My new best friends

Sara Dinnen discovers that moving to a new town has its upside when you meet The Village People.

It's been said that moving house is one of the three most stressful things you cope with in your lifetime. The other two are (naturally) having a death in the family and (not so naturally) divorce. But not always in the case of divorce.

On the day that very nice judge sat on his bench in front of moi and said those two magical words 'decree absolute' he became an instant friend. Out came the champers, in came the girlfriends and we (the girlfriends, not the judge) proceeded to get partially plastered.

Indeed, moving to a new town has its upside. You get to meet The Village People minus the singing - electricians, plumbers, furniture luggers in moving vans and a recommended bloke to do the lawn and gardens. And since you're paying for their professional presence they're awfully attentive.

But first to meet was the Brazilian neighbour who had arrived just two days ago to pick fruit for the season. He didn't speak much English but who cares? He was salsa for the soul to look at and fixed the hinge on the gate. He said he'd had a bang in the car and felt 'obleeged' to mend things. Know the feeling.

The moving man had squiggly tatts down either side of his calf muscles and across his knuckles, two ear-rings and one nose ring and ended up getting the telly to work. All it took was a bottle of beer and some fiddling. Why, even the ex-husband never managed that during the happy days.

The gardening guy is from Germany. It could have been his accent, or the fact I'd lived in apartments for several years and had become unfamiliar with things horticultural, but I could have sworn the moment he met me he said he'd 'do my ginger'. Now, being new to town and not wishing to offend by planting him, so to speak, one merely raised one's eyebrows. "And what's involved?" I asked, er, gingerly.

"Hacking and spraying," he said enthusiastically and pointed to large bulbous things with pretty heads that are noxious to the environment. And here they were in my garden. An entire clump of ex-husbands!

Two days into the new house and there was no hot water so scanned the local directory and stuck a pin in a name like you do for Melbourne Cup bets. An hour later Joe turned up, bless his cotton socks. He was also wearing a singlet and short shorts with the kind of body perfectly suited to such attire and I hoped he'd get on his hands and knees and bring out his monkey wrench. But, no, all that was needed was to pop an electrical over-ride button back into position. Pity really, but we might orchestrate a leaky pipe some time in the future.

Saturday morning it was down to the hardware store for a wall screw, to hang up some art. We refined women don't have pictures you understand or, being back in New Zillund, it's 'pukchas'. Now, hardware stores are notorious for blokes standing around clutching their cordless drills but on this occasion there weren't any there. Men, not drills. But the serving woman was really helpful so I walked out with some tomato plants and a bottle of carpet cleaner as you do in search of a screw.

I got home and realised that while I have a home for the screw I didn't, in fact, have your actual screw. But hopefully, that's for another day.