Yesterday some kind friends provided winter employment for us. We set about methodically stripping ivy from their fence tendril by tendril. Once the ivy had gone, the wooden panels looked rather tattered and weatherbeaten. Their neighbour came out to see what we were doing.
Encounters with the folk next door can be trying. The words I dread are the request to stop messing with their plants and leave the fence alone followed by a long diatribe against the people who are employing us. The issues, unlike the ivy, are rarely clear cut, and although we often assume that the neighbour is in the wrong, there are two sides to the fence.
Our friends are blessed with a lovely neighbour. She thanked us for taking the ivy away and said that they were intending to replace the fence in the spring and that we had started well. Much relief.
Our friend, a fellow northerner, looked at the fence afterwards and wondered if most of the panels, with a little tinkering, could be saved. We feel that they should let the neighbours replace them all. But that is another story.
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