Canalside homes, Riddlesden

Saturday was a glorious early-autumn day, sunny but cool. The trees are beginning to have some autumn colour. Another week or two and I think they will be spectacular. (Is that because it's been so dry lately?) I went for a long walk along the canal, which I do enjoy. I passed these pretty little canalside homes on the way into Riddlesden. I think you must have to sign a pledge that you will spend hours in your garden if you live there! All of them were beautifully kept. It must be lovely to have the water at the bottom of your garden. For one thing there's always something to look at - people passing by on the towpath, ducks, narrowboats... in fact some of the homes alongside the canal have their own moorings and their own boats. And the water itself is always changing. In this stretch it was calm like a mirror but in other places it was shimmering in the breeze.

Most of the houses in the photo have only one storey and we call them bungalows in the UK (I don't know if that term is used in other places). It's the kind of house I was brought up in as a child. My dad always used to say they got fed-up with waiting for the builder to put the second storey on, so they told him to 'bung a low' roof on it! But I don't know if that's the real reason for the name. It's an odd name though, isn't it?