These Are The People In Your Neighbourhood

If you are looking for a way to meet your neighbours, I suggest simply getting pregnant, taking your year of maternity leave and walking up and down the street with your baby on a daily basis.

I have met more of my neighbours in the nine short months my son has been around than I did in the eight previous years.

While I have always said hello to my neighbours, most of whom live in the city and only come up on weekends, holidays and summer vacation, when you are pushing a baby stroller, people will come right up to you and stop and chat.

It has been wonderful.

I have met so many interesting people including one woman who has been coming to this neighbourhood since she was a girl in the 1940s. PG has three daughters and in the wonderful small world that we live in, I actually worked with one of her girls. I had never met L, who worked at my parent company, but we chatted on the phone a fair bit, and I finally got to meet her this summer when she popped to say hello.

So to recap: Baby equals great opportunities to meet new people.

A Note to Drivers

Dear Drivers,

As you know, our street is a dead end; it’s not a busy road.

So can you do me a favour? When you see me pushing my son in the stroller, move over a whole lane. It annoys me when drivers sped past us, moving over only slightly.

If I can reach out and touch your car, you haven’t moved far enough away. If only half your car makes it over the yellow line, you still haven’t moved far enough over.

When drivers move into the other lane to pass, it makes me feel more confident that if something happened - a blown tire, a distracted driver - the car wouldn’t hit us. As a mother, that makes me happy.

So thank you to the drivers who move over to the other side of the road to pass me; who slow down when approaching me; and who wait until the car coming toward them goes by so they can move over a full lane to get around me.

These drivers get a grateful wave, a smile and a word of thanks. The others - not so much.