Homeland

I am afraid I cannot explain how I got home so quickly from Tristan da Cunha. Sleep embraced me and when I woke up I was back here in South Yorkshire. Miraculous.

Just round the corner from us there's a street called Gisborne Road. The houses on that street are typically suburban - mostly neat semi-detached properties with gardens. Residents care for their homes and maintain them responsibly. They wash their cars and trim their hedges. Tradesmen's vans parked outside evidence electrical work, plumbing and painting and decorating.

However, there's one house on the street that speaks of neglect and disorder. Rumours have surrounded it for years and there have been late night shenanigans and police visits. Windows have been smashed and occasionally music has blasted out from the place at high volume. I am very glad that we don't live next door.

A few days ago, I walked past the house and noticed that the front door had changed. Instead of the traditional panelled door there was now a metallic facing, It seemed to be hammered out in relief to show the figure of a man appearing to emerge from within. Here it is:-

Knowing some of what has gone on here, I find the image quite spooky.  What do you think?

Earlier today and partly in relation to my blood pressure medication, I had to visit The Royal Hallamshire Hospital to have my bloods taken by a phlebotomist. I waited for twenty five minutes until a speaker voice said: "Ticket Number 85...Go to Cubicle 9".

Afterwards, I walked down to Ecclesall Road via The Botanical Gardens. As you come through the top entrance you see the Victorian glasshouses which now contain a good range of exotic plants:-

Botanical Gardens glasshouses with The Royal Hallamshire Hospital beyond.

As you can see, it was a sunny morning and near the lower entrance I snapped this shadowy picture:-

After leaving the gardens, I was soon on Ecclesall Road,  intending to catch a bus home but I remembered to do a little detour to Bruce Road. By the way this street is not named after the Arizonan blogging sensation - Bruce Taylor. 

I wanted to bag a picture of one particular gable end wall. For all the years I  have lived in this city, it has been the location of ghostly Edwardian writing  - advertising a roofer and slate merchant who was in business in the 1910s - more than a hundred years ago.

The new owners of the house have had the ghostly writing brought back to life with a careful paint-over job. The sharp sunlight was almost against me as I tried to capture a good image and there were two parked cars in the way- but you get the idea:-

In my opinion, whoever chose to get the paint job done deserves some kind of civic award but not from The Laughing Horse Blog Awards Committee.  Oh no. Their work is done until the end of this long year. And thinking of 2025, let's hope that what happened in New Orleans is not a foretaste of more terrible  events ahead.