Neighbours

Every neighbourhood has someone who goes all out with Christmas lights and decorations. Ours is no exception. I have previously written about the elderly couple who decorate their house each year to such a degree that the dials on the electricity meter must be spinning so fast that they are smoking, as with Clark Griswald when he finally had his lights working. The lights attract people from all over and are a wonderment for the children who stand in their pyjamas, often clutching a doll or their parents, but with mouths open in silent awe. It wouldn’t surprise me if it attracted aliens from space who would have the same reaction. Read last year’s post here: 

http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/christmas-lights.html

The house is located around the corner from where I live so I see it each night. Over the last few weeks I have watched the strands of lights, the displays and the manger take shape until tonight the lights were on. Each year the decorations and lights are grander than the previous year, as it was again tonight. 

Some pics taken on my mobile telephone: 

The photos don't do it justice in that they don't capture the brightness of the lights and the immense display.  For anyone interested, it is in Fraser Street, Dulwich Hill (NSW).

The manger in the front yard is in two levels, this is the bottom level.

The upper level

On the topic of neighbours, I live next door to a block of flats, or “flock of bats” as my mate Arthur usually calls them. There is never any problem, the next door owners and occupants go about their business, we go about ours and we usually give each other a nod if we see each other. We have a high fence with Boston Ivy that acts as an effective privacy screen, for the neighbours as much as for us. 

Last weekend we noticed from higher up, from the landing at our rear door, that our immediate neighbour had erected a new satellite dish. Not just a satellite dish, this is one that I now call The Death Star. 

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me, it is just so...big. 

Here are some pics: 

You call that a satellite dish?  This is a satellite dish.

-----ooOoo-----

Some thoughts about neighbours:

Sometimes a neighbour whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves.

-- Willa Cather 

Withdraw your foot from your neighbour's house; lest he be weary of you, and so hate you. 

--  Proverbs 25:17

Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.

-- Gilbert K. Chesterton 

Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many years later when I lived alone that I realized how much cheaper it was to drag the Joneses down to my level.

-- Quentin Crisp 

Good fences make good neighbours.

-- Robert Frost

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours

With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend

Neighbours, should be there for one another

That's when good neighbours become good friends

- Theme from Oz TV show Neighbours