It's a funny world in my neighbourhood

 

Some very odd things have been happening around here lately.

We have had a spate of doormat swapping. No one knows how it started. Most houses have a doormat or rug by their front doors for visitors to wipe their feet on before entering the house. Some have personalised doormats with the words "Smith Residence" or such like. Others have plain rubber doormats, or multi-coloured ones or whatever. Every one, or almost every one, has a doormat by their front door.

In the last few days these doormats have swapped places. We get up in the morning and find that instead of our doormat we have the one from a few houses up the road, and they have another doormat which does not belong to them either; and every house has a doormat which belongs to their neighbours from further up the road, rather than the one living just next door.

The first morning this happened it was pandemonium out there. Everyone was out in the street, in various stages of undress, doormat in hand trying to find who has their doormat and giving away the doormat left on their doorstep.

It baffled me why people should get out in the street with their night clothes on, just to get back their own doormat. You'd be surprised what some people wear in bed these days. It was quite a revelation I tell you. 

And I wondered why Mr Harrison from Number 14 came out of house Number 17 in his pyjamas with the young lady from Number 17 following him in her nightdress.

Yesterday it all happened again. Someone at night swapped all the doormats once more. And it happened this morning too.

Now we keep our doormat indoors. Whenever people visit we let them right in and ask them to wipe their feet as they leave so as not to dirty the outdoors.

Our neighbour on the left of us is an old man who lives alone. I saw him with a dog lately. He must have named him "Help" because all day yesterday he kept shouting from his back garden, "Help ... Help ... Help ..." He eventually must have found his dog because he stopped calling it.

A few houses up the road a new couple have moved in about a month or so ago. They are elderly too. I have not seen the old man but his wife is frequently seen coming up the hill from town carrying a large shopping bag. Her head stooped down by the many years on her shoulders, she walks slowly past our house and on to hers a few yards further on. I noticed once that she was followed by a cat.

A few days later I saw her again walking towards her home with her shopping bag. This time she was followed by two cats, neither of which was the cat I saw her with before.

Yesterday I saw her again. This time she was followed by at least six cats. They were all following her and miawooing like cats do.

I stopped her to have a word. I noticed that she smelled of fish. So I ventured to ask whether she kept cats as pets. She looked around her and said, "Oh no ... they follow me everyday from the fishmonger all the way home!"

"You like fish?" I asked rather stupidly.

"No ... I hate fish, and the smell of fish," she replied, "this is for Hector!"

"Your husband?" I asked.

"No ..." she said, "the man who lives with me is not my husband. We are not married. He is my lover and we live in sin, so to speak!"

I was embarrassed and mumbled something incoherent which even I could not understand.

"Anyway, his name is not Hector. It is Ivor ... Ivor Heavybottom!"

"Oh ..." I said wishing to end this conversation.

"Hector is our penguin. We keep him in the bath. He is staying with us for a while," she informed me.

"Is he on holiday?" I asked stupidly.

"Oh no ..." she said, "he is from the zoo. His mother rejected him and the zoo keepers tried to get him adopted; but apparently penguins do not like to adopt other birds' chicks. So the people at the zoo tried a walrus. But the walrus rejected him too. So they asked us to look after him until they find another animal who might adopt him until he grows up. A crocodile perhaps!"

"I see ..." I said unconvincingly.

She continued, "The people at the zoo are trying to find out whether fish are depressed. You can't tell if a fish is depressed because they don't smile. It is easy with a dog, when he is happy he wags his tail. But with a fish it's different. He wags his tail to keep afloat in the water. The animal psychiatrist says one way of finding out if fish are depressed is to check their mortality rate. But when you have a tankful of dead fish it is too late to cheer them up if they're dead."

 A few days later I learnt from another neighbour that this old lady's first and only husband wanted to be a lion whisperer. He achieved his ambition just before he died trying to tame a deaf lion.