbours concern did not extend to another phone call to make sure I was fine. So - WHAT was all that about? Kindly concern?