Golden Age

After a meeting to discuss the state of the world and especially Penrith, Jane and I wandered off to take some pictures of abandoned houses.

The weather was drizzly and windy, but we were safe and dry inside a house that has been left to the elements for about 30 years.

We found things that have clearly been considered rubbish - newspapers from 1947 and old tins and pots on the cast iron fire range (which will appear on Flickr at some future point).

It was sad to stand in someones house, someone whose coat still hung on a peg in the bedroom - and whose food still lingers (although quite seriously out of date) in the cupboards and whose utility bills still litter the floor and take photographs.

This perfume bottle was sitting on the window in a bedroom. It made me think of this passage in one of my favourite novels:

The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep.