Room with a view

When I first knew this square, the Plaza Europa, a decade and a half ago, it was little more than a big expanse of wasteland. A few bus stops and a taxi rank. Eventually a big hole was excavated and a two storey underground car park installed. After that it was covered over with an attractive park, with playground, lake, fountains and many trees and plants. At one end a new health centre was built. Alongside it the central market was gutted and refurbished, and many other adjacent buildings were also refurbished. Facing onto the park is a museum to the local artist Niconor Piñole. All in all a very pleasant area.

Next door to the museum however is the building in this photo. As far as I know it has remained unoccupied and uncared for in all that time, with a scruffy metal fence around it. I believe that recently there had been plans afoot for the council to buy it. I daresay that this won't happen now, in our new austere world. I imagine that the owners must be wealthy to have been able to afford to leave a building such as this unoccupied and unloved for so long. It's a pity that it couldn't have even been given a clean once in a while.

On the other hand, it does have character I suppose. It rather reminds me of the house in the film Psycho. I wonder if Norman Bates' mother is upstairs, occasionally peering around shabby net curtains to look down on passers by in the park.