In between the flurry of often overambitious DIY-related tasks we've been doing this weekend, we've finally met the people we're living next door to - this was yet another task that we failed at the last weekend we were here, as we had heard movement next door while we were smashing hammers on door hinges, but when we went round nobody answered the door... I'd been terrified that they'd stalked off for a walk being unable to stand the new neighbours.

But it turns out we're next to a nice woman who's beginning to pack up to move out in a couple of months. For the moment she's the perfect neighbour for people who are setting up a house, one of whom is a metal listener (and player, technically, though I'm not exactly very good) - because she's quite hard of hearing, so we're unlikely to annoy her all that much through the shared wall during our time here.

We'd already seen our neighbour across the path on the other side, a young man with a motorbike, because he'd been outside when we first arrived to do the walkthrough the morning we bought the place. As it happens, among the mountains of junk mail we got in our first in-person delivery of post yesterday was a subscription extension card for a very naughty magazine that was meant to go to him - I took it round and pushed it under his door rather than introduce myself with "Hello, this is yours!" We'll meet him properly later.

We had also been stealing wireless Internet from the nice old lady next door until this morning, when the Comcast man came around and spent a while here setting up the television and our modem and router. The office downstairs is pretty much complete now, and the USB wireless receiver I got four years ago is finally coming in useful for the first time - my desktop is set up and running, and I finally have a working computer again. And 328 new emails.