PEACE HAS BROKEN OUT

The Charm and Disarm strategy seems to have done the trick! Hurray for nice-iosity.
I was in the back today in the bright and chilly sunshine, doing some clipping of the jungle and standing on of a snail, (sorry, snail. I did not enjoy the sudden underfoot crunch, and actually gazed at you for a minute after your untimely demise on the paving, (ironically I had just "saved" you from being thrown amongst the rubble) wandering if 1) you could be saved, by cleverly throwing off your shell and becoming a slug or 2) I should put you out of your misery by pouring salt on you and watching you shrivel up), when I was distracted by my neighbour's cordial salute, all friendly-like, from the fence. We had a slightly awkward conversation through the fence. It is not designed for inter-neighbour communication, in truth, the lathes being laid in such a way to be either covering the eyes of the person to whom you are speaking, or the mouth. So I was forced into a kind of solicitous bobbing dance to catch the drift of what Nuala was saying. Which was: they are not going to do anything with the fence - it's fine. And when I tried to apologise for the fact that our extension takes light from their garden, she said "ah sure, it gives us a bit of shelter!" And then, after the ritual complaining about the weather, we smiled cheerily and bobbingly at each other and bid our farewells. I am really happy. I hate to be on bad terms with people, especially those with whom I live so very cheek-by-jowl. Nuala, too, redeemed herself - and will now be characterised in a more favourable light when I write my graphic novel about the neighbourhood - Cheek by Jowl, which was to be a murder mystery with her as the rotten-hearted culprit, and much skulduggery and fleet of foot around of the back lanes at night time (Well. I just made that up, but I think the point is made). It was a stunning transformation and I am a bit pleased with myself, I have to admit. My relief is out of proportion with the reality, because in some deep unlit part of me, I now see I perceive it as some sort of omen. (I wouldn't have thought of myself up till now, as a superstitious person, really, but in fact it seems that I am, really. Might as well admit it. Time to get on with it, in fact. Although I draw the line at joining a coven). I mean, how else to make sense of the way life runs in great loops of bad luck and good? I feel we've been loitering in the dark these last 18 months - I haven't felt my usual doesn't-bear-thinking-about luckiness (Lord this is truly middle-class angst. I do realise. I realise. Apologies to those with Real Problems)  - like:
the 2 penalty points I got for the one and only time I ever answered the mobile while driving (in bumper to bumper traffic too).
See: pregnancy, lack thereof
See: purchase of house the very second before the boom ended
See: being ripped off by builders big time
See also: gratuitous violence done to car x 2, and husband x 1
But now, with our lovely builder, Peter the Great, his beautiful job on my shed, (he wouldn't even take the money for the roof he fixed for us months ago - I mean I had to press the payment on him! extraordinary, it was) and JB's thumbs up from the doctors wrt to his "boys", with the fact my neighbour Came Around, my show which was a success, and the fact we are well, and healthy, and it's Spring, there is so much to celebrate.
JB came back from Kerry, all giddy and rested and back in 15 year old gear. (Whenever he goes home (it is my contention that) he regresses to his teenage years and forgets to bathe and goes around on his bike with his little legs going like pistons.) And we seem to be on a better track, too. I rang the Italian Police for my clearance last week and was told by a kind man with an all but unintelligible (to me) thick Roman accent that it must have been lost and he would send it again. He even asked me to ring him to confirm that it arrived safely) I could just imagine him sitting in a dusty office in Rome, surrounded by metal filing cabinets, planning his pensionable years, with the marble statues outside, keeping their relentless watch.

And so it is that a ray of sunlight slants into my young/old heart. And today is good, and that is enough for me.

Your grateful
Twangy