The house next door

Next door to our house is a house that's been derelict for years. It's owned by an elderly man who lives far away and refuses to sell the land to anyone. His slightly younger brother lives nearby and grows vegetables in the garden. Judging by the current state of it though, I think it's been getting a bit much for him lately...


Recently I've seen surveyor-type people measuring the plot, and workmen assessing the house. It certainly looked like the land was being sold, and we wondered who our new neighbours would be and how it would affect us if a new house was built there. It turns out that the local Buddhist temple has bought it, to use as car parking! That's fantastic news as far as I'm concerned - we won't have to worry about a new house blocking our windows or overlooking us, the people at the temple are lovely and we may even be able to use the space too when we have a party...

Demolition work started yesterday, with a mini-digger knocking down a bit of garden wall and clearing enough space for a small lorry to get in. The workmen have been gutting the house and seem to be salvaging a lot of the reusable materials, including the roof tiles.

I took this sneaky shot from our bedroom window to show you all those stacked tiles, but I think that guy in purple standing on the roof there saw me...

K is entranced by it all and has realised that he can get a pretty good view of what's going on from our dining room window: