Up on the roof...
Apr. 11th, 2015 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnWe 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.
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Date: 2015-04-12 08:08 am (UTC)Authentic to the area would be slate: the houses in the first photo with the grey roofs are the pre-20th century ones. The very dark roof is brand new as it was replaced recently but the house underneath is 17th century, or so the owners tell me. I suspect if our house were built now we'd be required to have a slate roof. But I like our cheap robust 80's tiles :-D
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Date: 2015-04-12 04:47 pm (UTC)