Neighbours, everybody needs...

By and large - as they say - I've always got on okay with my neighbours. Growing up in a tenement in Glasgow is a great educator: you have to get on with the neighbours or you would kill each other.

I did complain when I lived in a modern semi: one group of neighbours didn't seem to understand that their front garden was right opposite and on a level with my bedroom window and their midweek late night al fresco parties were shared with me. Another insisted on washing her car at 8am on a Sunday right under my window. For some reason it was easier for her to park her car outside my house rather than her own. Of course, I've been on the receiving end of complaints myself: a neighbour in Shawlands complained about me playing the piano at 9pm. Mind you, that was right after I complained her boyfriend had parked his lorry across my livingroom window, blocking out the light.

Here in our leafy suburban complex, it's a different ball game. We don't see each other that much for a start. The flats are big enough and well enough soundproofed so we don't hear each other. We do make an effort to keep in touch, with the occasional drinks party and an annual garden party. We discuss work that needs to be done and usually agree on how to keep the place up to scratch. We don't know each other well enough to fall out.

Except now the neighbours from hell have moved in. I don't mean they are anti-social and in need of an asbo, although we did have one of those in the next close for a few years. They are quiet and concerned to take their share of responsibility for maintaining the property. They are pleasant enough and make every effort to get on with the rest of us. But already they have managed to fall out with the new resident on their floor.

I thought it was the husband who was the problem but I've now decided from something that was said today it's the wife: you sound just like my husband, she said, always making allowances for people. I suspect this woman could start a fight in an empty house. She seems to go through life looking for trouble - and finding it. So I've decided I'll do the sensible thing: we'll have our garden party this weekend - which may end up in my house if it rains. And then I'll withdraw from communal life. I've given up the role of secretary of the residents' association and have refused to be the close rep. Now I'll have to leave it to someone else to take over the restructuring of the gardens, which is well in hand anyway.

I'm not looking for sympathy. But I didn't retire for this.