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Picture a house…with a garden…
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We’re all good at pictures – taking them – but how would you paint a picture of where you live in words?
There’s a quirky cottage, a gate lodge, just behind the black gate on a lane which is sometimes busy and other times not. The drive up to the main house is surounded by plants, trees and shrubs, and further up, the lanscaped garden is a haven of colour and scent in the summer. Just the landlady and the husband live in the main house but often invite guests who drive past the gate lodge in cars I could only aspire to and smile knowingly at. Once the fireplace crackles with the rise of another flame, the cold murk outside recedes into a warm glow of hearthside comfort. I’m lucky to have found a small haven on the outskirts of a beautiful city, my home by the Lee.
:lol:
Rosemantic pfaff – but do tell us about your home!
As I drive through the long, grey, ramp filled streets of Coolock I can see my semi-detached house gradually appearing from behind the horrible extension that my neighbours have built using terracotta bricks, in what I can only guess is an attempt to try and look, not posh but… less Coolock. Once I steady my car through the stone pillars at the end of my driveway, avoiding the boyracers who are frustrated by the hinderance of the ramps, I am usually greeted by my black and white cat who either isn’t aware that a car can do immense damage to her, or just wants to end it all… Once I park on the black cobble-lock driveway, which was put in only recently in an effort to look less Coolock, I close the large gates to stop the neighbours annoyingly agreeable dog (you know those dogs… who agree with everything, “YEP! YEP! YEP! YEP!”) from marking his territory on the wilting taraxacum. When I eventually open my double-locked front door, avoid tripping over the cat whose barging in ahead of me, pick up the unsolicited junk mail and shed my jacket and shoes, it’s up the L-stairs to my cosy bed where at last.. I’m home.
And then Im out the door 10 mins later to go training!!!
I spend about 45 mins focused on the break lights of the car in front of me untill I hit the first roundabout, then i go through the next roundabout, then another, right at another and the take a right turn onto my street. Rows of tidy, neat, identical houses, individuality represented by a varying selection of flowerpots in the drive ways.
I park in my garden and the door opens to let a very excited labrador runs and leap about the place being wagged by his tail … “Oh Boy, oh Boy “. I pass by very nice flower pots with brown frost melted “busylizzy” pulp mush, and I’m home.
:)
L
5:30… the ball and chain calls… the bright lights fade…. the twinkles in the sky begin to dominate… Mooooo…. Maaaaahhh… tweet tweet… getting closer now… the grass in the road needs strimming… must ring the council…. collect the mini wife lookalike… after 10 short minutes I arrive… the now single black cat and the neighbours ginger tiger are waiting… as above i almost trip over the purring pets… beep beep beep beep.. system unset (alarm).. Home… now i relax and observe… in the summertime the sky dominates… in the wintertime its there only to remind ye of the warm winter nights on the deck… feed the cats… feed ourselves… listen to the crackling of the logs in the stove… the orange glow warms the mind… relax… stick on the 2 aluminium boxes and surf, browse and zzzzzzzzzzz…!
Home….. if your interested….. http://www.pbase.com/richiehatch/house
Did I say all that…! Jaysus I must be tired…
Richie
:D Lovely description Ritchie … OOOOh and nice gaff :D .. I’d be taking loads of pictures of it aswell :)
L
Driving over the canal that links the delaware bay with the atlantic ocean you take a hairpin right turn thru cornfields that are rapidly giving way to McMansions. Nestled behind a mature row of 30′ cypress trees is a small, one story, cedar clad cottage. Dark brown with age and framed by trees that in the winter resemble a collection of broken umbrellas.
It’s well after midnight and the few lights I have left on give a warm golden glow thru the windows. There is a full moon this evening in an unusually clement January. I throw open the doors to the screened in porch and listen to the coyote’s yelping. Everything outside is silver, the moonlight provides the illusion that very light snow has fallen. The moonlight always provides.
There’s a bottle of Malbec I m about to open.I was going to go down to the beach and see the moon on the water. But instead I pour myself a glass of wine. I will sip it on the porch until I fall asleep.
Exiting the office with my usual mix of smiles and yawns I leave behind the rural smells of horse and cow manure, silage and other various unidentifiable “jaysus that’s a great fresh country air” type odours and the car chasing manic dog that still chases my car even though he sees it every day….out onto the wild and windy backroads of Blanchardstown with their potholes and dangerous bends and suicidal cyclists where I see at least 10 really good photo ops but nowhere to stop the car…passing the big open fields that will undoubtably soon be filled with even more terraced townhouses and luxury apartments with scenic views..of other apartments…and each one with two cars just aching to join in the monday morning mayhem…I slowly sink into urban suburbia…housing estates with high brow names that mean absolutely nothing to anyone…slipping through the less desirable areas…casually pressing my elbow down on the central locking button..cos I’ve been watching too many American cop reality type shows..every hoodie a potential car-jacker…I pass the same pubs and shops that I pass everyday and I know I’m almost home…a creature of habit despite myself..one of these days I’m going to take a wrong turn and see what happens….I pass through roundabout..after roundabout..after roundabout…was someone on commission with a special roundabout bonus package…..then I turn into my street..or park as the planners called it…manoeuvre into the garden and watch the cats scurry over the side gate and up onto the window sill..wave to my next door neighbour and disappear indoors to be greeted by more cats.. the boss and two kids and a lovely smell coming from the kitchen…
It’s not a palace and it wont get me on Irelands top ten richest if I sold it….but it’s home and I like to be there…
8)
Expresbro wrote:
Great idea for a thread by the way Stasber :D
Hehe, nice one. Thanks :wink:
Some of the quotes are priceless!
Expresbro wrote:
I leave behind the rural smells of horse and cow manure, silage and other various unidentifiable “jaysus that’s a great fresh country air” type odours
That’s the name of the game alright!
richiehatch wrote:
Home….. if your interested….. http://www.pbase.com/richiehatch/house
Sweet, Richie, very nice. You must be very proud of the place! Build it yourself?
Must take pics of my gaff with my new camera… once it’s painted and decorated [the gaff, that is ;-)]!
Cheers Dave… a friend and I designed it… nothing to amazing to be honest… didnt build it myself but the amount of work I have had to do to it myself I may as well have built it… god i hate maintenance…! Gets in the way of photography ;-)…!
Richie
4:35 pm check the clock, imagine a smooth drive home. 4:48 need something, dash to the jacks for a quick release… 5pm stretch the back, grab the bag and head out the door, luckily no systems have crashed. 5.05 pm start the car, 40 miles to go…
travelling down the m50 between the gazebos of cars… no cops to break the stride until I hit the N11… kilna-bloody-canoghue 60 km the crawl of cars and the smell of turpentine from a abwood truck just in front… ahg… the image of ‘windy acre’ in kilbride, a strange house name called after the landscape and not me! 26 miles later…. take the small turn off the n11 to the meant to be quite lane, a few hundred yards in old money to go. take a sharp turn through the ranch gates of the windy acre, high rise bedding that glows in the dark guides me to where i stop the chariot as it gasps for breath. the house is wooden, eco AA rated, bloody warm for this hardy jackeen, skin is dry from the palpations of modern life, work slowly melts as i gaze at my hot organic ginger – drink… its dark and all i do is play with computers
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