Moving on

Cherryfudge

I spent the morning wrestling the instructions for getting the disconnected driver working again, and I can honestly say I now understand it well enough to explain it to someone else. However, there were other things I had to get on with: our new car is wider than the old one and the neighbour couldn't get his camper van past, so we parked at the end of the road for now, and I'm cutting the hedge severely back so we can park closer to the boundary line. The neighbour came out while I was doing it and has offered to do the rest with his hedge trimmer, which I've accepted, but I couldn't fit any more in the green bin so the job is only begun.

I also had a visit from the neighbour the other side, to say they are getting married tomorrow and not to worry if there are strangers in their house in the near future! Of course I've congratulated him and got a card for them this evening. Now I'm thinking back to all the couple we've seen in that house: first there were Phyllis and John: she was the sweetest lady and he was quite quiet, but really enjoyed teaching our five-year-old some woodwork. We later found he'd been in Burma in the war, which may explain why he wasn't outgoing. Then one day an ambulance came for him, and Phyllis was standing outside crying and watching him go. I didn't know what to do but I offered her to come in, which she declined. We stood there with arms round each other's waists as he went away, and he never came back.

After that there were Stuart and Charlotte, but I think she left him and I remember him telling me about it over the fence. Then a couple with two boys, one of whom was just starting at the primary school where our children went. They were there for years, always pleasant and chatty. The older boy is married now and the younger is a fire fighter. Then another couple who we got on with very well and who still live around the corner, so no names. They landscaped the garden: it was beautiful. They were there during lockdown and the difficulties of working from home led to their moving to a bigger property, and they were succeeded by a young man who wasn't there all that long before going to work abroad and letting it out to the couple who are there now.

So that's a lot of history in just one neighbouring house, and strange to think those people mostly don't know about each other. I could write a book - but I'd better not!

I never got round to going to church to sort out a few bits we didn't have time for last week. It's been cooler than recently so I'm back in jeans and a tabard for cleaning, and on the way home I called for my prescription and some cough medicine. The price of some of those cough syrups! I think I saw £12, but managed to find one for just over £3. Besides this, the laptop unexpectedly got all its ducks in a row and the driver is working again. I discovered that the computer cleaning programme I've been using had completely gone from the laptop, so I've reinstalled it and upgraded slightly (about £14 a year) so I can update non-M1crosoft drivers. I also downloaded a free anti-virus as the computer has slowed right down. It didn't seem to find much apart from junk files that hadn't been cleaned recently, but it's back at a useable speed, though nothing like it should be.

Other spending was a small grocery shop and a shirt off V1nted for DH, as winter office wear needs to be topped up.

WelshmansDaughter

It sounds like you have the same cough I have, seems to be quite persistent.

Watty1

There was once a TV prog about who lived in a house - I didn't see them all but the programme would take each week a "normal house" not your landed gentry type, and follow its history and the people who lived in it. Fascinating. I always wished I had done something like that with my first house (a late Georgian terrace) as during renovations I found a letter, mostly burnt, asking for money from a "batman" in the first world war.

House history is so fascinating, but the stories of the people are too

Cherryfudge

My Mum's grandmother lived in a house in Canonbury Square in north London. Mum always spoke fondly of it and one day there was a TV programme which featured it! Mum hurriedly taped the programme but sadly accidentally recorded over it.

The house where I grew up had the pencilled growth chart for some long-ago children but I never found out who they were. The house dated from the 1860s and the people before us were called Smith, but I don't think they had children. They bought it in the 1950s I think, but she died and he moved away.

As for the cough! It's not so bad but still persists. I can't decide if it's a new infection (most likely) or the one I caught a month ago. I hope yours doesn't last, @WelshmansDaughter , they are a pain.