‘Don’t worry about making new friends,’ we told the children when we moved a couple of hundred miles across Ontario and plunged into the purchase of our first thoroughly mod con, deeply carpeted, Canadian ‘carriage-style’ home. ‘Everyone over here seems very friendly and we’re bound to meet lots of other folk moving on to the new estate.’
Certainly our one set of recently established neighbours seemed cheerful, outgoing people.
‘Hey – come and join us for drinks on the patio,’ they called as our furniture van rolled away. And neither they nor we could stop wiping our eyes with merriment when we discovered that the ‘patio’ was actually two tiny paving stones set in a sea of mud outside their front door, tightly encircled by folding garden chairs. Kneecap to kneecap, we raised our glasses and told each other that we were Betty and David and Judy and Bob and glad to be of mutual assistance as and when required.
‘We’ve seen lots of families with kids looking keenly over the show houses so there should shortly be plenty of other young people around for your two,’ they told us. Which was true except for one slight snag. As other new householders arrived they all seemed to have children a great deal younger than Daniel and Anna at ten and fifteen.
‘Our Geoffrey simply idolises your Daniel,’ said the newcomer on our other side. ‘He’s never had such a big boy to play with.’ Which was fine for a while but a bit limiting for Dan and a bit distracting for us when Geoff, aged four, discovered he could reach our doorbell – and did, at ten-minute intervals every day, all day.
‘Can Danny come out to play?’ he would lisp. ‘Tell him I’m busy,’ Dan would mutter, deeply engrossed in Meccano or Six Million Dollar Man.
At which news poor Geoffrey would indicate his disappointment with loud screams of ‘Whaa-aa!’ all the way back to his mum until even she started ringing the bell and asking rather desperately if Daniel was free to play now?
Anna, meanwhile, had made two discoveries. One was that she was the most sought-after babysitter in the neighbourhood, being the only adolescent available of suitable age and temperament. The other was that one other teenaged girl had finally moved in just around the corner.
‘Actually I don’t like her much,’ said Anna glumly. ‘She’s a bit full of herself, but as she’s about the only person of my age on this whole estate I might as well make the best of it.’
I saw what Anna meant when new chum swept in while I was sitting glued to my favourite telly programme and said in a high-pitched, immediately dislikeable voice: ‘Good heavens, you’re not watching that rubbish are you?’ and proceeded to click-click the channels and twiddle the dials until I didn’t just want to grab her wrist, I wanted to break it.
Luckily, another girl – Sharon – turned up soon afterwards and became good friends with Anna, which was an enormous relief after all the shrill bouts of ‘Good heavens, what on earth is that you’re knitting/eating/crocheting etc, etc.’
Then, almost before we’d finished unpacking, along came Daniel’s eleventh birthday. ‘Who would you like to invite to your party, Dan?’ I asked as I laid in stocks of paper plates and jelly.
‘Just Jason will do – I like him. We play guns and hostages and stuff. He’s a bit young but he’s okay.’
Actually ‘hostages’ isn’t my favourite game because it usually entails a third party (me) having two rifles thrust into the small of my back and being ‘held’ in some dark corner for incredibly long, boring stretches while we all try to figure out what comes next.
Geoffrey, we discovered, wasn’t going to be home that weekend. Nor, it seemed, were any other boys available nearer to Dan’s age.
‘Hey I could ask Sharon over,’ said Anna, adding practically, ‘No point in all this cake going to waste.’
‘And I’ve just been talking to an awfully nice chap along the road,’ said my husband. ‘He and his wife don’t know a soul here yet and she’s got a new baby so she doesn’t get out much.’
‘Well Sharon’s parents have moved here all the way from Suffolk and they’re a bit lonely and homesick too …’ said Anna, with a sympathetic throb.
‘Let ’em all come,’ I cried, in last-minute euphoria. ‘Might as well pop in and ask Bob and Judy. And how about that nice newly-wed Lyn? She could bring her husband although I don’t think I’ve actually met him yet.’
So party time arrived and at each ring of the doorbell we all rushed forward together because nearly each new arrival was a stranger to one/some/all of us. The introductions were fairly unusual.
‘Er – Roger is it? Meet – er – Kevin – I think he’s – um let’s see now – Lyn’s husband. And this is Mona over here – Oh I do beg your pardon – it’s Moira – you must be married to – er – this chap.’
As eleven-year-old-boys’ birthday parties go it was certainly different. Not that Daniel minded. The moment Jason arrived off they went under a bed somewhere, bristling with toy rifles and revolvers.
‘Actually that was one of the best parties I’ve been to in a long time,’ chuckled Bob a day or two later. ‘Your Dan certainly knows some great grown-ups! And it’s not every day a whole roomful of adults stand around a birthday cake gulping down egg sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies.’
Nevertheless, as a unique getting-to-know-your-new-neighbours party I can thoroughly recommend it to anybody.