Beyond The Fence of No. 10

Today was exactly what I needed an insight into the curious world of neighboring beings, foreign families and old gay men with dandy wall paper.

For 15 years I have been living on my street and for 15 years I knew not one of my neighbors. Sure I used to go to John from Poland’s house but even that was an act of greed, they had Looney tunes videos and I did not, they bred budgerigars in their back yard and found the interesting if not weird and curious. It was all very superficial. I knew them but I didn’t KNOW them.

So as I was tagging along with my mother on a mission to meet the people next door and convert them to veggie gardening, I got that little bit excited. Who lived beyond the fence of number 10 and what was their story…

What once was presumably green grass crunched under our feet as we wandered over to the front door which sported a lovely chrome door handle and not a peel of paint in sight. As a weathered hand curled around the edge of the door, someone behind it cleared his throat and quite queerly said “oh hello”. Who would have guessed in this very conservative town of mine on this very main stream street we had our very own resident old homosexual man. Whoopee! The rest of our meet and greet was a blur as I couldn’t keep my eyes off his amazingly kitsch wall paper and gold sapphire ring.

Turns out my mum and him shared a hate for possums “kill them all” he said “their piss is putrid absolutely putrid…”

“How am I meant to smell the roses when the possums piss on them at night?”

That’s life no matter how bad it smells, How dense the clouds or loud the sounds. You have to push past and dodge the thorns and smell the fucking roses no matter how many nocturnal son of a bitches have pissed on them. hahaha...but in all seriousness.