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Mutabile Semper
Walked my bike over to the conveni that sometimes has lime yoghurt- walked so as to get some exercise and look at the August gardens hereabouts- cosmos and tigerlilies and designer groundcover. I had three acupuncture sessions this week and a massage yesterday, I did my exercises and stretches before I left, and *everything* was owie tight and aching. Lower back pain is a bitch.
The conveni is next to the realtors with its heart-stopping postings of million dollar plus houses in the neighbourhood. To say nothing of one house on Bedford, more or less across the street from the one I grew up in. Unlike ours, this is a semi-detached, even if it's also a three storey Edwardian behemoth, and it's currently asking a hair under four million. This, as they say, is ridiculous.
There seems to be an idea that us aging boomers will downsize or die, and open up the housing market to young couples, which simply hasn't happened. Isn't going to, either. Where would I move to if I sold my house? A condo that limits what I can do with my theoretical property? An apartment with noise on all four sides of me? And both costing twice or three times what it does to run this place? Yeah, guys, you need a better answer to your housing problems than that.
(My sympathy for young couples who can afford a million dollar house is also limited. Downtown becomes a haven for upper middle class professionals? How exquisitely dull.)
The unbudging old happened with the generation before mine too, at least in this neighbourhood. Nonna and Nonno stayed put in the family house until the bitter end. As seen next door, which may come on the market soon. The widow Pisani to the south of me has either left us for good or (less likely) is in a retirement home, because her many offspring have been cleaning the place out on successive Sundays. I shall miss her, if not her quarrelsome extended family, who only made Sunday afternoons unpleasant, after all. The new owners, if there are any, may not mind my cherry tree, which will be a relief.
The conveni is next to the realtors with its heart-stopping postings of million dollar plus houses in the neighbourhood. To say nothing of one house on Bedford, more or less across the street from the one I grew up in. Unlike ours, this is a semi-detached, even if it's also a three storey Edwardian behemoth, and it's currently asking a hair under four million. This, as they say, is ridiculous.
There seems to be an idea that us aging boomers will downsize or die, and open up the housing market to young couples, which simply hasn't happened. Isn't going to, either. Where would I move to if I sold my house? A condo that limits what I can do with my theoretical property? An apartment with noise on all four sides of me? And both costing twice or three times what it does to run this place? Yeah, guys, you need a better answer to your housing problems than that.
(My sympathy for young couples who can afford a million dollar house is also limited. Downtown becomes a haven for upper middle class professionals? How exquisitely dull.)
The unbudging old happened with the generation before mine too, at least in this neighbourhood. Nonna and Nonno stayed put in the family house until the bitter end. As seen next door, which may come on the market soon. The widow Pisani to the south of me has either left us for good or (less likely) is in a retirement home, because her many offspring have been cleaning the place out on successive Sundays. I shall miss her, if not her quarrelsome extended family, who only made Sunday afternoons unpleasant, after all. The new owners, if there are any, may not mind my cherry tree, which will be a relief.
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Thank you. One keeps on with the exercises. You know this one.
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I'm glad that your quarrelsome neighbours have gone.
("How quarrelsome must that neighbour be, who could pick a fight with a cherry tree?" - one of William Blake's discarded drafts for Proverbs of Hell, maybe.)
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I like the Blake couplet!
Southern Italians have this idea that fruit trees are working trees and should be kept small so you can pick the fruit. The notion of 'shade tree' is foreign to the culture. Not that I'd have chosen a cherry as my shade tree, given the choice. I will allow that in a bumper year, having cherries rain on your tomatoes is a nuisance.
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(Also - I think you know this! but for the sake of the record, it's a "Blake" couplet.)
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Yes, I know. 'Blake', not Blake.
In the morning, glad I see
My neighbour outstretched beneath my tree.
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