Remember that Australian television soap, Neighbours? It used to be good, didn’t it – about 25 years ago!

The last I heard, it had been relegated from the teatime slot on BBC1, to Channel Five. Presumably sandwiched in between a documentary about womem who make rice pudding from their own breast milk, and reruns of Animal Hospital.

Even back then, the dog knew he was up to no good…

The soap had a much-renowned theme tune, which featured the the line

That’s when good neighbours, become good friends.

Rubbish.

No matter where you live on the planet, everyone has a neighbour, who, quite frankly, is a right royal pain in the bum. Oh, and if you’re reading this blog and thinking that you don’t have an annoying neighbour on your street, it’s you!

Our annoying neighbour has been mentioned on this blog before. Here are just a couple of their ‘crimes’…

• Not collecting their parcel, which was left with us, for a week. In the end, we had to don our Postman Pat hat and bring it to them.
• Not recycling. While Sir David Attenborough would happily feed these people to a great white shark, for not putting their empty plastic bottles into the green recycling bin, I don’t have a major gripe with them not doing so – it’s none of my business. What is my business, is owing to the fact they don’t recycle, their wheely bin becomes full, with tin cans, glass bottles and newspapers – things that can all be recycled. As a result, every night before bin day, without fail, they sneak out of their house, armed with a full bag of crap, and try to offload their excess into other people’s bins. I have been known to go around the house, actively seeking things which I can throw away – therefore filling our own bin, so they can’t. This may sound incredibly mean – however, all our neighbours need to do, is ask if we mind taking their rubbish. I would, of course, say “no problem”, before handing them a Greenpeace leaflet, with a dolphin’s mouth trapped in a bottle of Irn Bru.

See… mail order deliveries and stealing bin space. We’ll be starring in the TV series Neighbours at War, on Channel Five, very soon…

Anyway, enough of all that. Onto the latest thing the neighbours have done, which really grinds my gears…

As I made my way up the path to the house, I clocked the aforementioned neighbours. They were in their front garden, as was their pet dog – an excitable pug.

I have encountered the pug before, when it was being taken for a walk. The dog has never been fierce or aggressive, but as with many pugs, he appears to suffer from breathing difficulties. What appears to be the dog trying to bark, in reality sounds like an elderly man, suffering with a chest infection and coughing up an entire lung.

During our latest meeting, the croaking pooch was not on a lead. As I drove towards my front door, I saw he dog. He saw me. I continued my journey. The dog turned and sprinted towards me…

To look at a pug, you wouldn’t consider it to be an athletic breed. However, once I had been spotted, the porky pug morphed into a whippet, before dashing towards me. I don’t know how fast it ran, but considering my scooter’s top speed is 4mph, I am willing to guess that the dog ran a tad faster than that!

My dad was with me at the time. The pug headed straight for him, but backed off after he called it a stupid dog and told it to go away.

With my dad having intimated the pug enough for it to leave him alone, its attentions were turned to me – cheers, dad!

Puggy paced around my scooter, trying to work out what the strange contraption was. How was a man attached to a machine? In the dog’s eyes, I must have looked like the Dalek’s leader.

As I said earlier, the dog has never appeared aggressive, so I was not concerned about being attacked by it. I’m sure it is a case of its bark being funnier than its bite.

My naughty neighbour, who was also outside, noticed the standoff and came to collect the dog. A half-felt apology was offered and we were told that they thought puggy had been indoors – something I struggle to believe, as no doubt their K9 friend would have been grunting and snorting at their ankles all afternoon.