Time machine toilet

This builders' toilet appeared, Tardis-like, right outside my front door last week. I should hate it, but strangely I like it. I like that the designer has tried to fight against its inherent hideousness and functionality. They've made it sky blue and added weather motifs, something to remind you of summer and open-sky fields. Though it is still a toilet.

I like it too because it is a symbol of my neighbour's unquenchable spirit. A man who was teaching at the University when I was still unweaned. He is in his mid-eighties but surprised my defeatist prejudices by announcing that he is having his garden totally re-landscaped, ready for the next ten years. A man who, whilst I would hop in the car to travel the mile to the supermarket, regularly leaves his car at home and paces off with his shopping bag and two replacement knees, there and back again.