This place is in Crete and they have a market outside. Loads of oranges which I recall being the most delicious I can remember. Fancy having all that vitamin C outside your front door. The house itself could do with a bit of attention and looks like it is unoccupied. You can tell how hot it was with all the windows open. Nice to see a sunny scene when it’s been so wet and miserable here in the UK. The other fruit looks like pomegranate to me, but can’t be sure. Continue reading House 22. Orange is not the only fruit

Something to contemplate on a cold and wet day. This is the view from a ferry in the Greek Islands and if my memory serves me right this is where Leonard Cohen found his muse. The man was very popular with the women I went to college with back in the 60s and I could never quite understand it. Always struck me as a bit of a miserable sod, and I could not quite get why someone so miserable could be so liked by these women. It seemed there was no advantage to being cheerful. What the hell had he … Continue reading House 21. Reflective View

There are times in a cartoonist’s career where there’s the opportunity to win the lottery ticket job where you get paid an inordinate amount of money for the rights to a drawing. These moments are as rare as hen’s teeth and I can’t really say that I’ve ever been there. I’ve had my moments but not the big ticket. There was a time when someone asked my to do some work for them and that I’d get a royalty for every image that was used. So there’s the carrot and now the schtick! To be fair they did not promise … Continue reading You’ve got to be in it to win it.

Not in England but in the mountains of Montenegro. A walking trip a couple of years ago now, where we explored the area with a couple of brilliant Serbian guides. I almost expected a red coated young girl to emerge from this place to collect firewood. In another spot I thought we heard birds on a small lake, but they were frogs. No doubt that after midnight they would turn into handsome princes. Continue reading House 16. If you go down to the woods today…

Off for a walk into the Chedworth area of Gloucestershire and it promises to be sunny. My friend Robin and I have done this walk before starting from the Roman Villa and roaming through some of the finest countryside this area has to offer. Last time it was in the middle of Summer, this time it’s a cold but sunny start. Perfect day for walking and we were headed for Fossebridge and the pub for lunch, then back across the Vestey estate to our starting point at Chedworth. There’s a steep climb after the pub sojourn up the field and … Continue reading The School in the Woods

This pretty little house is not far from the River Severn in Gloucestershire, east of the A38 in an area that is generally not bothered by tourists, or anyone much for that matter. It reminds me of how children draw houses with a four window and a door in the middle and a pretty little garden in the front. It seems undisturbed by modern life and has no new fangled anything to disturb the peace that emanates from it. It’s painted green not crushed avocado and they probably still have the tin in a shed ,somewhere. Happy little place. Continue reading House 15. Taken from a child’s drawing?

This place is North of Los Angeles and I took the photograph on a trip a couple of years ago. The small town of Carpinteria has a few houses and a large wide high street off the main freeway up the L A coast. This is a private house and looks like something out of a film set. I’m not sure if the outside tiles have any function other than decoration but the whole place looked like a brilliantly choreographed production number. Carpinteria with a few shops and a super little museum prided over by some ladies of great respectability. … Continue reading House 14. OTT in Carpinteria

Superbly located in a small village that is almost entirely owned by one family, this place has a fine view over the previous village occupants. It’s right next to the typical English church grounds. There are a few of these almost feudal villages in this area, where the houses are entirely controlled by the local landowner. This particular landlord is quite enlightened having brought very high speed broadband to the village for all to enjoy as well as a central heating works, or should that be a heating works that’s in the centre of the village that works. It’s for … Continue reading House 13. Dead centre of the village.

The top floor windows are the eyes and the steps are the open mouth of this modest Californian house in Los Angeles. Standard blue sky helps LA houses look good. I’d have liked to have seen it with the blinds half closed on the top floor to make lazy eyelids, but you can’t have everything, contrary to popular opinion in California, where they seem to think anything is possible. An uplifting but unrealistic view. Wonder what this place is like inside and if it has one of those cheery “doorbells” which says “Hi there! How are you today?”, in that … Continue reading House 12. It’s one of those animated places.

Just meandering off the subject of houses and a trip to Yorkshire. Some good stuff first: two hours on a train from Cheltenham, brilliant. Apparently it takes longer than that to travel short distances up here, where they still have diesel trains, so getting south quicker always seems to have been the priority. Move the House of Lords to Sheffield not York, they have enough old tourists in York and Sheffield needs the money. It’s a great place, young and possibly vibrant. First stop off the train, the art gallery. A short walk from the station, and over the main … Continue reading A Yorkshire diversion

This is actually what was the Gloucester Folk Museum at the bottom of Westgate Street in Gloucester City Centre. It might be something else now as this was taken some years ago. Wonderful building. Just up the road is a completely wooden fronted house but you can’t see it from the street. You have to know the location of the narrow alleyway where it is to find it and hope they have left the door to the alleyway open. Gloucester is chock full of history, and there are times when we just take it for granted. Continue reading House 11. With shop attached.

This place overlooks a park and hence the shot. Taken a couple of years ago in the winter sunshine. Lovely round ended house, which was empty when I passed it by and took this. I like to know the history of houses, but doubt I’ll ever know this one. One can never tell a house by the ‘cover’. I recall going to visit a house with a view to buying many years ago, and it looked great in the picture, great when we got there, but once inside neither of us could get out quick enough. Bad vibes was our … Continue reading House 10. Regency view