Friday 13 January 2012

Rus in Urbe behind closed doors.

When I was a child I didn't realise that people wanted to live in the countryside. 

I also thought allotments were shanty-towns because I couldn't conceive of anyone choosing to leave a proper building and huddle in a shed surrounded by mud.

That's all changed, but I still don't understand why people build miniature rural replicas inside city houses.

Take this two bed flat on the Hornsey Road:



Battered stainless steel wardrobes, distressed floorboards, grey everywhere. It's all very post-industrial and urban until you get to the wooden logs:



There's nothing sinful about little-house-on-the-prarie fantasies, but why live one out on the Hornsey Road?

Thanks to Kate in the Attic for finding this.

6 comments:

  1. Nice place!

    I nipped out earlier and saw a new "shop" had opened on Hornsey Road. It's for signs and printing. I can't imagine they'll do so well up here.. lost count of how many shops have opened and closed in the three years I've lived here.

    Also, do you happen to know what's going to be opening up next to the Hamlet Cafe? I saw the inside and it looks supermarket-like.

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  2. I think the place next to Hamlet is going to be a co-op, but I'm not sure.

    Where's the signs and printing place?

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  3. It's up towards Hornsey Rise, just before the zebra crossing/that tree you posted about.

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  4. Because its easier to commute to work in London from Hornsey Road than the countryside?

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  5. Well, yes, but that's cheating. Cities should look like cities and the countryside should look like the countryside.

    I like your blog by the way.

    My paperback of The Worst Journey in the World is held together by sellotape because I read it over and over again during my first year in London. The story of the lost and found tent 'our lives had been taken away and given back to us' still puts any trouble I've ever had into perspective.

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