Love Thy Neighbour?

Not when she starts hoovering at 6am on a Saturday morning!

Or keeps hens that sometimes cluck incessantly for hours on end...usually starting before sun up, around 5am at the moment!

Or has an inconsiderate (and currently unemployed) twentysomething daughter who plays her music at 1000000 decibels in the room that shares the party wall with my 'office' all day and every day!

Or has five darn cats that think my garden is their public convenience!

Or revs his sodding motorbike for about an hour, at "sparrow's fart" on a weekend!

Or takes down the fence panel between us, promising to replace it very soon.....that was TWO years ago!

OK, Narky Nat's 'Noying Neighbours rant over....

At least we know our neighbours by name....we have the odd chat over the fence about the weather, DIY and gardening, we exchange Christmas cards, we let each other know we're going away, we keep an eye out for England's Dumbest Criminals breaking into each other's cars....and we might just notice if one of us didn't appear for months on end.

How well do you know your neighbours? Would you notice if one went missing or died?

Apparently not everyone is that lucky.

Earlier this month, an 89 year-old Edinburgh woman was found dead in her flat five years after she died. Isabella Purve's body was found after a downstairs neighbour reported water dripping through the ceiling. Officers had to fight through piles of unopened mail behind her front door to get into the flat where they discovered her badly decomposed remains. Police believe the woman was never reported missing because her pension and bills were all set up to be paid and debited electronically.

Even worse is the sad story of Hedviga Golik from Croatia (was Yugoslavia). Governments have changed. War erupted and ended. Neighbours had children, and then grandchildren. But Hedviga never left her tiny apartment in Zagred— until her mummified body was carried out last year, 35 years after she died. Her absence was only noted when the other tenants in the building decided to break into her flat and claim the property for themselves.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of Britons got together for outdoor lunch parties up and down the country. The Big Lunch, the idea of Eden Project founder Tim Smit and Paul Twivy, aims to encourage people to get to know their neighbours better, by sharing food, drink and conversation.

A great idea, I think....hope it did something to bring together often estranged communities.