Neighbour called.  Needed to use our vehicle.  So, it’s gone for a day or two.  A guest called needing to be picked up on Quadra but a neighbour on Quadra is coming out on the same day and so the guest will be retrieved by them and be delivered to our end-of-the-road dock for boat pick-up.  A bunch of women need boat rides to get to book club on Sunday and, with a call or two, that is handled as boat drivers and pick-up points are agreed to.  And, when they arrive at the landing, a neighbour’s flat deck truck will drive them (all 7 standing on the back) through the forest to the host’s house a few miles away.  Four hours later they will be flat-decked back.

The community workshop group will reconvene next Wednesday and all parties coming to volunteer will bring some supplies from their own stockpiles to keep the work progressing.  And, of course, the dock will host the community lunch.

Yesterday, John and Jorge picked up some supplies in town for us. Now the phone works.  Delivered to the door!  The best neighbours in the world, by a huge margin, are John and Jorge.  John drops off movies that he has bought even before he watches them!  And books (but he usually reads them first).  After these many years I know that I could ask for just about anything.  Of course, in an effort to be good neighbours ourselves, we ask for little and only in a pinch.  Weird, how that works, eh?   

‘Doing for others’ is a way of life out here.  What has become so ingrained in our daily lives is, however, foreign to most others.  Especially those who live in the city.  We, at least, just didn’t do that before.  In Tsawwassen, if everyone on our block needed a loaf of bread, 30 cars would leave the driveway and arrive at the store.  Everyone would say ‘hi’ to one another and then 30 neighbours would return home in their cars.  Here, we travel 15 miles to get a loaf of bread and so calling around to see if you can pick up a few things for others while you are at it, only makes sense.  And everyone does it.

Mind you, it is done, primarily, for those immediately close to you.  And the protocol is to offer first before you can ask.  Actually, ‘asking’ is not so good..  Not really.  Waiting for an offer and then accepting is the proper protocol.  Should someone be going to town and they do not offer to pick up something, it is assumed that they have way too much to do and no face is lost.  And, once in awhile, if something is more pressing than a loaf of bread, it is OK to ask if someone is going to town.  But such imposition must be reserved for things necessary like prescription drugs, a part for the boat motor or just about anything for a baby. 

Other ‘unwritten rules’ include that the favour should be limited to one necessary item or, at the very most, a few items all from the same shop. Preferably one that the shopper will be at anyway.  It is considered ‘bad form’ to say, “Would you mind picking me up some chocolate fudge from that new shop just out of town and I need a few spare sparkplugs from Lordco as well.  A newspaper would be nice.  Do you think ice cream would melt or do you have a cooler?”

It is much better to say, “If you are catching the ferry, would you mind dropping off my overdue movies at the nearby gas station?”  Or,  “Oh, you are going to the hardware store?  Thanks for asking.  I need a drill bit.  1/2″.  No thanks.  Nothing else.  That’s it.”

Of course, in a pinch, anything goes.  So, this time, there went my car.