Restoration Projects

Max and I usually do our grocery shopping in a small seaside town

just a few miles along the road

from Parsonage Cottage.

Directly across from the car park is this house.

I love the no-nonsense shape, the symmetry of the building

the sash windows.

However, I really dislike the almost new look created by all that re-pointing 

of the brickwork,
hopefully it will mellow in time...
perhaps.

A few miles away, deep into the countryside
there is another house which also has brickwork which looks similar to the one above.
The difference is that it has been deliberately painted
to look that way.
It used to be mellow, now it is bright red and white.
Words fail me, I can think of nothing nice to say about that one,
so I won't post a photograph
 - just in case!


Whereas,

this old farmhouse is wearing an old (horrible) coat of concrete
and has odd (wrong) windows fitted in here, there and everywhere,
the extensions are higgledy-piggledy
and yet,
 I really like it.

Odd angles, old pantiles.
No pretence.

It is a farmhouse which has grown and evolved to suit the needs
of the inhabitants over many years.

Here is part of an old wagon, waiting for restoration.
It has certainly had some fancy paintwork
at one time.

One thing I really don't like to see being 'restored'
is faces.
Each to their own, but whenever I see a face stiffened by Botox
I feel sad at the lack of expression.
The same goes for those faces which have been through
the plastic surgeon's face lift procedures.

Of course I get a shock when I see brutally honest photographs of myself,
any photograph of me, if I am truthful,
for
inside I feel much younger.

I got quite a shock the other day when I discovered that someone
who I have known all my life as an aunt, is only 13 years older than I am.
I snapped a photograph of her, but felt I had to do a little picmonkey work on it
before sending it to her.

I removed a fair number of the wrinkles
and
 added a bit of bloom,
I won't tell her about that though.
 I did it to make her feel good about herself,
to give her a little 'lift'.

(Luckily she is not computer literate
so there is little chance of her reading this blog.)

I guess that she probably now looks about my age on it...gulp!
Mmmmn,
pass yellow pages, I need to check out those plastic surgeons.


By the way, that's not her on the first photograph,
nor is it a photo of Max and I,
rather it is a lovely couple who dressed the part, for the Victorian wedding
which we attended.

I thought they looked great, full of character
and not an ounce of Botox between them.
x