This needs a bit of preamble:
Last week, recycling on one particular street, I found a letter, which had apparently been sent to all the residents from a lady who'd just moved in, introducing herself. It started off with how she'd always lived with her father, and they were going to buy this house together, but he'd died...(great opening gambit, make everyone feel awkward) and then how she was planning to have the door and woodwork painted in suitably period colours using Farrow and Ball paint, (it's been done, white frames with a blue door), and she was going to have shutters put up, (salvaged from a Parisian cafe, no less), and how everyone was welcome to drop by any time for tea and cake, oh there's always cake because she bakes for a cafe.... It was all a little bit OTT I felt, although a nice gesture. Perhaps a bit too... eager? Needy even?
Anyway, to day, working in that street, I was telling my colleague about it, and a lady who often chats to us from her window (she's housebound) overheard the phrase tea and cake and said:
Old Lady: Who's going for tea and cake?
Me: Well you all are, aren't you, with your new neighbour.
OL: Oh her! She wrote us all a letter you know!
Me: Yes, I saw it...
OL: <Les Dawson gossip type voice> Well! Talk about wanting attention! You should see the shorts she wears, shorter than a thong! Mind you I'm only jealous, she looks good in them! And have you seen the colour she's painted the door, I have to look at that all day! And she's having shutters put up! Coming from Paris! There was a van turned up the other day, my carer said, I expect that's those shutters all the way from Paris! 'Ooooh, I bake cakes for a cafe!'...."
I think that letter might have backfired for that one particular neighbour....
.. er
