Don't sleep with a drip, have a beer with your neighbour instead

There are many things I love about Nova Scotia. One of them is the way neighbours interact in the summertime. Everyone just stays home and ignores each other in the winter of course.

If you find the right neighbourhood.

Which we have done now.

We are slap bang in the middle of mid-thirties, twenty-first century, work-life balance-oriented, professional/ trades suburbia heaven.

Think Slackers with gardens. Along the edge of a beautiful lake.

There are four apartments in the building. On the ground floor, James and Shelley from Cape Breton have been renting for a couple of years. They're going home for the summer, to run a famous pub in Mabou called The Red Shoe, which is owned by the Rankin Family. But they'll be back in the autumn, and for the summer they're subletting to Shane, who's also from CB and who is very nice. Albeit suffering from a broken heart at the moment.

Poor lamb needs a new girl. Never mind, I know lots of them.

Pat Rabbitte hasn't answered my question yet. I swear to God if that man ignores me yet again, this time on a live interactive internet Q&A, I will fly over there next week and vote for a Shinner.

I will.

Anyways, between James and Shelley and us are Chris and Matt. They share the apartment. Matt is older than the rest of us, but not any more mature, thank goodness. He has the loudest television in Christendom, but we can sleep through it mostly. He's an employer negotiator for the health service, so he loves to bait me. Chris manages the yacht club down the road, and is always out sailing. She's from New Brunswick, but she don't talk like she is...

How do I get someone to stop saying 'me and Shataya ain't got no money so we ain't going out tonight' and say 'Shataya and I don't have any money, so we're not going out tonight' without having to correct that person EVERYTIME they open their mouth?

Anyways, back to the neighbours.....

Above us are Lyse and Craig. They are house-hunting at the moment. :-( Lyse is an illustrator and works from home; Craig works for a car dealership. They are very involved in the Search and Rescue program here, so are constantly heading off into the wilderness to train or to find people. They have a big canoe which we all use on the lake.

Next door, Mike and Kate live with Conor (8) and Mica (5). Mike works with me too, so we hang out a lot. Mica and Conor get babysitted by Kitty a lot and they LOVE her because she lets them watch tv. Kitty and Mica go swimming in the lake a lot too.

Mike and Kate have two dogs, Molly and Minuit. Minuit is a black poodle rescue dog, who loves to bolt for freedom. Often when I am sitting on the doorstep having my coffee, I will see a flash of black curls streak by and have to give chase before he gets to the main road.

Molly is a much more sensible shepherd-lab cross. (I think, she has a shepherd's face anyway)

On the other side is the plumber and his girlfriend and his rental people, Mandy and her girlfriend. Who have an insane black lab who barks ALL THE TIME. But he's kinda sweet too.

The plumber's van has a logo: Don't sleep with a drip; call your plumber. It helps that he's very good-looking.

Nice sunny evenings are great. People tend to congregate in our garden because we have the most sunshine and chairs. We all have a couple of beers and sit around and shoot the shit with each other. Everyone just wanders in and out of each other's garden (apart from Mandy's as she has insane dog wired in securely).

It's so nice. I hated the high walls and 'let's pretend our neighbours are not there because then we'll have to talk to them and they might have more money/ less money than us' crap I had to put up with in Tenterfields and Addison Park.