Everybody's talking at me/Cracked flaps

Yesterday in Ikea, me and Prince Charming were in the lift with our trolley, which contained two things that we'd come in for and of course the inevitable plethora of knick-knacks and houseplants that we didn't mean to buy but picked up anyway, and it wasn't working. Thus, we were treated to our first "people are friendlier around these parts" moment, as everyone in the lift engaged in a light-hearted discussion about whether the right button had been pressed/whether we were moving or not/how we should behave when we exited the lift and rejoined the queue. It was fun and our hearts were glad that we were no longer ina city where the only reaction any has to any situation is anger.
Then, later the same day, our next door neighbour came round to introduce himself and warn us that he was having a party. We had a long chat and found out all about him, and he asked about us, and we talked about dogs and council tax, and he was altogether a friendly and pleasant person.
This morning, a man came round to install our phone and cable TV/broadband, and we did have a nice chat. He recommended a good garden centre, advised me to go to Maplins rather than PC World for my wireless networking kit and said if we looking to buy a house we should definitely consider Portishead, where he lived, because the prices were the same as Bristol but you got a sea view. Well, I thought after he'd left, what a pleasant change from the uncommunicative tradespeople that we had encountered in London, where you're lucky to get a smile (although all the cable network employees that I encountered in my London flat were efficient and professional).
This afternoon, I was at the checkout in Homebase wondering whether to buy one of the very reasonably priced potted azaleas that were next to the till when the couple in front of me had to have a price check on one of their items, thus holding up the queue. They apologised to me for the holdup; no problem, I replied, I'm not in a rush. And it's raining, they said. And the sign in the garden centre definitely said 25% off all patio pots. Yak yak yak, said I, don't you bloody provincials ever shut the fuck up? I'm trying to get on with my life here, but it seems like I have to factor in an extra half hour into every task I do in my daily life, just to fit in the small talk that I seem to be expected to make with every Tom, Dick and Mary that I encounter. Can't I just spend my queueing time/lift time/whatever time thinking about stuff, like I always used to? I mean, I'm all for community, but when do people round here ever find the time to decide what they're going to cook for dinner or which picture they're going to hang on wall of the upstairs landing?
Still, tomorrow I'm back up to London for a few days' work, so that should make me appreciate it all again.
In other news: the cat keeps clawing our mattress while we're asleep, which is normally only mildly annoying, but at the moment we are sleeping on an inflatable mattress so you can see the danger. This morning I had to shut him in the kitchen so he couldn't do it any more, and then when we got up and went down to find him, we discovered that he'd managed to bust his way through the locked cat flap and make a break for it (he's not allowed out yet because he's still freaked enough by the new house and you're supposed to give thema week or two to get used to the new place before letting them out).
Cue major hysterics from me, running into pouring rain in slippers and jimjams calling his name in a quivering tone etc, while PC showed much more presence of mind and merely applied a firm shake to the box of Go-Cat which had a bedraggled and sulky, but visibly shaken, Ringo back in the kitchen in a matter of seconds.
The cracked flap is now secured with several tons of electrical insulation tape, and we are going to try covering the bed with a thick blanket to insulate it from Ringo's claws.