no more string pictures............is it arson?

remains of remains © Caroline Fraser

A long day cooped up with the electrician; not the brightest of chaps, but very reliable and extremely safety conscious. He came to change a light bulb ( because the builders had fixed a bathroom light with putty where putty should not have been), and ended up clambering around in my attic putting safety guards over the light fittings in the roof space so that the carpet that shouldn't have been under the roof cladding or on top of the light fittings didn't cause overheating and a fire.

Every time he visits I feel a little less safe in my house; he has suggested a full rewiring, but when pressed to give a quote comes up with so many difficulties, that will necessitate chopping through walls and ceilings, that I cannot bear to let him proceed. We have lived dangerously for 23 years; another one will have to pass, until the massive cracks appearing in the house get fixed and the rewiring can be done at the same time ( at which point I will hopefully be somewhere in New Zealand ostensibly working, but chiefly trying to escape the mayhem, dust and general loss of sanity that I know will ensue).

At one point I tried to find him to give him a cup of tea; I popped my head up the ladder but he was nowhere to be seen......... until I saw his builders bottom emerging from underneath a piece of loft insulation. I can't say I have ever given someone tea in the loft before. I left the tea a suitable distance from him and bid a hasty retreat.

I escaped briefly to to collect the car from having its MOT; and was regaled with the intimate details of all my neighbours' motoring habits and disasters; it seems that a Porsche is a must-have item for one of my neighbours, and that his wife has damaged his other car not once, but twice..............SHOCK, HORROR!

I was truly relieved when my other half arrived home , freeing me to take the dog for a walk before it got dark.

Good things come to those who wait,  thought I. The sun was low in the sky and the trees were beautiful against the setting sky.

dusk

I ambled through the woods, hoping that I would be back to the car before darkness fell; I am quite brave when accompanied by dog, but as it gets darker a certain vulnerability sets in.

I decided to take a detour past the farm to see how the  barn appears in the evening light. A smell of burnt wood and some warning signs came as a shock after the peaceful walk.

 The barn is burnt to a cinder.

The objects that I photographed only last week are no more; in their place charred beams of wood lying in a pile beside the track, piles of straw and rubble laid out along the lane.

Where there was blue string and orange knots there is hazard warning tape and a tragic mess.

the barn

My immediate thought was that this may be arson; all that straw lying around is a real hazard; a bit like my loft really............ until my lovely electrician came along and fixed it.

Another image for my 'hazard warning tape' collection.




















It seems that the remains of human activity that I have been enjoying capturing, such as knots and pieces of string are now truly just remains, and all that is left now is a collection of images on my computer.

Remains of remains............ a sad end to the day.