We have a coffee invite with the neighbours and I am very nervous it is going to turn into a Leageue of gentlemen you be strangers event. Wish me luck.

[twinsetandpearls]

My family and I just do not fit in on our road, we are very obviously a northern working class family who are fish out of water. We live on a road of old, reserved very settled dorset types. THe house is rented and everyone knows that as it belonged to a lady who lived in the house from when it was built.

We live next door to the cultural movers and shakers of the town who often have garden parties or intellectual gatherings. DD often stands at the bottom of their garden when such things are happening and yells in her northern dulcet tones " Mum the neighbours are being posh again".

I did send around some baking when we moved in and we do get the odd smile or hello but nothing else. Dp who works from home, so is here all the time, says he feels quite uncomfortable on this road and wants to move.

Last week, cultural movers and shakers knock on the door and say do come around for coffee.

I am convinced that all our neighbours are going to be there and they are going to chant at us "You be strangers" while their eyes go red and start to spin."

What do you wear for such an event? Should I take anything. I actually don't think I can as nothing is open around here.

Dd has a party the other week and it was very odd.

We have invited kids to play before and every time got a no, which I could understand as it is a big deal letting your kids go to someone house.

So I threw a big party, they came, safety being in numbers.

The parents inspected our house, making excueses to go from room to room, quizzed dp about what we did for a living. When they realised we actually are well educated people with safe m/c jobs who live in a nice house, overlooking a public school no less!! suddenly we had invites left right and centre.

Forget Honeybrook not enough time but is a farm shop with cafe plus good playground just past Badbury Rings. Just be yourself and know that it does take them a bit of time when someone new moves in. There are younger people around somewhere hiding as DD's old reception teacher lives there and she is really lovely.

Add farm shops to topic list.

Definitely take biscuits for a coffee invite (not flowers or wine).

How annoying re: "you're the northener" comments! I am from the north but don't sound it at all and when (some) southerners find out there has been an air of "but we thought you were one of us!"

Someone I know described how a friend of theirs from the Home Counties who had never been "north" before came to stay with her in Macclesfield and was AMAZED that there are fields, cows, sheep and detached houses up here . They seriously thought it everywhere would look like Coronation St or a Lowry painting.

Anyway - I digress - yes biscuits, and although Chocolate Teapot's advice is excellent for initial joining in (to make THEM feel at ease mainly!!), you should be yourself thereafter. You don't have to try to be something you're not, it always comes across as strange/trying to hard. Be authentically and be proud of being Northern!!

Good luck TSAP!

We have moved to a hamlet (5 houses, with another 3 200 yds away) where everyone has been here for 25 yrs plus and the miserable old bitch has been here 43 yrs.

When we moved her we kept doing things 'wrong' like cutting the hedge so we could walk up the road without getting nettled/scratched (told off as leaving it long slows the traffic cutting through the lane - erm, not noticably) fencing off the river that runs through our fields (court summons) etc A social minefield!!

Hope it was fine, PS DO NOT under any circs accept the glass of wine they may offer you!

Totally agree with LLLL about being yourself , just chucked in some of the safe topics I used on my old Dorset set neighbours. They have all got used to me now I think but I have been here for 6 years now so they flipping well should have !

Reminds me of when we moved into our small "hamlet" it's not even a proper village.
The neighbours were straight over the evening we moved in and the oldest resident in the street and her husband who was a retired vicar, put a card through our door inviting us to an evening drink.
We went to it and it was great, but i did not realise that ALL the other neighbours in the street would be there, but they were friendly enough.
They explained the "rules" of the street, as to where we could park (that put me out a bit), but they've been OK.
We've invited them over for Xmas drinks and when our DD1 was born.
It's just that round here, houses don't come up for sale that often because it's in a nice area with a view of the Cotswolds.
But then the people who lived in our house before us, were really anti-social and used to rob the neighbours.
Maybe they were checking that we were nothing like them!
Good luck with your meeting.

LOL Ripeberry at the "rules" of the street!! That sort of thing makes me all twitchy and squirmy, it's so Catherine Tate, and I get a fuelled by an urge to say/do something to shock...

In parts of Cheshire there are "rules" on when one can hang one's washing out (if one doesn't have one's laundry "done", that is) because of How It Looks and Lowering The Tone. There are also "rules" on things like putting Christmas lights on the outside the house and "acceptable" garden furniture/stone figures

Twinset - RE: the invites coming after you had been 'inspected'. TBH I suspect this is little to do with where you have come fromand simply more to do with the fact many parents are much more comfortable about having children over to play and letting their children over after school etc when they know the parents or a parent at least.

My children ages 6 and 8 recently moved to a new school and there is no way I would have said yes to an after school play date until I felt I knew a bit about the mum at least. Another 'new' mum at the school said she thinks its good to get to know how the parents discupline their children and just how they are at home with rules etc and I do agree. In fact I was invited with my children to a mums house after school and she said she always invites the mum as well first time so as they can get to know them before having children on their own.

I know you may feel the 'outsider' at the moment but I am sure not all if this is down to being 'Northern' - but just because you are 'new'. Although I can see with previous comments at work etc you may have gotton a bit paranoid about it iyswim.

I have lots of friends from different backgrounds and even a few 'Northern' ones I suspect you might find that even of you had very well spoken southern accents you would feel the same initially in ths road as that's just as the people are there. Where I used to live (near London) all the neighbours gave us christmas cards eve though I had hardly spoken a word to them in the 3 months we had lived there (it made me make more of an effort after that) and everyone in that road was very plesant. Then I loved to where I am now (Dorset) and in 7 years, other than the neighbours next door to me, I have barely spoken a word to anyine else on the street. In fact when I have said a cheery 'Good Morning' while putting the recycle bin out of a morning, I have got a look of surprise an a quiet hello as if it's really not the thing to acknowlege ones neighbour unless you actually know them iyswim!

FWIW I always take over a home baked cake or home baked shortbread when I go for coffee. If you have any fruit trees in your garden with a gluten of fruit ask the neighbours if they would like any. I would really be mysef on my best behavious initially as I think if you ask about things you really have no interest in, it will come back to haunt you at some point and you may feel silly when neighbour enquires as to how you got on and you don;t know what they are talking about as you had no intention of taking any of their advice to start with! I would even say somethng like 'You know, to be honest, we have been a bit worried about fitting in down here as some things are quite different to back home and it does take time to adjust doesn't it?' and I am sure they will be uber friendly and you wll find the reason they have not invited you before was that they have been very busy and whatever and you know how time flies andpeole just get on with their lives and have so much on their minds these days.

Hope you have a nice time anyway

Make sure you dry your hands with the right colour towel!!! (League of Gentlemen joke for those not in the know!)

Does it have to be home-baked cake or home-baked shortbread, cupcakesinthesnow??

(Mental note to plant orchard in spring)

I would also take over said cake/shortbread on a hand-made plate that I fired myself in the kiln, covered with a linen cloth that I wove by hand on my loom in the drawing room

We are back, it was lovely actually and I feel mean. I took some biscuits round and was amused to see she already had the same biscuits.

There were two other sets of neighbours and tbh I think they were just as nervous of us as we were of them. Dp used to be in the army and the lady next door was a teacher so we had some common ground.

They had clearly gone to a lot of effort, had toys out for dd to play with and made homemade cakes etc.

What did make me chuckle inside was when the man next door who must be in his 60s said to us just before the other neighbours arrive that they were the young people on the street as everyone else was so old.

We have rules on our road to do with parking, front gardens, putting rubbish out as well.

But dp was invited to join the golf club so we must have done well.

cupcakes I am sure that there was an element of just checking there children were safe with us but there was a real element of quizzing going on to see if we were there type of people. It just felt a little strange that dp said he had felt blanked at the school gates and then they saw where we lived and we were getting invitations flying out of every orifice.But maybe I am taking it personally. The town I live in is a very divided town between the have and have nots and I feel they were seeing which camp we fell into before making a judgement.
We both have strong accents and are very proud of our working class history si I am aware that we stand out.

Glad it went well.

Good. That's nice. I hope it helps you start to feel a bit more settled.

Great, glad it went well Good old DP, does he actually like golf ?!

this has made me smile. in Jan we will be moving from down south to a small village up north, to a rented house. dh and I both wfh, with ocassional trips to London. I am sure the village will need to know "who" we are and why we're there, how we earn any money. etc etc. I am constantly playing out scenarios in my mind of the school gate, the neighbours, will they like the dog? will they like the children? will we fall between the two halves of the village - southern posh shites as far as one half is concerned and lefty liberals as far as the other half is concerned. glad it turned out ok tsap.

hatwoman, can you say whereabouts in the north you are moving to?

Depending on which area/village it is, you may find you are living amongst northern posh shites/lefty liberals .There are one or two posh shites and lefty liberals oop ere too tha knows

Is thee posh BTW, hatwoman?

I know - I'm moving back to my roots. has to be said that in my teenage years I didn;t come across many of those lefty liberals. plenty of posh shites. very considerate of everyone to be posh and/or true blue - gave me something to kick against .

hmm. now there's a question. my mum's family were were wc self-made types. dad's self-made but a a few generations previously. by the time it got to mum and me - firmly mc. (dh thinks I'm posh because I went to a fee-paying school. I think he's posh because he's got grandparents with degrees)

Grandparents with degrees is proper posh HW!

I know I'm posh because I pronounce scone, "scon".

This thread has made me giggle.

Next time, take some ferrets

Littleladyloulou - I recently got a new oven and breadmaker so I am in my home baking heaven honeymoon atm

Glad it went well Twinset - so what are the rules of your road regarding parking and front gates? I am intrigued!

I'm reminded of the time back in the mid 90's when me and my soon to be husband, stayed at a B&B in Dumbarton nr Glasgow.
My husband has a strong Bristol accent and i'm Welsh.
The B&B owner actually invited some of her friends over just to look us over and talk to us.
They seemed fascinated by our accents and we could hardly understand them! lol.
Next morning she was trying to get us to try some haggis and black pudding.
How could we refuse?
But that was the weirdest B&B we've ever been to since.