A Holiday Suggestion We May Decline

There is a wonderful website called Terrible Real Estate Photographs which is, for those of you who are unaware of it, a source of great joy not just for the very terrible pictures that some estate agents choose to illustrate property for sale, but for the witty captions with which Andy Donaldson (the site owner) embellishes them.

I dare not try to compete with the estimable Mr. Donaldson. However, I feel bound to make some sort of comment on the following image which was presented to me recently by a well-known interweb enterprise that facilitates making bookings with hotels and guest houses. I had been doing some lazy research in places near to where my mother-in-law is currently resident and this was high on the list of recommendations. It is described as a three bedroom holiday home featuring a garden.

The front

Not the front.

The proud owners did not add that the property benefits from two wheelie bins, placed so you always have to see one no matter whether you are relaxing on the spacious lawns at the back or strolling up the impressive drive to the front. The pleasing playfulness of the lack of symmetry in the arrangement of the windows and doors at the front is matched by the no-nonsense design of the whole. "This is an honest box" it says in forthright tones, the plain-speaking parlance of the hard-working down-to-earth folk of Derbyshire. [Don't want to worry you but we may run out of hyphens if you go on with all these compound phrases: Ed]

I decided not to make a booking.