01 Aug 10 Part 3: Shaz Twattock and Jeremy Chino-Chambrayshirt come to pass judgement on our garden
Last week our neighbours, The Twattocks, came back from holiday and (probably as a matter of course) came to snoop round our garden to make sure we were not doing anything they wouldn’t approve of.
Part 2: The Bullying Behavour Of Our Neighbours Mr and Mrs Twattock
Unfortunately we were doing some garden landscaping and this made them very cross. They wrote us a letter telling us in no uncertain terms that we were to be ashamed of ourselves, probably evil and most definitely in contravention of all sorts of laws.
I said ‘okay’ I really should have said ‘fuck off and mind your own business’
We went to speak to them and Shaz Twattock (teacher by profession) did a finger-wagging thing at my nose repeating all this. I was actually quite restrained and used words like ‘reassure’ and ‘profuse apologies for any lack of courtesy’. I subtley tried to push back and did say that if they wanted to put a pergola or some such up in their garden, then it would not really be any of our business. But she didn’t really choose to understand the point.
She announced she would be bringing a surveyor round on Monday to pass judgement on all this. I said ‘okay’ I really should have said ‘fuck off and mind your own business’.
Apparently it suited her to saunter all over our garden with her surveyor on Friday morning
Monday came and Monday went – no surveyor. Then Shaz showed up on Wednesday choosing not to talk to us, the householders and property owners, but instead to our garden contractor. Apparently it suited her to saunter all over our garden with her surveyor on Friday morning. It was as though she was purposely going out of her way to treat us like shit.
Carolyn handled it and went to speak to her. Bizarrely, in every way, we agreed to the visit. Carolyn again asked them to park their 4×4′s in a safer way. Shazza explained why they parked like this. Apparently Stevie Twattock, her husband is very bitter about all the disruption and noise the insurance company builders made in 2009. As a result he finds this type of petty activity satisfying. I assume he is trying to piss us off and generally he has succeeded.
Interestingly, the surveyor, it turns out, was a ‘mate who is an engineer’. ‘Surveyor’ sounds very official and a bit legal. ‘Mate who is an engineer’ sounds like nothing I am going to pay any attention to anyway. Carolyn asked her what her objective was. Shaz said she wanted to know what the implications for her property might be. Carolyn asked her ‘with a view to what action?’ Shaz didn’t know. She’s a primary school teacher, perhaps the notion of answering secondary questions with anything other than a finger-wag and a ‘now behave’ comment is beyond her.
The day after, I did wonder whether I should call a halt to the whole arrangement. Carolyn suggested that we should let them blow themselves out. They cause so much danger and trouble to us with their bloody minded parking antics, but since Carolyn’s chat the 4x4s had retreated to a considerate distance, so we went with it. I suggested that as soon as they had got their way with their inspection of our garden the bloody cars would be back again. ‘Maybe’ said Carolyn
My mouth said, “Okay” my mind was thinking, “You lying fucking bitch…”
So Shaz Twattock and her engineer, Jeremy Chino-Chambrayshirt, came to pass judgement on our garden. They were due at 8.00am and sure enough at quarter to nine they showed up. I had prepared a small intro.
“Before we start, I need it to be understood that this exercise is not to do with stopping, altering, delaying or in any way changing this gardening project of ours.’
“David” Shaz replied in the most patronising of voices, “This was never about that, we would never try to interfere with anything you do within your own property”.
My mouth said, “Okay” my mind was thinking, “You lying fucking bitch, I have a letter from you saying precisely that you wanted to interfere with what we were doing”.
Nevertheless, Jeremy Chino-Chambrayshirt was clearly an advanced practioner of chin-scratching. I showed him this and explained that and answered a load of questions and each time he scratched his chin and said nothing other than “I see”. And then they went.
Within an hour the cars were back crowding out access and view to the drive.
Shazza and Stevie – what a pair of Twattocks.
