thursday morning

The mist is evaporating as the air warms up.
about 7:30am summer time
I was squinting into the sun
when I took this and it has turned out much better than I expected.

note the long shadows of the bus stop
showing the low sun and the time of day by the angle like a sundial



Seen from the hallway, this is the door into the living room, with the kitchen to the left, and I really enjoy the design of the partion which is so typical of sixties architecture and made of glass to let some light into the windowless corridor.

The green felt notice board is to hide the junk and boxes. It is one of four I purchased as a wannabe novelist to use as story boards.

The picture is a poster of a Loire castle purchase by my mother as a souvenir.

My problems started when my mother changed her will from her hospital bed one month before she died, which meant the family home since about 1938 had to be sold.

At the moment of her death I, legally speaking, became a squatter in the house in which I grew up, so when the executors wrote me a letter asking me to leave, I took it to Solihull Council Housng Department and after a short wait was offered this three bedroom flat - the third room is so my daughter can stay with her father.







Our home was full of treasures and old papers, both my own and my mothers and I could not cope with clearing out, so I had all the "valueless" things boxed up and brought here to be sorted out later - 5 years on chaos grows and sorting is delayed.

The panorama shows a titanic style cabin trunk last used by my aunt Hilda Mary Watkins to flee the russian revolution - she had been a governess in St Petersburg.

It is rotten after 50 years in a garage, and the basket needs a new base, but then it will be great for storing linen in.

I put my glasses down to see the view finder better,
my left eye is extremely short sighted, asigmatic too, so I can use it close up to examine small things where others need to use a magnifying glass - the empty box contained the five year old unused Compaq MV720 monitor that right now is connected to my black screened old Sony Viao laptop

Like a miner to get to the monitor I had to excavate a corridor into the boxes because last on means first off and it took two sessions of about 1½ hours to get it out.

The other computers were loaded last into the removal van and because I was with a second van placing the antiques into storarage for my oldest daughter, I was delayed getting here to supervise the unloading and placing of furniture.




I wanted to make a vertical panorama showing the passage into my stuff

oops you have to go left to right

the blue carpet was left over from when a flat was done up and furnished for some refugees from Iraq

It caused resentment that they were given more than the locals - including a washing machine - so I believe they were harassed and finally left here in fear.

The boxes at the back contain "valueless" books - not collectable first editons -
and the black bags contain thousands of letters, or linen, or clothes nd hats.

The like of these letters will not be seen again, letter writng was diminished by the invention of the telephone and has almost been extinguished and replaced by emailing - if these can survive another fifty years they will become a valued archive of the twentieth century - along with the bank statements for long emptied accounts and other "treasures".



MAKE DO AND MEND - the deck chair needs repainting and new canvas, and then it will be more attractive than any plastic garden furniture.















NEW? very cheap made in the third world but it has no story to tell.