Every neighbourhood should have a woman just like Mrs Linders

She knew where every plant was hidden under the overgrown weeds, and had the Latin name for each. She had a particular hatred for a plant called a Veronica, a low-slung woody bush that would take over the world if you let it. Piles of uprooted Veronicas grew higher and higher.

When we moved, more than a year ago, I wondered what kind of neighbours we’d have. Nothing to worry about, I was told. The nearest person was a field away, and she was a widow named Mrs Linders with grown-up children. She’d had lung surgery, they said. But she was fine. I imagined a fragile little old lady with a whispery voice behind the windows of the green cottage at the curve of the road.

Fragile and little she turned out not to be. One day, this big smiling woman arrived accompanied by one big collie and surrounded at ankle level by a bunch of orange furball Pomeranians. Pomeranians have an opinion on everything, and bark it “Rack and ruin,” she said. “It’s gone to rack and ruin.”