Apparently half of us don't even know the names of anyone living on our road.

Well, I'm proud to report that life on at least one Leeds street is nothing like that.

In moving half a mile up the road earlier this year, Mr N and I seem to have stumbled across one of the friendliest streets in the city.

Not only that, we must be one of the only communities left that has milk delivered to the door by a local dairy farmer.

That's guaranteed to make you jealous.

We've only been living there three and a half months and I've already seen more neighbourliness than I've ever witnessed in all my years elsewhere.

We even have a little "freecycling", fairtrade system of our own going on.

So far we've exchanged aubergine plants, potato plants, strawberry plants, onion seeds, sunflower seeds and tomato seeds.

We share all sorts, from books to cooking pots and plant pots, and our next door neighbour even created the world's best cat toy for us, using just a fishing rod and a fir cone which he dangled over the fence – like a giant gnome fishing for kittens.

A couple further up the road shared their top gardening tips and offered us cuttings from their herb garden, while the tough-looking bloke across the road helped us catch one of the kittens when he made a half-hearted bid for freedom.

And when someone moved out and left a chest of drawers outside, another neighbour scooped them up in a wheelbarrow and wheeled them off to a pal who'd fallen on hard times.

You just don't get that in your online communities now do you?

Sure, you can send people a kiss, a quiz and all sorts of freaky cyber-objects on Facebook but there's no comparison with a real-life act of kindness – like coming home after a night out to find a plate of fish left on your doorstep for the cats.

Facebook – or "spacebook", as we former users call it – is so last season.

It's about as cool as a pair of Uggs.

But that doesn't mean social networking is out of style.

It's just that this summer you should lose the laptop and get back to good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction.

Just as people are turning away from supermarket produce, cutting down their food miles and preferring to grow their own, they are also keen to rediscover that sense of community that has been slipping away for so many years while they pursued materialistic 90s' ambitions.

Once it was hip to keep neighbours at arm's length, now community involvement is the new black.

And if streets were labels, ours would be Sass & Bide – funky, understated and effortlessly chic.

First there's the amazing "screen on the wall" where movies can be shown on the side of a house, specially painted white for that very purpose.