not so much of a funny one here...
I was about 3 years old when my parents decided that now my sister had just been born, it was time to move to a more suitable place - more rooms, and a nice big garden to play in.

We moved in and all seemed well. Next door, however, lived a family, (Christie & Christine, and their kids who were bout ready to fly fromn the nest) that had two quite loud and active dogs that didn't care for anyone near their back garden. To top it off, the neighbours, had a very low wire fence.

Naturally, with a new born, and 3 year old who liked nothing more than trying to explore this new amazingly large landscape I had been presented with, my parents were concerned about the dogs as they tried to jump the fence every chance they got.

After some discussion, the fence was taken down ans a new one put up, but this was just the start of many years of arguements. They were mainly minor ones, but bad blood none the less, and often a wall of silence between our two families.

After about 15 years of this, we suddenly found out Christie had just developed cancer. It was very quick, and he died in a matter of weeks - maybe a few months.

Christene, quite understandably, was broken by this, and for the first time since we had moved in we all started talking again. Before long, we were all good friends; it was just a serious shame that it took the death of someone to bring the families together.

Christene soon after moved away, but kept in touch and would often visit us; she also spent a lot of time on the phone to my Mum. Sadly, only about 3 years later, she died suddenly from a heart attack.

We may have all had 15 years of unpleasantness between us, but the 3 or so years that we were all friends was worth it; I just wish that our respective families had not been so stupid at that start, and realised how much in common we had.
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Mon 5 Oct 2009, 9:09, Reply)