Houses

[Hen-Gen]

Right then. Let’s see where we all live. The building with the orange roof is the shop and post office. My crofthouse is to the left of this down the track.

 

[rick]

Awesome Hen-Gen! Lets just say you have a bit more elbow room than us. But the river Leam corridor at the top through the town is nice to have. And handy for the train to just about anywhere.

 

[Hen-Gen]

So what town rick?

 

[Marigold]

Wonderful island, HenGen, and a great idea for a new thread.

This is the front of our house, taken 5 minutes ago.

This is the back garden (precariously from the bedroom window)

And this is part of the garden, in warmer times last year.

I think it would be nice to include a pic of each of us as well though. This is me and Poppy.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Hen-Gen]

Lovely house and garden, Marigold. Solar panels too. Personal pics? Oh God!

 

[LadyA]

I don't have any pics of this place except in photo albums! But I will try and get some, although they won't be aerial!

 

[LadyA]

I have one of me, but it's a couple of years old - and I was done up like a dog's dinner, because I was being taken out for a meal to a posh hotel! My hair has grown a lot now - I couldn't be doing with blow drying!!

 

[rick]

Its Leamington Spa Hen-Gen.
Good to see you all! Did see your circular pond and stepping stones in previous pictures Marigold - like a lot - kind of Zen
Sorry, just realised how small this picture is.

 

[Marigold]

It's LOVELY to be able to put faces to names, even if some of the 'names' are made up ones. I'm not really a Marigold, I'm Virginia - (parental honeymoon at Virginia Water, I believe.) Marigold was the lovely Buff Sussex in my avatar. You all look how I had imagined you, especially that gorgeous pic of LadyA. Was your heating on the blink when your pic was taken, Rick? Nice hat though.
I'm now hoping for pics from the other 3 people I have actually met in real life - Margaid, Bigyetiman and his wife, who I believe writes some of his posts.

 

[Hen-Gen]

It’s all coming along nicely.
Rick, Leamington Spa - that tropical glasshouse sounds good to me. Right up there as a tourist attraction.
LadyA, what can one say? That photo looks like it was taken by someone with a good eye. Glamorous!
Keep them coming. Nothing to be nervous about. I might live in a wonderful location but £34,000 does not buy Chatsworth House.
I’m hoping that someone might live on a narrow boat, a Romany caravan or a windmill. And, I have to say, are we all white?

And, bym. Just above the shop on my picture you can see the road forks. Follow the left hand fork and at its lowest point you can just see a freshwater pond. This is the Mires of Houbie (which all sounds a bit Hound of the Baskervilles) . It’s a swamp where two pairs of Red Necked Phalaropes bred last year. This bird has absolutely no fear of humans.

 

[bigjim]

My mate used to live I'm Leamington, moved to Warwick. Not that you'd know you were leaving one and going into the other. Well I wouldn't anyway cuz I'm rubbish at directions. Turn me around and I'm lost.

 

[rick]

The glasshouse is good and Jeffison Gardens are great too although I have heard it said that it was better when it was managed more as a collection - Im sure it was, like a lot that has lost its special funding but its still great and the best thing is you can walk from there out past Welches Meadow and onto Newbold Comyn and on and on from there.
Yea! There are no boundary signs between Warwick and Leam and the houses just merge! -with a bit of a flood plane behind the dump along the river - well actually the Leam meets the Avon down there and there is a place where the canal also crosses over on an aqueduct. Its actually pretty wild down there!

 

[Marigold]

Nice refuge for the urban foxes?

 

[rick]

Nice refuge for all sorts. The chain of parks and floodplain are a substantial wildlife corridor - as in many towns and cities where the river passes through the middle and hasn't been hemmed in to much or built right over. I often take the camera with me in the direction of Newbold, because its closer and having the dog with me, but once in open fields the wildlife spreads out and it can seem that there isn't much going on (to see at least). Whereas the river corridor and parks, and bits that are un-developable like behind the dump and the sewage works, in a chain are like a wildlife motorway!

 

[chrismahon]

Eventually I'll post a photo of our place from above and on the opposite higher side of the valley, but still waiting for the snow clouds to clear the Pyrenees- they've had so much snow this year the ski resorts are shut because of the severe avalanche risk. Lots of people buy expensive houses here with a view of the Pyrenees, only to discover they are only visible a few times in the year, but they do look nice when they are.

Not keen on the photo of me though.

 

[bigyetiman]

Hopefully my attempt at putting pic on will work, this is our place down the lane between Upminster and West Horndon.
The hens are the other side of the fence all hidden from view by the reed bed.
Will drag some pics out of us, not too scary

 

[Marigold]

Wow, that's amazing. Your very own reed bed! No wonder you get such interesting bird counts. What river is that? Is the little hut for sitting in, or for the ducks?
Hoping for the pics....

 

[bigyetiman]

It's not a river, it is a man made lake to counteract the brook alongside the house flooding the garden hence the name of the place Brook Farm. if EA don't open the pumps soon enough after heavy rain the lake does overtop and flood the whole place. originally it was all fen land and with heavy clay soil drainage is not good. Ultimately the brook flows into the Mardyke river which then flows into the Thames. The Mardyke takes water from a big area, from Langdon hills to the north of us and water from Orsett farmland so it does fill up pretty quick, hence the pumping station springing into action. Luckily the water meadows further down stream haven't been built on and take a lot of water.
I will look out a pic of the garden flooded, one memorable day, the day of the Brexit vote it rained solidly all that day, getting to vote was an achievement. We were out in the garden at 4 am putting large fish back into the lake

 

[chrismahon]

That's a very pretty location Bigyetiman. Guess if we lived somewhere like that we wouldn't be here.

I took a photo this morning as the clouds have cleared- very frosty, but views of the Pyrenees are rare outside of Winter. Difficult to take as we face South and the sun was shining off me and over the viewfinder, so I couldn't see a thing!



The house is slightly masked by trees because I couldn't move further over with the sun position. Oak tree to the left, then moving right are poplars and furthest right another oak. Then up to more poplars and the top corner (where our new chicken enclosure is going) is against the lane hedgerow. Moving left, past the chickens and back to the oak. We are at 200m, the Pyrenees (about 100 miles away) are 3000m high, Mont Blanc is 6000m and Everest 9000m, to put it all into context.

 

[Marigold]

Amazing! How wonderful, to see the Pyrenees, on a good day. That looks quite isolated, Chris, what a lot of space. How far away are your nearest neighbours and services? Rather different from where you lived in the UK before the move to France, I expect. What's the translation of Les Gaillats?