Manic Kitty

Apologies for the "Woe is Me" post, but things aren't so great around here. My neighbour who was in hospital the other week is seriously ill. She's back home now, with all her family around her and she's not expected to live much longer. We were told last week she had about 6 months to live, but the next day we were told it was actually a matter of days.

I think it's rare now to be so close to your neighbours, especially for someone of my generation, even more so as she's nearly 50 years older than me. But when we moved here 2 years ago we knew no one and very little about the area. I've got to know her well, chatting over the garden fence, she's become a great friend. She's taught me about the local area, treated me with plants for my garden, and left-over pasties from the cafe where she worked. In return I did some of the tougher jobs in her garden, sorted out her bins for her every week (the slope down from our house is dangerous even on a dry day) and gave her some company. Her family keep thanking me for everything I've done for her, but I think she's been a far better friend to me really.

I didn't see any of my Grandparents in the last couple of weeks before they died. Partly because I lived so far away and it was hard to get time off work, but also because as I'm the youngest of all the Grandchildren I was kept sheltered from it all (even though I was in my 20's when 3 of them died.) Seeing my neighbour as ill as she is has been harder to deal with than I realised, especially as we were chatting over the fence as normal 3 weeks ago.

I keep finding jobs to do round the back of the house in the hope one of her relatives will be outside because if I'm honest I'm too scared to go round and find out the latest.