A Local Shop for Local People

When Grumpy and I bought our house last July, all we knew was that it had been done up by a local lad called TB. Just TB. No name, no tubercle bacillus, just initials. Before he'd turned the house into the quasi-zen-feng-shui bit of minimalistic art that it is, it had been just a run-down little fibro shack which was the scene of many a drug deal (apparently) and a few Tupperware-and-porn parties (apparently). All this according to the old man next door who has lived on the street for the last thousand years.

It turned out that TB's parents also live on our street - and are probably the only people in a long line of curious neighbours not to have introduced themselves and ask us how we like living "in TB's house". Everyone knows TB. And now everyone knows us as "that Canberra couple who bought TB's place" - and they'll probably still be calling us that in 30 years' time. We hadn't been there long and Grumpy wandered down to the local Indian take-away. The woman running the place asked him if he was new to the area and where he lived and even she knew the house - "Oh you bought TB's house. It's a nice house. You probably paid too much, but it's a nice house."

So yesterday when I came home there were some little raggamuffins lurking around the front fence. "Hello," one of them screeched at me when I got out of the car. "My uncle used to live in this house." I didn't need to ask, but I did anyway: "Really? Who's your uncle?" "TB!" he yelled. "He did everything. He knocked down walls and stuff. This place was a dump. But TB did the whole thing up himself."

Sometimes you just have to go along to get along. I said to him, "Well, tell your uncle we like living in his house very much."