Malika
Well-Known Member
I've decided to mount a little "counter attack" against my immediate neighbours - the ones who are making our life in the village so unpleasant. Some time ago, the charming man of the household informed me that "everyone in the village" complains about J (I also heard his charming wife saying this to the man who came to install my broadband...). So... whenever I pass anyone in the village that I have talked to, I stop and ask them about this - do they mind my asking, but has J bothered them in any way? They all look genuinely surprised - "no, no", they say, and if J is with me, ruffle his hair or let him swing a somersault in the air (he loves to do this). So then I say that my neighbours told me that everyone is complaining about him - at which they ALL do the same thing: point to their heads and say this couple is "crazy". I passed the deputy mayor the other day, standing on his doorway and stopped to talk to him about this situation. He knew all about it because... she had come to complain to him about me!! Or more precisely, about the fact that when J goes out to play in the village (though sadly he no longer does this), he goes into people's houses... though quite what business it is of hers, if true, I do not know. Guess what he said? "She is crazy!" He said he knew how difficult it was but there was nothing the mayor's office could do about personal disputes between people. Though he did say that "for you", he would have a word with the husband, whom he has known since childhood. This is really a closed circuit, though... everyone knows everything about each other. The deputy mayor told me he had "connections" with people in the school and he had been told that J is a "nice boy"...
This is such a universal response that I am seeing the situation rather differently. We have the very bad luck to be right next to these people, who have given me the impression that the whole village is "agin" us... but I think that is really just a figment of their fevered and rather nasty imaginations. I don't think people in the village are particularly closed or hostile; most of them seem very well-mannered and level-headed. I am sure gossip goes on but I don't think we are singled out as "outsiders".
So it's comforting in a way - but unfortunately we are still stuck next door to them. Interestingly, their surname means "Turd" in French...
This is such a universal response that I am seeing the situation rather differently. We have the very bad luck to be right next to these people, who have given me the impression that the whole village is "agin" us... but I think that is really just a figment of their fevered and rather nasty imaginations. I don't think people in the village are particularly closed or hostile; most of them seem very well-mannered and level-headed. I am sure gossip goes on but I don't think we are singled out as "outsiders".
So it's comforting in a way - but unfortunately we are still stuck next door to them. Interestingly, their surname means "Turd" in French...