“Mrs Z I try always to be a good neighbour” said my next door neighbour apropos of nothing. This was his opening gambit, having cornered me at the grocery store between the bread and biscuits isle. I was not best pleased, let me tell you. As a matter of fact if I had seen him first he wouldn’t have seen me for dust. The man is noisy and meddlesome. Not very good qualities in a neighbour to be honest. He is an annoying little toad man

The other most annoying thing about him is that he calls me Mrs Z. Mrs Z!!! I ask you. Z is my husband’s nickname. How incredible vexing is that, hey? I mean he could not be bothered to learn to say my name so he sommer took it upon himself to renamed me in a shortened version of my husband’s NICK name!

It makes me want to burn all my bra’s right in his damn stoep. I mean honestly! He calls his girlfriend / wife the woman. Not sweety, not dear, not by name. “The woman” I ask you !!! “Mrs Z the woman saw someone lurking around your house” is something that he would say to me. Uninvited, mind you. I go all suffragette every time I have any sort of interaction with this toad man.

My dear hubby for some unexplained reason tolerates him and humours him. Me I just want to give him a kick up the tushi.

Anyway having opened with that dubious statement he proceeded to tell me about what my helper does when we are at work. He informed me that she leaves the house and returns just before we come back. That she has a boyfriend that comes in at night and leave in the morning. That she has friends that hang about possible being entertained in my house. On and on the list of sins went. Leaving me feeling seriously pissed off - at him-and alarmed-at what goes in my own home when my back is turned. I really did not need to hear all this stuff. I prefer to find out thing for myself when it comes to these sorts of things and rely on trust until proven wrong. Otherwise you will be driven dilly by rumours.

The things is now I had been told these things, I had no way of proving him right or wrong. The seeds of doubt had been sown and they were fermenting. The truth of the matter is that if the source was different I would have taken this a little seriously and would have confronted my helper with these allegations. This would have served as warning for her to mend her ways if there was any truth on these issues. Alas the source, at least in my eyes was flawed. I dont actually remember him every saying something postive to me about someone. I have lived next door to him for five years.That in my view says a lot.

So because I did not want to lend any credibility to my neighbour’s meddling I decided to ignore the whole thing. However I found myself phoning my house often to give instructions etc. Not checking up on her you understand but doing my duty as a responsible employer in ensuring that instruction was understood and support given. I am sure you understand. The labour law exist and we all have to do our bit. I am just saying.

On Monday the alarm guys went in to fix the intercom system and install a radio for the alarm. They were supposed to have come last week already. They got there at about 9am. They waited and waited and waited. They called me and I told them that there was someone at home, she must have just gone up to store so they should wait. They waited and waited. Finally I called hubby. He went over to let them in. My trusty helper turned up at about 4pm. Guess who was there, next to the gate when I drove home that evening. My meddlesome neighbour of course. All agog at what action are we going to take to address the situation. I nearly drove over him in complete funk. Has he no life !!!!