I have just ordered my neighbour out of my house.
It's a long saga. She's a rude selfish stuck-up cow with pretensions of grandeur. She had this stupid stupid idea about two years ago that we should all change our address for her convenience - to Laundry Lane.
She explained her rationale: whenever she orders something for home delivery, it comes up with my address. That isn't true. What actually happens is that she orders something over the telephone or in a shop and gives her postcode. Four houses share a postcode, which isn't actually very many for a postcode. The first one on a drop down list is my address. My address is
1 Gert Cottage
London
SW2 xxx
That's all that's needed, as per Royal Mail.
Her address therefore is
Cow Cottage
London
SW2 xxx
If I order something over the phone, the usual behaviour is that they ask my postcode, I give it, they say "Is that 1 Gert Cottage?" I say yes.
Presumably, she gets asked "Is that 1 Gert Cottage" and she replies "Yes" rather than "No, it's Cow Cottage". It's like if you live at 33 Acacia Avenue and you give your postcode, and they say "Is that 1 Acacia Avenue" you don't reply "Yes it is vaguely that area" but you do reply "No, it's 33 Acacia Avenue."
It's not that difficult. I know from the addresses of my family and friends that there are numerous complications in how houses are addressed, so, while ours isn't 'normal' it's not the sole aberration in an otherwise neatly ordered system. The road I back onto is numbered 1, 2, 3 on one side and 48, 47, 46, etc on the other, rather than odds on one size and evens on the other. It's a surprise the first time you encounter it, then you get used to it. I assume there are many other roads similarly numbered.
I know what these drop-down lists look like, I use them regularly online. Yes, her house lacks a house-number. So do lots of houses. So does another house in the foursome, Alaska Cottage. Funny how they don't have the same problems with deliveries as she does.
She's gone and ordered a bed from Argos, to be delivered to my house, on a day I shall be at work. So she's come round to warn me. Or rather, to ask a favour. Jimmy and I have agreed we have done her too many favours and been treated like dirt in return, so, except for the fact that her husband is infirm, we won't do any more favours (in actual fact, if we were at home and one of her delivery people came knocking, of course we would redirect them). She's accused him of trespassing on her land (yeah, she's that grand!); she's had her priest friend sneering at him and our house name.
She then started on the 'something must be done...'. I knew what was coming; she was moving on to discuss Laundry Lane. I've already told her I'm not interested and why; I've already explained how the postcode database works. She chose not to listen then, so I chose not to listen this evening, saying with a somewhat raised voice "Get out..." She told me not to be so rude. I said she was the rude one, with her postcode nonsense, her sneering friends and her f..bloody Laundry Lane.
