When I first moved to the place I now live, I found that my garbage bin always had mysteriously returned to its place. I wondered why the bin men put mine back but no one else's. It was ages before I learned that my neighbour next door was replacing it for me, so it always looked as if I'd been home even if I was away late.

One of many quiet kindnesses.

He was old, moved to a flat (and gave me his hedge trimmer, which he had so often loaned, when he left) and has since died. But I still remember him as a lovely kind and discreet man, a perfect neighbour...

The people who followed him are good neighbours too...Coming in late on a bicycle and making unusual noise with my shed door, the neighbour's face pops over the hedge to make sure it's me...

And then there's that cats' godmother up the street...