Neighbours

‘The Man’ who lives across the road… has a small ancient Ford Transit with a homemade tip conversion. This truck is usually packed high with all sorts of rubbish, sits somewhere in our street and rarely moves… when we find it parked in a different position it is full with different rubbish. While this truck is parked outside ‘The Man’ periodically and cautiously climbs into the back and rummages around taking off bits of metal or banging about, I guess it’s his equivalent of a Shed although we are afraid he might be a ‘Fly Tipper’. You can see him on his truck on the ‘188’ Photo Page. I always smile and say hello and he always returns my greeting but the other day he spoke to me and I have no idea what he said… it sounded something like, ‘Do you like your ladder?’ Left in the house was an old wooded, almost broken, unusable ladder… I say ‘Yes.’ And smile well what else could I say?? Then he says, ‘I fix your ladder good… it good isn’t it??’ I am flummoxed now but it’s easier to say ‘Yes’ and smile isn’t it!! Next day I’m thinking about our first conversation and wonder if it was he who put in the new and very scary staircase???

Next Door are a family from Kurdistan/Turkey, I chat to the young wife firstly who’s name is Husne she has very little English and has never heard of Australia, there are two children a boy aged 8 and girl 4.
Next we meet the young brother of Husne who has excellent English and is called Cetin, he is keen to practice his English on us and is just delightful plus he knows sort of where Australia is… a couple of days later he brings us a box, 5kg, of Grapes from his workplace, they are beautiful and sweet little green grapes from Turkey.

Next we meet the brother of the husband of Husne… he is amazed at us having moved in to this place and to be paying the rent ourselves!! I don’t quite understand the agenda here… he says the rent on his one bedroom is 650 pounds but doesn’t tell me who pays it???

As you can see in the photos, from our back garden we are within easy chatting distance to several neighbours, several houses back onto Ahishas home and I found an Englishman (rare in this part of London) taking clothes off the line, I catch his eye and have a chat… he says our place was derelict for quite a while and is surprised to see we have moved in. He also tells me Amish husband is a businessman in the fruit and vegetable game… so that’s where all the brothers work!

As I take photos from upstairs two black men watch me from their back door of their home in the other street… I wave… they wave back and I tell them I’m not taking photos of them just the view… they say it was nice to meet me. I love this place!