Upside Down

I’d been having a few tentative thoughts about the subject of Upside Down as a topic. I’ve heard about cakes but that didn’t do much for me, I was very tempted about maps. And this morning when I was having a shower I realised that I was turning the shampoo container upside down as it passed the half way full mark and wondered what other objects around the house I turned upside down for convenience.

Anyway I started making a few notes on that when I needed to check on a particular fact and was very surprised to find reference to a whole house that was upside down. And not only that but there are loads of them.

Apparently the very first one was built in the Centre of Education and Regional Promotion in the north Poland town of Szymbark (see image above). Completed in 2007, the house was designed by businessman Daniel Czapiewski as a statement about the uncertainty of life in post-Communist era Poland.

The construction of the timber-clad house proved rather problematic. The foundations alone required 200 m3 of concrete. Danmar, a timber construction company, took 114 days to construct the house, rather than the normal time of just three weeks, in part due to the regular breaks workers had to take because of the disorientation caused by the strange angles of the walls.

Indeed, visitors to the house often report feelings of giddiness and nausea only a few minutes after they have entered through one of the attic windows and walked along the ceiling.

The interior of the house is furnished in a style typical of houses in the Communist-era Poland of the 1970s. There is even an old TV that shows vintage propaganda.

that upside down feeling

There are many such houses and buildings around the world now such as:

Germany (Trassenheide): Die Welt Steht Kopf (The World Stands on its Head) is completely furnished, including a bathroom and kitchen.

South Africa (Hartbeespoort): An art installation and tourist attraction where the building is angled for stability.

Poland (Pobierowo): A bright blue, modern-styled home frequently visited for its interior.

Niagara Falls: This house looks as if it has been literally picked up and placed on its roof.

And how about the UK? Well, the Upside Down House UK was launched in November 2018 with its first house in Bournemouth and they have expanded to multiple locations nationwide. Tom Dirse, its CEO said: “The success of our very first house in Bournemouth back in 2018 motivated and propelled the business which has gone on to expand throughout the country including residences in Brighton (see image below), Bristol and Lakeside Shopping Centre. Each location is unique, with its own identity.”

From what I can see the other houses are in Cardiff, the Metro Centre, Clacton, Great Yarmouth, Swansea, Portsmouth, Skegness and Liverpool. Although I have just spotted that one is being built in Blackpool.

I will just go back to that reference to some people feeling nauseous when walking around the houses. Years ago when I lived in Coventry a group of us went for a pint at the Crooked House in the Black Country (see image below). We rolled pennies uphill along the floor and bottles up tables. The fixtures and fittings were at wonky angles. A couple of us had to leave the building as they were feeling wonky themselves. I think they took their beers with them.

Upside Down

It's funny how beetles
and creatures like that
can walk upside down
as well as walk flat.

They crawl on a ceiling
and climb on a wall
without any practice
or trouble at all.

While I have been trying
for a year (maybe more)
and still I can't stand
with my head on the floor.

                            Aileen Lucia Fisher, 1986.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q. 

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Upside Down

At the beginning of last summer, we spent a few days on the south coast of England, between Worthing and Brighton, or thereabouts. I really liked Worthing and could be quite at home there. Brighton was pleasant. Being a holiday resort, it was busy, as to be expected. On the front, a quirky upside down house generated interest. I believe it is a tourist attraction. We didn’t visit. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that our own holiday resort, Blackpool, might benefit from the same thing, but sure enough, as I sit typing, an upside down house is under construction somewhere on the sea front at South Shore. While I’m having my daily whinge about the state of roads and pavements in my locality, and wondering why we need special food waste bins when it’s simple enough to bag it separately – oh, yes, someone said rats, ok – I remind myself that Tourism Planning and Town Planning are probably not the same, and don’t share an office, or if they do, it’s all upside down. Was I dreaming about Blackpool being put forward for a future City of Culture status? Let’s wait and see. Mr Bickerstaff had a daft idea about a tower and that worked out just fine.

Upside down, topsy-turvy, inside out. This is still how my house is and has been for nearly a year. I wish the fairies would come during the night and sort it out. Packing up and getting rid of things no longer needed takes forever and I’ve got to be ruthless to downsize. It goes against my nature to part with most things. We’ve spent weeks in our caravan, quite happily with not much more than the basics. Funny, that. We haven’t moved house before. At this rate, it might not happen until Blackpool has City of Culture status.

The family home, children raised here now grandchildren treat it as their own, which is how I like it. This is how sentimental I am. Old photos show the changes through the ages. Furniture, carpets, décor, all a mix of good ideas, or not. We’ve always had painted walls, apart from the lounge. It is painted now, but until recently it was wall-papered. When we did the papering, I did the cutting and pasting, my husband did the hanging, smoothing and finishing trim. Once, we had the entire room papered with the pattern upside down. My fault, of course. Luckily, it was a subtle design, mostly hidden by book shelves and tall furniture. I don’t think anyone noticed.

Imagine the horror of being stuck upside down on a malfunctioning ride in an amusement park. It has happened. A group of people spent thirty minutes suspended upside down 100 feet high for about half an hour when a ride they were on stalled. Everyone was rescued safely and without injury, apart from the discomfort of blood rushing to their heads giving visual problems, dizziness and headache. This occurred in Portland, Oregon, USA in 2024. It might have happened elsewhere, too.

A poem,

Upside Down

It’s funny how beetles
And creatures like that,
Can walk upside down
As well as walk flat.

They crawl on a ceiling
And climb on a wall,
Without any practice
Or trouble at all.

While I have been trying
For a year (may be more)
And I still can’t stand,
With my head on the floor.

    

                                 Aileen Fisher

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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The Masked Singer

It's been a tough few weeks for brother and sister bird. Days of snow and freezing temperatures followed by storm after wet and windy storm are not conducive to singing. It's all about staying alive. Birdsong is for balmier times, and those can't come soon enough - for birds or bloggers!

It's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch week-end and I'll be taking part in the annual one-hour survey tomorrow (because I have footballing duties today). My back garden is a bit of a wreck at the moment, awaiting a nature-friendly make-over in the spring, so I'll probably head to the local park to do my spotting and bird census. There, if I'm lucky, I will see some nuthatches.

nuthatch descending

I've not so far seen nuthatches at the bushes or feeders in my back garden (it's always blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, robins, sparrows and starlings). However, they are becoming more common in these northern parts. RSPB figures show that over the last half-century, the UK population of nuthatches has increased steadily from 70,000 pairs to 250,000 pairs, and their territory has expanded by a third from their southern heartland as they have colonised the country up to the Scottish Borders, an indicator perhaps of the impact of climate change.

They are charming little birds with their grey-blue backs and wings, peachy underbellies and black stripe across the eye (hence the title of today's blog.) They are also unique in being able to walk head first down trees. Various birds (treecreepers and woodpeckers for instance) can climb up tree trunks, but only the cleverly adapted nuthatch can do so in both directions, and is often most easily identified from its distinctive downward stance.

Nuthatches inhabit deciduous woodland, parks and large gardens. Their traditional diet is hazel nuts, beech mast, acorns, wild seeds and insects drilled out of tree bark. However, they are being found increasingly in suburban gardens near parks or woodland, attracted by feeders filled with peanuts or sunflower seeds.

During the breeding season from April onwards they make neat nests in holes in trees or walls, lining them with flakes of bark and dried beech or oak leaves. The clutch of anywhere between six and a dozen eggs is incubated by the female for about two weeks and the young are fed by both male and female birds. The baby nuts are ready to fledge after about five weeks.

Nuthatches can often be heard before they are seen, for their singing voice although not mellifluous is quite recognisable, either as a sort of metallic "chwit chwit" usually followed by a shrill "tsit" and a trill, or as a variant a clear, piping "twee" often repeated and followed by the same rapid trill. 

They are not a common sight (unlike the roll-call of birds I listed earlier), but if you do spot one on a walk through the woods, you'll almost certainly see a second, for they usually fly in pairs except when the female is incubating the eggs. They are a joy to behold, truly delightful little creatures.

nuthatch ascending

It was while I was working in Warsaw fifteen years ago that my then wife and I went for a Sunday afternoon visit to Łazienki Park, the city's largest and oldest green space. We'd actually gone to hear a Chopin piano recital in the park's famous orangery, but walking along the path through woodland  to get there I was surprised to see nuthatches everywhere. There were literally dozens of them within half a mile, flitting about or running up and down trees. It was the most amazing sight and the absolute highlight of the day (though the recital was enjoyable and the hot chocolate with whipped cream was excellent). It left me wondering if Chopin, who grew up in Warsaw in the early 19th century, might have taken compositional inspiration from the singing of the city's trilling nuthatches.

In Łazienki Park

Upside down world, her father dying 

and she struggling to cope,
we held hands tightly I suppose

partly for the cold.
I don't recall that we spoke.

Spring and a flurry of snowflakes 
from iron sky with dull milk sun
as we strolled through avenues
of ancient beech and oak 

all bare but not deserted 

for darting round their trunks
a spectacular fluster of nuthatches
clinging, climbing, up, down,
striped like bandits, shaped for torpedoes
and their insistent metallic song

forged defiant on chilly air. 

Kowalik: blacksmith in native tongue,

how apt is that. I'd never seen

so many in one place before.

She scarcely noticed, I thrilled at the sight.

But once inside the Orangery, its circle

of warmth and chairs, with hot chocolate

and Chopin's études spilling

like the striking songs of birds,

she smiled, setting the world aright.

Here's a short clip of nuthatches singing: Nuthatches

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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