The world from my window

I love buildings of all shapes and sizes. My favourite varies from day to day. What's yours? At the moment, I am looking out across Dorset's county town - Dorchester - to the red roof of a pyramid-topped water tower. An octagonal rotunda, with perfect arches letting through the light, designed along classical lines. I wonder what it’s used for now? A glance at Wikipedia takes you on a wonderful journey to water towers through time, from the industrial era to the space age. You can almost hear the brains of the designers whirring as you think of them coming up with such amazing looks for these functional structures. My favourite building is the New York skyscraper, The Chrysler Building , a soaring, shimmering triumph of Art Deco decadence. I love its clarity, its colour, its clean lines and sheer beauty. I love the fact that it towers above a bustling streetscape, serene and glowing, a reminder of the sparkling days of the Jazz Age just before the Great Depression. Completed ...

From my window, you can see the village square. It isn't typically English in the traditional sense - there is no market cross in the middle. But we have a village pump that people gossip around, a shop, a pub, a red telephone box and a village green behind a picket fence. The square is bounded by old cottages, mostly dating back to Victorian times but, in the case of the Grigg hovel, the crick frame inside indicates its 16th century origins. There is a plaque on a cottage wall commemorating the visit in 1651 of a king on the run from the Roundheads. It is an interesting square, a focal point, and many of the buildings are listed. You have to jump through various hoops in triplicate before you are allowed to carry out alterations. And quite right too. However, if you are the county council, you can do what you like. In recent years we have had modern street lights that look like the monsters from the War of the Worlds movie. The lamp posts start in the square and then march down t...

There are a few things I dislike in life. Bureaucracy, bad manners and the destruction of natural beauty and the built environment are three of them. I am a girl in love with her surroundings. It wounds me deeply when things are changed and not for the better. Well my three pet hates have just happened here in The Enchanted Village, right under our noses. One day, while no-one was looking, two council workmen turned up and installed six bollards in front of the listed building next door. It now looks like a mini-version of Avebury. But unlike the mysterious stone circles of that famous Wiltshire village, this one is a semi-circle of the black plastic variety. This is a village square with historical features that include an old pub, a commemorative plaque, a village pump and a red telephone box. It is quintessentially English. Mrs Champagne-Charlie, who is so lovingly restoring the house, wailed: 'I can't believe they can just do that without telling anyone. If they had to do i...