Spent the weekend catching up with various friends who, now that we all have children, we don't get to see as much as we'd like these days.
By coincidence, this meant visits to two homes that are both liberally sprinkled with generous helpings of stair. This can be particularly baffling at times. Example: Steps up from the street followed by stairs down inside. Or how about internal stairs down followed almost immediately by the same amount of stairs back up again? As architectural embellishments go, the stair is pretty low. A trip hazard can rarely be seen as improving the ambiance of the world's most iconic buildings. A decent cornice? Now that's one thing... crenelations work too. Ok, they're just steps on the roof, but at least Viscount La-di-Da is less likely to be seen tripping over ramparts and falling face first on a tray full of poached eggs and toasted muffins on a Sunday morning.
I admit that there is some aesthetic benefit of stairs in certain situations and I for one would not delight in watching Fred Astaire skipping down a one in twelve ramp with substantial hand-rails and hazard tape denoting the edges. Or twirling his cane and doffing his top hat in a stair-lift, come to think of it. But Hollywood dance extravanganzas are rarely staged in the average London Victorian terraced house.
I am being deliberately disingenuous here, as all the stairs I visited over the weekend have perfectly good reasons for their existence and location, but I have realised that I am out of step (ho ho) with a life punctuated with fancy flights (oh, stop). I grew up in a house full of staircases, unlike P who grew up in a typical Australian house which was all on one level, except for access to the garden. This means that running up and down stairs was an integral my life for many years.
But sitting in the basement of a beautiful Clapham abode (down below down south), the whole idea of having to go upstairs to get 'things' or use the toilet/ go to bed etc. just seemed suddenly unfamiliar to me. It is interesting to observe that, just as some odd things can feel normal if you do them often enough, so normal things can feel odd if you stop doing them.
I am not completely undone by stairs. It just means that I swap one means of transport (my wheelchair) for another, namely a cushion strapped to my backside. Although this particular piece of kit wasn't cheap, it works very well. I would be lying if I were to say that I love heaving my sorry carcass up and down numerous steps. But I'm determined not to be excluded by something once so mundane as a flight of stairs.
By coincidence, this meant visits to two homes that are both liberally sprinkled with generous helpings of stair. This can be particularly baffling at times. Example: Steps up from the street followed by stairs down inside. Or how about internal stairs down followed almost immediately by the same amount of stairs back up again? As architectural embellishments go, the stair is pretty low. A trip hazard can rarely be seen as improving the ambiance of the world's most iconic buildings. A decent cornice? Now that's one thing... crenelations work too. Ok, they're just steps on the roof, but at least Viscount La-di-Da is less likely to be seen tripping over ramparts and falling face first on a tray full of poached eggs and toasted muffins on a Sunday morning.
I admit that there is some aesthetic benefit of stairs in certain situations and I for one would not delight in watching Fred Astaire skipping down a one in twelve ramp with substantial hand-rails and hazard tape denoting the edges. Or twirling his cane and doffing his top hat in a stair-lift, come to think of it. But Hollywood dance extravanganzas are rarely staged in the average London Victorian terraced house.
I am being deliberately disingenuous here, as all the stairs I visited over the weekend have perfectly good reasons for their existence and location, but I have realised that I am out of step (ho ho) with a life punctuated with fancy flights (oh, stop). I grew up in a house full of staircases, unlike P who grew up in a typical Australian house which was all on one level, except for access to the garden. This means that running up and down stairs was an integral my life for many years.
But sitting in the basement of a beautiful Clapham abode (down below down south), the whole idea of having to go upstairs to get 'things' or use the toilet/ go to bed etc. just seemed suddenly unfamiliar to me. It is interesting to observe that, just as some odd things can feel normal if you do them often enough, so normal things can feel odd if you stop doing them.
I am not completely undone by stairs. It just means that I swap one means of transport (my wheelchair) for another, namely a cushion strapped to my backside. Although this particular piece of kit wasn't cheap, it works very well. I would be lying if I were to say that I love heaving my sorry carcass up and down numerous steps. But I'm determined not to be excluded by something once so mundane as a flight of stairs.
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