Yesterday I was over in Glasgow's west end for a Macmillan Coffee Morning, organised by a friend,M, and held in her Dad's comfy top floor flat, carpeted all the way up, with cleaners on the ground floor cleaning with hoovers and brasso!. ( love the smell of brasso and also lavender polish...brings back childhood memories)
Anyway, I am used to red sandstone tenements, having lived in two in Partick, and done many visits to folks in tenements during the length of my Diakonate ministry.
Imagine my surprise then, when I was chatting to a neighbour of M's Dad from floor 2, and asked her if she enjoyed popping in to see M's dad and others in the flats.
She replied, " oh I don't pop. We don't pop!"
I felt like Margo addressing Barbara snootily in "The Good Life" TV show, "No Gerry,we certainly do not pop!" What a shame that folks can isolate themselves, for whatever reason, by not befriending neighbours- wherever we live. Because of fear, or tradition, or upbringing (I'm guessing) we maybe feel we can't ask help from another who lives nearby, or we fear dropping in unannounced, not by appointment ( royal ??)We prefer our own company in case we are perhaps rejected in some way.
But it was a funny story... " We don't pop !"
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