the Drive

God bless diversity, I'm completely in favor. Speaking of diversity, let me brief you on our neighbors.
Jez and I live in what they call a 'close' (sounds like the opposite of 'far', which actually is near but no matter - not 'clothes', is my point) - basically it's a cul-de-sac. However don't be fooled; my experience of North American cul-de-sacs is that they are rather a new-fangled notion and ere-go tend to exhibit rather posh, though admittedly direly modern, houses for the Rich. While I dearly love the dwelling my recent marriage has afforded me (it is charming and spacious for a Brit-house) I can’t escape the impression that our neighborhood is rather trailer-park in its feeling.
A couple of weeks ago we were getting out of our car next to a family who was also piling out of theirs, and we managed to get into a conversation with the Mister about the lack of parking in the close (no one has their own guaranteed spots - you get a permit and then park wherever you can find to). It seemed to frustrate him quite a lot and he began bemoaning the conspicuous amount of space given to little grassy-treed outcroppings that really, if somebody would just use their head, could be chopped down and bulldozed over to make room for more dang places to park the dang cars. 'Bli-mee.'
When we first moved in we one evening had a bit of an issue finding a place to park, ourselves, and so resigned to parking slightly illegally next to a curb, just to left of one of our neighbors drives - we made sure that should he want to get out (he had his own drive, which a few people do have) he certainly could have, albeit the tightness. The next morning we had a knock and I opened the door to a very gruff and irritable looking person of a 'not nice' aspect and was polite as I could be not knowing I was about to be barraged with a flurry of fury regarding where we'd parked. Was that our blue Volksvagen? Why yes it was. Jez was soon escorting him to the alleged scene where there appeared to be no real problem if you were a reasonable person with an ounce of driving skill, but clearly he was having none of it.
A couple of doors down on the other side of us is an old man named Malcolm. Presumably he has a wife but I've never seen her. He has a dog who looks as old and grizzled as himself, and a daily supply of gentleman friends, similarly aged or, if not particularly advanced in years, gruff at least, who assist him in a recently undertaken project. The envy he has undoubtedly harbored toward the select fellow Closers possessing their own drive had reached its threshold as we took notice a couple of months back that he had begun to undo his front garden. Puzzlingly, the majority of English yards have rather a more cement-like than grassy aspect, so when I say he was 'undoing' his garden I mean for one that he was hammering it into rocky pieces which found a purgatorial home in the corner of one of the precious parking slots of Heather Place. It has most recently served as the off-loading ground for the bags of driveway cement waiting to be mixed and laid, and intermediately for this that and the other thing relating to the excavation. The slightly amusing, slightly irritating, slightly outrageous problem that wouldn’t perhaps occur to an outsider looking in on this drama, is that Malcolm hasn’t actually got permission from the city to do this little thing he is doing and which is daily nearing its completion. The fact that providing himself with a personal driveway will rob the rest of us ‘non-drive-peasants’ of one more parking spot to choose from when we pull into Heather Place at the mercy of first-come, first-served (who would have the kahunas to park him in?) hasn’t seemed to enter his mind, or if it has, hasn’t ‘moved’ him to repentance. No sir, there he is in his hole, everyday, working his elderly buns off (you have to give him credit for that) to make his car a little car-nest. And he’s smiley as can be, too, friendly as all get out. He came over a month ago, knocked on our door, introduced himself and said he’d heard that the guy who lived here before us had put in an archway from the kitchen? Had he put an archway into the kitchen? He’d like to see how he’d done it. Actually he hadn’t and I’m not sure where Malcolm was getting his information, but it was kinda sweet, and as long as he doesn’t try to put an arch in our front garden the more power to him.
So we await his new driveway with him and simultaneously mourn our loss. He is oblivious, and you know, NOBODY will tell on him. Us trailers gotta stick together.