In the ground floor of our building is a tea shop which we try to keep on side. They do seem very pleasant. Today our sofa was to be delivered so I went and worked at the tea shop, on a little table set under a tree, sipping cay, a very pleasant time indeed until it started raining, but then they ushered me under a canopy.
The Ikea truck arrived and they brought the sofas up, but unfortunately our least pleasant neighbour spotted us, an elderly woman living upstairs. Her complaint was justified I’m sure as I daresay it was about noise, but the place needs to be finished, and we have been very respectful about not hammering on weekends or even during the height of lockdown. She came to the door where I was waiting for the boxes and started shouting at me. I smiled and kept saying ‘I don’t understand Turkish’ and she kept shouting. Then she tried to barge into the flat, which was a step too far so I gently moved her back onto the landing. She shouted a bit more and then left. I think it’ll be fine once it’s all over, and as I said I do sympathise, but I don’t like strangers shouting in my face. She was rather unpleasant even before we began work, and sent a message to us to stay away from her plants, as though we were planning to eat her peppers.
This rattled me a bit, so it was nice to return and find the GF in particularly good form.
My sister, in Pakistan, is down with what might be dengue. I am rather worried – Lahore gets a particularly nasty strain, and she is rather delicate.