Windows on the island...

...I can´t say I have been spending a great amount of time in my past living in Germany thinking about windows and how they open, how easy you can clean them, etc. That changed quickly when I started spending more and more time in the UK. Windows here are in general quite small and you can´t really open them. Ok, you can open them a liiittle bit to allow at least a minimum of ventilation but that´s it. No hope for survival in hot and sticky summer nights (yes, they do exist even here...sometimes at least).
Not being able to open them properly (and to make it more awkward they open to the outside) of course doesn´t make it possible to clean the outside easy. I can´t pretend to be a big fan of window cleaning but as soon as it is not possible to do anymore (unless you have a huge ladder or know  and pay someone who does) I´m obsessed with it. I hate the windows they use over there, I think they are pointless and give me a feeling of claustrophobia in the summer. They seem to have finally got rid of the guillotine-style windows where you didn´t dare leaning out of underneath unless you felt suicidal only to replace it with an equally useless system.
But it can get worse - some people think it is a good idea to "decorate" the outside of the glass with funny metal-like lines (I´m sure they have a name but I can´t think of it) which gives a fake medieval look... reminds me of the Dursleys and the only word for it is bourgeois. Hate it! 1:0 for Germany.

www.everglade.co.uk

In 1650 Mr. Vermeer already knew of the joy an open window can bring...just wouldn´t happen in nowadays Britain ;-)