A year after moving out of Glasgow for deepest Highland Perthshire, I could count the number of neighbourly conversations on one hand. Of course the problem could always have been me. Who managed to infuriate the local farmer by asking to cut the weeds beside my cottage, to point the crumbling stonework? "Weeds? Weeds? That's barley," and he stormed off. I was talking ditch he was talking field. But there was no point arguing. And no place to make up.
Well, that's not strictly true either. The godly have the church and the letter writers have the sub-post office and the parents have the daily delivery of children to the school bus. But I have none of these. I began to fear there was absolutely no way I would ever meet my neighbours. Until I met the ditch.
Crash number one, avoiding a pheasant, led to a friendship with the potter who leapt into his rickety landrover and drove at top speed (10mph) to get me to the station. Crash number two, avoiding a deer, introduced me to a garage mechanic cum nerd who, during the ensuing repairs, taught me how to send the same fax to five people and how to use a spreadsheet.
Country-bus catching though was clearly an art I would never master so I moved straight to hitching and a life full of meetings. There was the transit van full of lads fresh from installing the first ever public bar at the Crieff, the Fiat driven by two stoic friends sharing a lift to hospital, a landscape gardener who appeared the next morning at dawn to inspect my compost heap and the physiotherapist who turned out to be my neighbour.
I felt impoverished and lonely when the car finally returned. But a bit wiser too. Here, every need from a new car to a box of drawing pins - every obstacle from a puncture to a gammy knee creates a tiny atom of society. Deep down beneath the permafrost of 17 hostile and barren years the community is still functioning - you just need to make a mistake to know the safety net is there.
