A machine for living in

Le Corbusier famously said that a house is 'a machine for living in'.* Well you can Google that and find out what he meant, but just now I'm in the mood to tell you what I think it means. It means that a house is not meant to be something put on the market and described as 'beautifully presented'. It means that me sitting here, slightly pissed (oooh drinking alone, yes!) by my fire, thinking how beautiful it is, and how I'm not going to destroy this scene just for the sake of some bl**dy estate agent's blurb of 'beautifully presented' (PLEASE say that in a silly voice, if you will: it deserves it). It means something like 'the house was made for man, not man for the house', and really you wouldn't know that if like me, you kept on reading estate agents' blurb when you ought to be worming the cat or whatever.

It's de rigueur to take issue with what le Corbusier said, as his stuff certainly led to a lot of cheap crappy things getting built in the wake of the revolution in house style that he had a lot to do with, but we ought not to hold this against him. He wanted to sweep away a lot of over-ornamented Victorian stifling stuff so that
people could live closer to nature, and I certainly go along with that. He'd surely be appalled at the nasty little over-ornamented things that have in subsequent years been marketed as 'starter homes', and which have everything to do with economics, meaning that people who are starting out on the housing market will not mind being forced too close together in a cramped little bijou pretentious little thing, with the thought that they might be able to afford a few more square metres next time; well, they can see it as an extended honeymoon I suppose. It helps that books now are on Kindle etc, and exercise is in gyms, and food is something you don't cook, but watch people doing it on the telly. Everyone knows, or ought to know, that British housing is the most cramped in Europe, and having said that I'm feeling that I will not get rid of anything from my treasured collection of books and furniture; I'm a woman in crisis, and I need the comfort of my familiar things around me, allow me this please, anyone with a 'clear out the clutter' gene: it's just that I haven't got it, and when I do, I regret it.

Great ale thanks Joolz!

*I suppose a church is 'a machine for praying in'? I can go with this description: some work better than others. Take a look at this new one, where I lived for a couple of years: Cuddesdon chapel

Le Corbusier would have been appalled at the idea that a house was basically an economic thing, designed around the economy, and not designed around the people who live in it. Of course, the British will never warm to what he said, because many of them will be put off by that word 'machine', and when it comes to houses retreat into words with cottagey associations. Well I would like to suggest that the English 'cottage' (whatever it ever was) was a brilliant 'machine for living in' if it was warm in parts and stimulated conversation by the fire, and so is my 'quasi-semi' (??? as I think it can be called, meaning that it's in the middle but thinks it has some of the qualities of a semi, the kind that people who read the Readers' Digest would like).** Oh heck, I'm going to have to put a pic on here to show you what kind of excellent beer it is that is making me so frank tonight. So I will be franker still.

** Sorry! That just slipped in. I've read many a copy myself in waiting rooms etc, and it's not all bad, given that it is written by the CIA.

Let me say to all you lot out there:  this house is for sale, yes, and if any of you turn up your nose and say it is 'not well presented' then you are absolutely right! It's a house I tweaked so that it would be good for me to grow old in, for me to sit by the fire in and get silly when I've had some beer, to tell my worst jokes over and over, for me to sit here weaving and letting my grandchildren help and do it a bit wrong and me not mind, (which is an achievement given that I'm a terrible perfectionist). It's a house for my family and friends to come and sit by the fire and learn that real things are the best, that a fire is meant to  teach us how to grow old and ill and finally die, a lesson you will not learn if all you do is go to supermarkets and listen to the relentless upbeat jingly music and eat food out of season, having forgotten what is in season, and even what season it is, and longing for summer, or perhaps you will just jump in a jet and go off to somewhere warm. But you could be here, warm by the fire, and perhaps I won't be soon, I even hope I won't, and I will mourn this fire

Lovely summerhouse reduces value! No 'off street parking' now!
Yes, I am seeing to the garden; I used to look after half an acre remember.

forever.

Whoever ends up in this house after me, may they never say 'the house boasts' anything at all, and may they ever sit here in the evening and warm their pyjamas and their wine, and may they think that someone put this fire here for herself, and that she left it for love of her sons and their women and children, to be with them, which is the only good reason to leave a fire behind, or maybe there could just be one other good reason, but that one has not happened to me.

If my ex were here now, he'd be starting to recite the bit from Beowulf that is best seen here: The drunken bit from Beowulf

I know - awful blog post, how can she do it! Surely she will delete it in the morning! But no, let an evening blog post stay, and then let there be a morning blog post where she will list things, and tell you how much things cost.