Old houses

Well, Christmas is almost over. We drank last of the mulled wine this evening, and burned last of the Angel Chime candles, and tomorrow it's time to undress the tree and put it away. At the same time the days are getting noticeably longer: I have a timer on the tree lights that I set to turn on when it got dark on Christmas Eve, it was then around half past three and now it doesn't get dark until around five.

For a change I took Cardero down to Robson today, and found this fantastic idyllic row of wooden houses built in 1900s. Reminded me a lot of Toukola in Helsinki - those characterful individual houses from an era when families where so big that they easily filled a house of with three floors... now they just seem too big and extravagant, and first thing that comes to mind is if they have divided the house into flats. In some places they have done, but judging from the numbering these were still mostly owned by one family. All of the houses just looked so lived in and homely, those kind of homes that smell like wooden houses when you go in, and are often cramped because so many generations have lived there and left their mark (and belongings) there. Nice.