Thursday, November 28, 2013

Beginnings and endings

 
Happy Thanksgiving, America!
 

A house which is basically the same as ours, in an adjacent street, was sold earlier this year. It was, reportedly, immaculate inside. This is it now.


This is the first time that a house in our immediate area has been demolished in order to build a bigger one. It hasn't happened in Edinburgh much at all.

It's rather unnerving to see that one's house is built of such easily trashed materials. That yellow machine pecked away on and off for a day, smashing walls and dislodging windows as if the house were made of balsa wood, and it was destroyed.

It's hard to believe that this is a financially wise thing to do, but presumably the owners think it is. I'm very glad that it's not happening next door to us: there'll be noise and dust and construction lorries for months, and the houses in that street aren't very far apart. I hope it doesn't give anyone else the idea to do it too.



Grandson and I went to the Botanics again today. He wore his Gruffalo jumper. ("Fluffy!")


We saw, among other wonders of nature, ducks.


Quack quack.


And I admired the boy in his springtime and the autumn garden in its berried beauty.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:46 pm

    He is so beautiful, concentrate on him and his sister to block out the awfulness. xx

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  2. When I first saw your top photo I thought earthquake or tsunami.
    Glad it wasn't but the end result is just as destructive. Why don't they ever seem to recycle some of the materials? I know the answer would be the cost but that's no excuse.
    I too hope the idea doesn't catch on.
    Your 2 little ones are just lovely.

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  3. What gorgeous berries, what are they? Knocking down perfectly good houses to build something bigger (but never better) happened a lot when we lived in the Big Smoke......here, not so much.

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  4. Around here, the trend is to build houses as close to the perimeter of the plot as possible, leaving little or no garden. Why??? Huge rooms take a lot of heating. Children need to run around outside. People like to grow things!!
    Do developers not think of these things?

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  5. Quite common in the Midwest to knock down admittedly not very beautiful houses, often one story and build almost to the property line so no garden as V A says - big footing it is known as.

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  6. Oh dear, sorry about the construction of that last sentence, Isabelle!

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  7. Awww, what a sweet photo of small grandson -- he's so adorable. When we lived in Minneapolis, people used to tear down houses a lot -- I always joked that they had more money than brains. The land was far more valuable than the little houses and it sounds like that's what's going on in your neighborhood. You have a perfect location -- easy access to the city, the airport, major roads, etc. I'm with you though -- I hope it won't happen more often -- I'm not a fan of the newer looking construction. (Unless, do you think they plan to build it to blend in with the neighborhood? You'll have to keep us informed. Just think -- blog material for the next year LOL!)

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