Madeira. Thatched house in traingualr design - nothing like England's thatch. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright
Problem
When you live in a city you stop appreciating it. Go away for two months, two years, even a week, and when you come back you see the differences.
Madeira
I spend a week in Madeira where the steep hills are dotted with many houses which had orange tiled roofs. Walls were white or cream, a few yellow, orange, pink or blue.
Lots of palm trees shaking in the breeze. Green gorse bushes contrast with yellow flowers. Magenta flower trees. Tangles of banana plants and sugar cane. In the north, hanging vines on pergolas.
Huge flyovers lead to and from the Cristiano Ronaldo airport. Tunnels weave in and out of the hillsides and cliffs around the capital, Funchal.
Cars park diagonally, noses in the air, or noses down like dogs pulling ahead on leads, on steep roads at diagonal angles. Unnerving. You watch the static cars, worried, wondering when one of them will start rolling backwards, or forwards, starting one of those falling domino chains.
Welcome To London
Driving from Heathrow airport towards outer London, what a contrast. At first driving from Heathrow through Hayes was a disappointment, dilapidated one storey shops had peeling paint.
But soon, reaching the suburbs of Ickenham, with its pub, then historic Harrow, then pretty Pinner, the buildings and greenery started perking up. Neat hedges surround freshly painted semi-detached houses in neighbourly pairs.
Triangular roofs are over the bay windows. The contrasting black or brown imitation Tudor wooden beams or imitating Victorian imitation Tudor, against white walls.
London's red brick from the red clay appears in walls along gardens. More red brick is in the walls of houses.
The semis give way to grander detached houses. Palladian columns. Large drives with two cars. Huge oak trees, which once built the ships of the fleets for Elizabeth I. Magestic chestnut trees.
Green lawns of fine-leaved grass with picture frame borders of pink roses. Fences and gates - which you don't get in many cities of the USA where fences are banned and houses are exposed. No wonder they all have guns for protection when anybody can march up to the front or back door. To the British eye, every estate of houses set in unfenced lawns in some USA cities looks unfinished, like a show house which nobody has yet moved into.
CENTRAL LONDON
Central London has Victorian buildings and pageantry. The plane trees are big trees which don't mind pollution.
London, plane trees and pageantry.
SINGAPORE
In Singapore where we rent our flat, overlooking a swimming pool, the block is under threat of being pulled down.
If that happens, it will be replaced with something more compact, crammed, smaller rooms, less space between the tower blocks, news. A neighbour says, "This is an old block. It's thirty years old!"
Singapore, palm trees and Chinese writing.
I am stunned into silence. When I fill out an insurance form asking the age of a building in London, I can't remember the age. I have to consult documents. Many of London's suburban houses were built in the nineteen thirties, when the railways expanded. Others have the dates of the 19.. or even 18.. on the facade.
USA
Even in the 'recent no history' USA, terraced houses which were homes of famous people, such as Edgar Allen Poe in Philadelphia, date back a century or more.
London's red brick walls are neat and have patterns from Victorian times. (The Nineteen Fifties introduced the blight of cigarette-box shape blocks of greying flats. The fact that low building standards mean they are short-lived and crumbling - or burning down like tragic Grenfell - is a blessing in disguise.)
London List
1 SEMIS.
Semi-detached houses in suburbs. Mock Tudor. London red brick.
2 BUNGALOWS.
Bungalows (one storey houses) with fenced front lawns and gates.
3 MANSIONS.
Majestic mansions, churches and town halls with steps up to Palladian columns (like the USA).
4 ART DECO.
Art deco railway stations and white houses with green tiled rooftops.
5 RED BUSES.
Red buses. Old style and new style. Jolly red.
6 RED POST BOXES.
Red pillar boxes. The pillar shape freestanding ones. We also have a few inset in walls. Jolly red.
7 BRUNEL STATIONS.
Brunel's railway stations - notably Paddington where you see his statue.
8 PUBS.
British Pubs. Old Victorian pubs with Toby jugs and horse brasses. Historic pubs. Many turned into gastropubs with green gardens. (Budget eating and drinking at Wetherspoons which make a point of preserving photos of local history.)
9 SHOPS & SHOPPING CENTRES.
London as a shopping base, with old arcades such as: Burlington Arcade; Selfridges; the original Harrods (not just the branches you get worldwide). Intu in Watford has a kiddie train (for a fee) and Xmas decorations at Xmas. Out of the city, take a drive to the vast new shopping centres, such as waterside Bluewater in Kent, or Lakeside.
10 HISTORIC STATUES.
Statues where you can take selfies with world-famous figures, such as writers Shakespeare, bust outside Guildhall, and Oscar Wilde reclining near Trafalgar Square, and dandy, beautifully dressed Beau Brummel standing near department store Liberty near Oxford Circus.
See my other posts for text and photos on: art deco, statues, Intu at Xmas.
Author
Angela Lansbury
