📙 Part 2: Describe an interesting neighbour

This episode's vocabulary

Sustainable (adj.) - able to continue over a period of time.

From the off (idiom) - immediately; from the beginning; from the very start.

Tend to someone/something (phrasal verb) - to deal with the problems or needs of a person or thing.

Go off (phrasal verb) - to leave a place and go somewhere else.

Buzz (noun) - a feeling of excitement, energy, and pleasure that something gives you.

Conventionally (adverb) - in a way that is traditional and ordinary.

Atomized (adj.) - consisting of separate parts that do not have much contact with each other.

To get along (phrasal verb) - if two or more people get along, they like each other and are friendly to each other.

-

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, are you ready? Neighbour episode.

R: Yes. Let's go.

M: Give it to us. Let's go.

R: We've always been really lucky with our neighbours and they always did really cool things with their lives, in addition to being very nice people. Currently, we have a neighbour who is a professional poker player, which isn't something I thought would ever be considered sustainable employment. But I suppose it turns out I was wrong about that. However, I'd like to focus on our newest neighbour. Her name is Sally and she lives on the other side of the group of houses that we own together. She's a nurse who does a lot of work related to care in the community. It's quite a common job compared to being a poker player, but I would say she is equally interesting because of the nature of her character. I know her from living right next door and from the off, she's been a very engaging person to speak to, actually. She often hangs out with my parents and her friends from England are always very welcome in our home as well as her own. When she's not doing that or when she's not off to her work, she usually goes travelling, which makes our lives interesting as we often have to tend to her house or we have flowers left for us before they go off. She came around the other day with this big buzz of flowers and said, oh, I'm going on holiday, but these flowers are still so nice. So they should go somewhere. So that someone can enjoy them. So we got them. Hopefully, that'll be more common because, or at least in the future it'll happen more often because they actually turned out to be quite nice flowers. I know it's not a conventionally interesting story, but it's quite unusual in this day and age for neighbours to be so involved in each other's lives when people seem to be increasingly atomized. What's even more interesting is how she gets along with all of us, despite the fact we're all from different parts of the United Kingdom and just have our shared neighbourhood. I think it's quite a positive development all in all, and it would be great if she continues to stay here in the future as well.

M: And do you see her often now?

R: Yeah, absolutely. Because she's just come back from her holidays.

-