A handful of Deadly Sins

We're in a terrace of four houses, one of the end terraces; I consider all the occupants of the three adjoined houses immediate neighbors, and also those who live in the detached house on the over the other shoulder. For various reasons I haven't got a good relationship with any of them.

The lady at the far end is a widow (a state to be envied). On the other hand she's in her seventies and arthritic. She's housebound and her even her grandchildren who once visited her frequently are going their own way more and more. Once she's got hold of your ear she's almost impossible to shake her off, even if doing so would leave you feeling like you would for kicking a confiding puppy.

So I've cleared her drains, weeded, pruned and tidied up her roses and listened as she's told me the same story over and over again.

At the end of the day, though, she and I have absolutely nothing in common.

The next house is currently empty. The owner scurries in occasionally, usually under cover of darkness. I wouldn't mind living somewhere else and being free to pick and choose when to come (or not) and go. Oh dear, more envy.

The house next to ours is home to a couple less than half my age who have a daughter just a couple of months old. They seem to be happy together and have the prospect of more children ahead. Oops, envy alert.

He's a builder and it is his parents who live the other side of us which is cosy to the point of being oppressive. The problem really is that they make me feel crushingly guilty by the singular effort they put into family and their home. By my reckoning the parents' house has been practically rebuilt twice in the time they've lived there and the house adjacent to ours in which the son and his wife live with their daughter has been rebuilt once.

Ours hasn't had a lick of paint slapped on it in the time we've been here, leave alone any substantial and desperately needed restoration work.

In the meantime the baby is keeping my idle husband awake at night. Many's the night since the baby arrived he's been swaying with what he insists is lack of sleep at 9pm. Eighteen years from now, and in all probability given the general level of cowardice and sloth herein, it will be the baby's music that will be keeping him awake at night.

And then, as now, the three bottles of wine, cider, vodka, lager and anything else alcoholic he can afford will have had nothing to do with the sway in his step.