The house next door

It's quite a normal looking house, but people don't stay there long!

We moved into our house in June of 2004 and the first couple moved into the house next door in the September. They were quiet, very quiet, and very much kept themselves to themselves. Then they decided to sell up, but the time wasn't right, so they ended up renting it out instead, and a lovely family moved in; they were coming back to England from Portugal, and were a couple - English woman and Portuguese man, she didn't work at first whilst they settled their son into the village school but he works for Tesco. Then they were told that the house had sold, so they had to move out, which unfortunately co-incided with them splitting up, so she and the son went west and the man went east.

The new owners were another couple, but older this time. A very nice couple, quite reserved but very pleasant company and we get along very well. But they have decided to leave, and they are moving out right now. The new owners take possession at noon, and we are sitting waiting like the nosy neighbours we probably are, to see what they look like, whether they are another couple or a family; the girls are interested to see whether there will be children; I am hoping that there isn't a dog (nothing against dogs in particular but we are surrounded by a particularly noisy bunch of dogs here!).

Of course, we are hoping that they don't mind chickens, that they won't be making remarks about the state of our working garden, etc! We are one of the families in the estate which actually uses the land we have, rather than looking at it as many do as a piece of grass to be admired! In between the veg beds, chicken runs, driveway and sheds/greenhouse, there isn't much grass in our garden and our plot gets a bit, shall we say, "untidy" at times?!

So, we wait...and hope!