Front Gardens 2: Sky Sculptures

For the second in this occasional series, this stone satellite dish sits in the front garden, facing its house and away from the viewer on the street. It is either a type of DIY, homemade Folk Suburb art, studiedly uncommunicative in its celebration of the folk traditions and items of the suburb, or it is simply a bird bath fallen on its side, to the cheering of local small birds.
Either way, when I first saw it I thought it was a satellite dish and thus things enter the lore of folk suburb. 

Blue Plaques

I spotted this (all names have been changed to protect identity), and another one that I couldn't draw, which was made of a shard of perspex cut and cross-carved to look like ice.  I am not sure whether to rail against the vanity of this kind of thing, awarding yourself a blue plaque almost; or to congratulate them on putting two fingers up at the viral culture of anxiety about identity, stoked by the media and playing to some of the worst traits of the suburb: the distrust of anyone outside your house, the hostile insularity and defensiveness, and the paranoid protection of what is tedious.

Nesting

One of the marking points of the Folk Suburb year is the revelation of the birds' nests, often in unlikely looking trees, marking autumn becoming winter.  I think Edward Thomas did a poem where, if I remember it right, he mildly chastised himself for not spotting the nests while the trees were in leaf.  I, though, like the revelation of the used nests, black clots in the trees, in laburnums and cherries that have jammed themselves between groups of semis, with the nests almost at touching distance of landing and bathroom windows; the birds having been there all the time without the sealed-in house dwellers once knowing, probably, or caring, probably, that they were there.
In recognition of the birds' secrecy, I have provided no crappy drawing.

Quick! Run! I don't know what it is!

It would be all too simple to mock this almost certainly self-designed and built extension, extraordinary in it's proportions, and by all conventional measures an ugly thing; but I think there are a couple of things in it's favour.  When passing it, it gives a fleeting, jolting, impression of being a 1950s-style earth-invader (a Quadropod?), with its long tentacles and scaly finish.  In its homemade DIY-ness, and blatant refusal of the off-the-shelf, it is an example of almost punk-suburb architecture and what might be termed Folk Suburban Brut.  Memories of passing it becomes the material of Folk Suburb.

Secret Garden

When I was but small, and a ball playing centre half in the primary school team, the pitch of one of the suburban primaries we used to play was got at through a door much like this.  Obviously it had a door and not stones, but the effect was the same, and it was truly like stepping in to a secret garden, not dispersed by actually going through, where the scene was like that of a Thomas Hardy novel.
Corners of an earlier time are a key to Folk Suburb.

Front Gardens Series No.1 - Tarmacadam Lawn

For the first in this occasional series of Front Gardens, I have selected this. 

Unlucky Thirteen

I only hope that Friday 12th is alright for this.  While returning my library book the other day I noticed that, in the street adjoining ours, number 13 was missing.  Obviously the house was there, but it was numbered 15 not 13.
I understand that certain aircraft manufacturers do not label the 13th row 13, but had unobservantly not noticed this in the suburb before.  Well, now I had, I thought I'd check a few other streets on the way to the station today, only to notice that they all didn't have thirteens.
I mentioned this to my dad and he said "oh, that's common."

Folk Suburb Traditions: Firework Collecting

A folk suburb tradition was the gleaning after the local 'Round Table' fireworks display in the park.
Our park was reclaimed from a farm within living memory, and some of its stone gateposts survived.  Windswept and raw, radiating out from the angry and still glowing, and fenced off, mound of ash, groups of kids would range surprising distances collecting up as many of the damp, spent tubes and cones, and sticks, of fireworks as they could.
This gleaning had no aim, other than the gathering in of the magical things themselves, with their thicker-than-normal carboard, their fragments of fantastical labelling and their smell; and no songs were sung about it.  But it would nevertheless take place, and extend riskily beyond the park; into gardens for an especially alluring roman candle husk.
These would be presented at the home and, part of the ritual, immediately binned by your mum.  But this was a tradition that endured, taking place every 6 November.

Car Port



 The car port is a greatly modern thing, and this example sports some fine slender metal supports coyly crossing their ankles.  There is a faint 'satellite' (space, not tv) feel to them that suggests the port was knocked up in the 60s sometime.  No-one in either of the adjoining houses seems to use it now, but I imagine it would've looked good in the late-70s with a TR7 lit through the yellowy corrugated plastic roof.
It is also a good example of the Neighbourly Construction of the suburbs, which, as one household is now bent on being totally isolated from its neighbours, I guess doesn't happen so much any more: where (usually non-adjoining) neighbours would get together to design, commission (or build it themselves) & pay for, items in between the properties; like garages, walls and, here, car ports.

Pet Graves

The pet grave is a hard to spot thing, often marked by but a simple garden stone or twig.  In an age when no-one can be bothered having any earth in their garden, I imagine new ones are far and few between, but here is an example, in the front garden of a house, just by the front steps.  The shells are a thoughtful addition and I hope it is a fish.

Dead Green Man

This piece of landscaping has long caught my eye.  The householder has recently tried turfing over the bed, but only got so far (I'm guessing it's too late in the year to turf).  Now it looks like this.
Previously, in rain, it turned into a tan pond.
Once, it contained a tree of some sort: the trunk is razed to mud(ground) level.  Probably a cherry - as usual.