What's outside my window

I was busy today. This dreadful shot reflects this. Stuff to deal with. I will be glad when the WEA summer social programme is actually fixed. 
However,  back to the point: the curtains first! After many years of sitting on the sofa watching neighbours having long long conversations on the street corner, I eventually felt a little exposed and fashioned an organza curtain. A few years later,  the potted ferns made it sticky, and I succumbed to buying actual net curtains. It means we can watch TV in summer with the other curtains open, and not feel like we are on TV ourselves.

The fleet is in: one of our neighbours has a car and a van. Our next door neighbours have  a car, a landrover (which you can just see hiding behind the lilac bush) a horsebox-and-camping lorry, and a couple of visiting Minis at the weekend. They also have some other vehicles, off road and out of sight. We have one car. Our other neighbour has none. The third Steve of our corner (there are three Steves in our patch) has a work pickup, a leisure pickup, and usually comes home for lunch in a different industrial work vehicle. He also has over ten vintage trucks that he is restoring, but they are garaged elsewhere. 

Our 1930s council-built estate is on a hill, and built with on street parking for about one car per household. Many houses on our side have had their front gardens sacrificed for car parking. Gloucestershire has a very high rate of cars per private household. I once heard that it was the highest in the UK. We are certainly not the most rural county!

I walk to many places, because I can't drive, but I do get lifts from time to time. The buses don't come round the estate any more. Far too many parked cars ! The school minibus still calls, and the bin lorries, and all the delivery lorries: Iceland and Ocado seem the most popular, as well as DHL.
There are buses a couple of times a day from the end of the road. I am pleased to say that there seems to be some law that says that council estates must be served by public transport.