Not So Cosy

Went for a bit of a walk earlier this evening. I'd been intending to get myself to the gym if the aches & pains in my side had eased, but they hadn't, so I didn't. But I didn't feel just circling the track again, so I asked Noi if she fancied a bit of a wander. Unfortunately she was busy preparing some goodies for some guests tomorrow (more of which to follow soon) so I took off round Medway Park on my own.

The Park in question is a little housing estate just up the road, but sheltered from the main road by plenty of trees and thick vegetation. The houses are all the colonial types that the army bods used way back when, the all-white kind, and I suppose the folks now in them are all substantially well-heeled. It's very quiet round there. I didn't pass anyone walking at all in my 45 minutes or so on the estate, though a couple of cars went by. In fact, I wondered whether a few of the houses were in use at all, but I saw only one with a For Lease sign outside, so in the case of the very quiet places I suppose it was simply a matter of the owners being out.

Everywhere looked well looked after, but I was struck by the fact that I didn't see a single place that looked to me like a nice place to live. There was a general lack of cosiness, for want of a better word, an absence of snugness, for want of another - though I must say I like both those terms. They capture what it is I would look for in a home. Of course, the tropics by definition don't offer the snug cosiness of a cottage on a crisply, cold Autumn evening; but that doesn't preclude the possibility of an apartment or house having a sense of being suitably lived in as opposed to just occupied. I suppose it's up to the residents to live warmly & well.