Ever since I was a little girl I've felt drawn to and fascinated by old and derelict dwellings.
I would peer into the dusty windows of old corner shops and abandoned houses wondering what former life these neglected buildings once led.Forgotten and forlorn… but not by me.
I could daydream for hours about what they must have looked like in their former glory.
I loved to imagine who once owned them, lived in them, grew up in them, what kind of things the shops would sell and who the people were who once shopped there.
When I look at an old building I don't just see the cracked and faded paint, dilapidated walls and ceilings or grubby grime stained windows - I see through the dirty facade and wonder at the beauty that once was as well as foolishly hoping that one day it will be restored once again.
I still feel sad when I drive past the empty lot of what once was a house straight out of my dreams.
The run down American country style house was exactly the kind I envisioned when reading so many of my mystery novels as a young girl.
For years it stood there neglected and overrun with vines yet throughout my teens and early twenties I would pass by it and fantasise of one day buying it and restoring it to the home it once was.
Silly that I would still feel cheated somehow by the demolition of that place, since I always knew I could never afford to buy it let alone restore it.
Still I can't help feeling regretful every time I think of it or pass by where it once stood…
Broken but not beaten, full of character, strength and with many stories to tell, sometimes I wish that walls could talk. Don't you?
