Up on the roof...
We have some scaffolding on our house at the moment. I have never previously had reason to inspect scaffolding in anything but the most cursory way, but as this is on our house, I got to go up the ladder and prance about on the plank platform. I love it! It's brilliant! It's like having a balcony on the top of your house! The roof tiles are all warm and textured and they enfold the scaffold platform and block off the fierce winds, and you can peek over the roof at the views.
Ostensibly I went up there to take the opportunity to unclog the gutters, but really I was up there because it was lovely. I had never realised until I did the gutters today that the roof tiles are very slowly rubbing away, like a pumice stone, as the rain and the moss work on them. I am used to thinking of a roof as a single waterproof thing that goes above, but it's more than that, it's a tiny desert ecosystem, with grit wearing off it and birds flitting over it and moss forming lumps and in places even the odd seedling.
Our neighbour's field is admittedly not much of a thing of beauty, even seen from above.
A bullfinch sitting on the twisted willow. If I were that bullfinch, I'd sit on the roof instead of the twisted willow, and warm my tiny feet on the tiles. Perhaps bullfinches don't get cold feet though.
Ostensibly I went up there to take the opportunity to unclog the gutters, but really I was up there because it was lovely. I had never realised until I did the gutters today that the roof tiles are very slowly rubbing away, like a pumice stone, as the rain and the moss work on them. I am used to thinking of a roof as a single waterproof thing that goes above, but it's more than that, it's a tiny desert ecosystem, with grit wearing off it and birds flitting over it and moss forming lumps and in places even the odd seedling.
Our neighbour's field is admittedly not much of a thing of beauty, even seen from above.
A bullfinch sitting on the twisted willow. If I were that bullfinch, I'd sit on the roof instead of the twisted willow, and warm my tiny feet on the tiles. Perhaps bullfinches don't get cold feet though.
