Friendly Neighbourhood Neighbours

On the neighbourhood
I’ve lived here for… (Pause while I count) eight long years. Or ‘eight rains’ as my ancestors would’ve put it. Hardly know any of the neighbours, probably because I hardly *speak* to any of the neighbours.
As a matter of fact, in my book only the people who live in the same building or on either side are considered neighbours. The rest just ‘live around’.

So, who are my neighbours? Let’s start with the people I actually recognize:
Mr. Singh
Mr. Singh’s house help
Mr. Singh’s house help’s sister
Mrs. Singh
Mr. Singh’s brother
Mr Singh’s niece
Mr. Singh’s other relation
My neighbour who’s also my landlord, and his family. (actually they’re categorized as family friends, not mere neighbours so I’ll leave them off this list)
My other neighbour
My other neighbour’s wife
My other neighbour’s house help with the bad temper (always yelling at the kids)
My other neighbour’s brother (1)
My other neighbour’s brother (2)
My other neighbour’s brother (3 – moved out)
My other neighbour’s female-relation-who-parks-her-car-next-door-cos-there-isn’t-enough-parking-space-here. (MONFReWhoParks for short)

On friends
I lost all my friends from school, except for my friend T who lives in the States. That is a friendship extraordinaire. Been running for twenty five years! Sometimes I wonder why my friend is still my friend. We live miles & miles apart and aren’t in touch every week or even every month, yet with every phone call we just pick up from where we left off the last time. She’s married with 2 kids, I’m single with 3 kids…(okay they aren’t my kids but they are at my mum’s daycare Monday to Friday so technically I could lay claim to them too)

Now all my friendships are new, developed within the last five or six years, and all from work. At one point I was determined to develop new friends outside work and enrolled in a French class. That didn’t work. And I still don’t parle Francais at all.