GOSSIPGATE

This is plain neighbourhood gossip. Stop here if you're above this sort of thing.

Having exhausted the supply of old doors in the immediate vicinity, I thought I might do a gate series. The first one I saw was this one. Behind it (I thought it prudent not to show the whole gate) lives a woman I call "La Vespa," the wasp. I have never felt her sting but I have seen her lean out of windows and give other people the what-for and it made my blood run cold.

When I first met her she was married to a man with astonishing green eyes which stuck straight out of his head. They had a young daughter and they lived in town. Then she took it into her head she wanted to live in the country and bought a big house out our way and did a number on it. She had it redecorated and furnished it with some astonishing shiny black furniture.

She had a mammoth spa bathtub installed. The motor for the thing looked as if it would power an ocean going liner. We all knew very well when it was used because our lights dimmed.

She was the only child of a very rich banker and so her inheritance was substantial. Her husband was very chuffed to have a rich wife. He counted their olive trees, inspected the grape vines and became a local padrone. He wore smart Scottish tweeds in the winter and classy linens in the summer. His shoes almost glowed in the dark.

Then one day we heard that he had been given the heave, literally thrown out of the house and made to walk down the road to the bus stop, suit case in hand. When next seen in town his tweeds were looking a bit seedy and he needed a haircut. With the settlement she was obliged to make he went into business with some other people, doing exactly what I don't know.

Time passed. She took up with the local bachelor. He loved the spa bathtub and cleaned up nicely. He turned almost immediately from scruff to snappy dresser. Everybody said no good would come of it. She took him on cruises and bought him a very smart motor bike.

One day he appeared at our house, slightly red about the ears, and said it was all over between them. He has reverted to his bachelor self, is desperately in need of a haircut or a ponytail clip, and some clean clothes.

A nice looking man appears at the weekends now. He mows the lawn and does work about the place. The neighbours make sly remarks, nod and wink. I think they're wrong. There's nothing in it else he would not be wearing old jeans and shirts and scuffed shoes.

There is no moral to this story but it would appear that well dressed men have either a sharp tongued woman or a valet in their lives.