The old window

My neighbour's window gives onto our courtyard. The wood is wormy and, like many walls around here, the stones have been reinforced with mortar many times. I am pleased now to be living in a house with little wood in it. My previous house had to have a new roof after termites had, unbeknown to me, silently chomped their way though most of the roof timbers. The beams had been reduced to the consistency of straw and I could crumble them in my hand. The house had had a 'termite free certificate' four years previously. I was lucky the roof did not cave in on my head!