Pictures from the 'hood: The house I used to live in

In 2014/5 I lived in a cottage on the property of a workshop where film sets were built, back when I still used to do occasional film props work. The back wall of the house faced a public park and graffiti artists used to come and paint colourful murals on it. The previous mural, the wall had been sprayed lime green and all the messy tags made it look a bit like a crack-house. The house was also right next to the river and the municipal dump was across the river so there were always people wandering around and strange activities in the area. We also had numerous instances of petty theft when people jumped the over the side wall.

One day in winter, someone died in the park but the mortuary van was in no hurry to collect his body so the was a police van parked next to the body all day with a lone, bored policeman sitting in it. Homeless people also used to come and make fires and burn tyres next to the house and use an area around the corner as a toilet so we had to be on constant alert that the house didn't catch fire.

One morning I heard a lot of activity on the other side of the wall and then the spray-paint fumes started wafting through the crack in the wall which was plastered over in the inside but there was a little draught where it had cracked further. (The crack is clearly visible where the sloped roof and the flat roof meet). Later that day, I went to see how the mural was progressing and I was impressed by what I found. It's about three years since it was made and some more plaster has fallen off of the wall on the right-hand side but it still looks good.

Life was certainly interesting in that house next to the park although I am glad that I don't live there anymore. It was unpleasantly cold next to the river.