Neighbours.

We're sitting around drinking tea and dark ale, thinking about when to get out the melon and chocolate squares. Mary has her foot up on a stool. She broke it the other day. They plated and screwed it together yesterday. She's on T3s but says she doesn't mind feeling the pain. She thinks it's important to feel it. To know what's going on. Two of us who've had this kind of bone repair surgery say sure, that's true but your body also heals better when it's not fighting pain as well, so for those first days or week or so it's important to use the drugs, so that your body's not doing two really important things at once. She gets it. She still looks pale and uncomfortable most of the night. But she's in good spirits. Her kids are funny and well-mannered. All that hard "clean up after yourselves" parenting is paying off big time right now. They do what she asks. They care for their mom. They understand.

It's out already that they're moving away in a couple of weeks, so this is a kind of farewell. Not that fancy, what with the broken ankle and all. But we have our beer and tea and melon and chocolate squares and talk about how great the new place'll be, that we'll probably see them more often out there because of the great yard - the ski and bike trails - the huge house. Still there's a kind of melancholy to it all. You can make good neighbours by being one. Good friends and neighbours is another thing. You imagine, if you're like us, growing old together in this same spot. You look out the front window at their house and yard. They do the same at yours. When there's a windstorm, snowstorm, you get stuck, a parent dies, whatever, you're there for each other. You know that someone's "got your back". So losing a neighbour is like starting over again.

Some people say - I think they work in cube-farm-like sorts of things - that no one is indispensable. Have you ever heard a more ridiculous thing? Can we apply the industrial model to every aspect of our lives? Why not? It sure simplifies things. There's no point then in getting attached to a person or family who lives next door. They just play a role and when they're gone someone else will slip into it and, if you played the game the prudent way, you'd hardly notice. So I guess that's our mistake then. For ten years we've played the game by the wrong rules. We've made it too complicated. If we just relax, when the replacements arrive, it'll be simple for them to take over. There will always be someone else to help clear the drive, or smile and wave as they pass, or to watch the place and gather the eggs while we're on holidays. It'll all work out.

Of course it will. But it won't be the same. It would be an insult to Cornelio and Mary to say so. They are indispensable. Nathan and Evan are utterly unique. One offs. There's no way around it. So forgive us if right now we're fretting a bit about the next few weeks and months. We're getting new neighbours and we're heading into winter.