My husband looked puzzled as he peered at me from the dining room doorway. He had heard my laughing from two rooms over the noise of the TV and came to investigate. Why was I laughing? What was so funny…he wanted to know. I showed him the site I was looking at.
That site — Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos — had my husband laughing too. I was laughing more than he was though, as the site features only British real estate photos. If you have grown up in or visited the United Kingdom, you will have noticed how teeny the houses are compared to houses in the U.S. British families generally live in small homes on tiny parcels of land. Cars are tiny too. When I took my family to the England a few years ago, I could not rent a minivan or SUV as the only cars available were very small cars. In fact, most rental cars in England are those Smart cars.
But back to the site… Growing up in the land little homes, I got a kick out of the truly awful real estate photos on this site. I grew up living in or near some of the grimmest looking homes with teeny, tiny backyards.My grandmother’s home on the outskirts of Manchester was relatively large by British standards. She had a two-story home that was semi-detached…meaning that the house was attached to the one next door. There was no basement as few homes had them, so my grandmother could have earned a degree in organization and storage. No nook or cranny was free of stuff, yet I never recall seeing boxes or bags used for storage. My grandmother had many, many closets and cabinets throughout the house filled to overflowing. She had three bedrooms; one large and two tiny. Downstairs there was a combo living room and dining room crammed to the rafters with furniture. There was barely room to walk from one end of the room to the next. As a kid, we lived with my grandmother for a year or so. My sister and I got used to storing out toys carefully under a table under the back window of the room. My sister and I were never discouraged from playing, but knew that by our bedtime all the toys needed to be put away.
Family friends had a large detached home with tiny backyard. In their backyard, surrounding the many, many bushes and a large-ish were strips of grass here and there. I remember staring out of our friends’ window and noticing a pair of eyes staring back at me. What was that? A critter? Nope, the eyes staring back at me belonged to one of many garden gnomes. These tiny gnomes each had red or blue or green hats. Some carried shovels. Others lounged on chairs. Still others were hard at work raking leaves.As far as the eye could see there were gnomes. Reminded me of Gnomeo & Juliet! Have you ever seen this movie?
Gnomeo & Juliet is set in two British homes…two detached houses with fenced in gardens. Though the two homes are close in proximity, there is no neighborliness. The Capulets live in one home and the Montagues in the other. The owners are not friends and neither are the garden gnomes in each of the backyards. I won’t spoil the plot, but Gnomeo & Juliet is a perfect choice for family movie night!
For some laughs check out Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos!
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with lots of bushes and interspersed in the bushes were over 20 garden gnomes. My sister lived in a house from the 1900s where if you sat on the toilet and left the bathroom door open you could see out the front door…the house was that narrow. My grandmother’s house was so cold and poorly heated that she decided that a red light bulb in the entrance foyer and dark red carpets throughout the house would give a much needed sense of warmth…it didn’t work.
