Rotten Week

It's been a rotten week so far. The bug has taken what little energy and the even smaller amount of sense that I had and gave me that drained feeling. I was supposed to call a place re a job but what with lack off oomph and the fact that I am not fit enough to work 40 hours again has combined to make me feel lousy. It is amazing how quickly fitness leaves and how hard it is to recover. Wednesday saw me determined to develop stamina again by walking. Two long walks in the cold wind, followed  by another yesterday and amazingly I even got the bike out for a while! However all I have are blisters on the feet and aches everywhere else. Since the snow started I have not been able to get the bike out. Follow that with the bug that never leaves and I have done so little exercise it is only the blubber in front of me that stops me blowing away in the wind! At the back of my head a voice is calling, "Get of your backside and DO something you fat slob!" I am glad it is being subtle! However nothing appears to arrive. The job market for an lazy good for nothing unskilled male almost at 60 is quite small these days. Honestly I have used my whole intellect in this fruitless search and....hold on, I think that may be part of the problem! What now? I just don't know and am quite fed up with this directionless life.

This decrepit looking building dates back into the mists of time. They say it was around in the 14th century, probably the last time it saw a lick of paint, and now serves as a small, character filled (which means what I ask?) hotel. Once a large manor house, and now almost unnoticed at the end of the High Street, it is only around the back does the true age of the building show. How often it has been rebuilt or renovated I could not say however it does seem sad that such a character is hidden away from general view and espied (lovely word) merely from the back end of the multi story car park. Several building round here are like this. The front may be Georgian but round the back a more Medieval side can be glimpsed. Chimneys, roofs and 'Gants,' passageways between buildings, reveal the Netherlands influence from the days of the weavers a few hundred years ago. Pairs of cottages renovated into one expensive house show traces of the farm labourers of yesterday, the occasional 'Big Hoose' reveals just how much money could be made from weaving!  Streets built by speculative builders working together spread out from the centre of town. 

In the 19th century a joiner say, alongside a  bricklayer and possibly a plumber, would join together and buy three plots of land in a newly laid out street. Together they would erect three houses, without architects help, and each would sell one and put the profit to his family and then buying more land to repeat the process. By this method much of England's housing stock was built. The 'Feu duty' in Scotland hindered this approach and anyone building went upwards, hence so many tenements. The Scots are much more egalitarian than the stand offish English and such dwellings grew out of the old 'Closes' and 'Stairs' of past times. Naturally the lower down the social order the worse the building, but that happens everywhere, and still does! The Victorians were not ones to dwell on the past. Buildings that stood in the way of progress were demolished. Just look for Berwick Castle and be disappointed. Robert Stephenson tore it down to build his railway station, and used the stones in doing so! Only the 'keep' of Newcastle itself was 'kept!' The train just misses this as it passes by.  Without listing orders on buildings, often a pain to some, many buildings today would be lost to our heritage. It is not possible to keep all old buildings but so many are worth noting that care is required. After all if every 'old thing' was to be replaced what would become of us?

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