Sharon Feinstein

On Christmas Eve, when goodwill is supposed to be replacing all that competitive, snarling, mean-spirit, the vicar’s wife stunned me. She reached new heights of neighbourly nastiness, even for her. And considering they live as grace and favour occupants in the Church’s house in this otherwise lovely Islington square, you would think she might try and spread the message of tolerance and kindness just a little.
This is the story, it has to be told. My best friend, a leading landscape gardener, brought round the turkey today and her pressies, two beautiful flowering Amarylis, and other surprises. In her excitement, she forgot to buy a parking ticket. Along came two Nigerian wardens bearing Christmas parking fines. But being rather sweet souls they examined her van, realised she may be loading and legitimately has 20 minutes loading time, and stood beside her vehicle quietly minding their own business and waiting for the driver to return. The vicar’s wife, ever on hand, shot out and snitched, She’s been there an hour, I can vouch for it.
Shocked that a member of the public was actually urging them on, they had no choice but to write a ticket for £60. At that moment we realised the little party had gathered and rushed out to explain that Diana was indeed loading and had only been 20 minutes, and that there was absolutely no need for the Christmas Eve ticket. But, we can’t have that, the helpful vicar’s wife was in full swing now. Tolerance, forebearance, and peace for all mankind being her philosophy, she came out on the steps, not at all minding her own bloody business, and said, Sharon, she’s been there an hour, she’s been there an hour. In fact she repeated it so many times that it was a bit like Chinese water torture. She does know I wouldn’t dream of listening to her, and on this occasion I wouldn’t have actually believed my ears if not for what happened next. The nice Nigerian men looked at us and said, Sorry, we have already written it or we would not have given you a ticket. We can see you were loading. Thankfully, those sorts of horrible people don’t exist in Nigeria. Only here. Well I never. The thing I want most for Christmas is new neighbours. With vicars like that, let’s all have a revolution.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under SharonSpeak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.