I
looked out of my window on our street this morning, and it struck me
how very an odd a phenomenon the HOUSE is. Isn't it strange that we
choose to live in these little concrete boxes, most of which are very square and really quite obscure looking if you forget what you are used to seeing (especially the ones spattered in tiny pieces of stone, in my opinion); and especially that this should become so bound up in our identities. My house, my space, our house, community space, their house, our street...

Think how bizarre they would look to someone (eg an alien, a time traveller) if houses hadn't evolved the way they have. Well, I suppose that's true of anything, like lamposts or church buildings or forks, but houses seem particularly strange to me. They seem to have their own personalities, don't some of them look like faces? Play a game where you walk down the road and imagine what kind of person they would be. Some look sad and others grumpy, some aloof. And of course with curtains shut they look asleep.

Apparently (according to the newspaper) a lane is the most expensive
place to live. We used to live down 'Woodsford lane' (which lead to
Woodsford); it had a stream and a wood at the bottom. Apparently it
wasn't a very nice house (it took us 10 years to sell it, maybe because
it was number 13) but it was a wonderful place to live. Though the wood
turns out to be a lot smaller and less mysterious than it used to be. I
think street is a very good name - it makes me think of a cobbled place
with children bowling hoops down it and toddlers on the pavement. Are
all avenues tree-lined?

Here are some odd houses:

This house was built by a mad lady called Sarah Winchester, whose
husband made guns that shot lots of native Americans. After his death a medium told her she had to keep working on the house to keep the
spirits of the Indians from taking revenge, so she built in hundreds of
winding staircases, some leading nowhere to confuse them; winding
passages, hidden rooms, and thousands of chandeliers and twiddly bits
with the $20 million she inherited.
http://www.weirdus.com/stories/CA03.asp

This is the 'world's safest house.' I think it looks like a space lizard.

http://www.tdrinc.com/tsuihs.html

This is an igloo hotel. I'd quite like to stay there...

http://arcticinuit.free.fr/2001/jour/Hotel%20Igloo.jpg

There is also an octagon house at the bottom of my road built on a very
small plot of land. The people went bankrupt building it though, and
had to sell it to someone else...