community

It’s Monday afternoon; below us in the street a blizzard of snowflakes.  All around the shelves are piled to the ceiling with yarn, stock for the shop below, winking out its gorgeous colours and textures through plastic bags.

“Ee you’d only come out for Sewing Café.”

Lancaster must be a city – it’s got a cathedral and a market and a city council.  Proof enough!  But of a Saturday we all go "into town” and every seeming stranger that we meet there,  knows someone who knows someone that you know.

Truth to tell, even with our best transition endeavours, the thing that really puts food on our table and keeps the family clothed, fed and sheltered is our architecture practice.

I’ve recently moved into a new cohousing community, a few miles from Lancaster, where private homes mix with communal living. The heart of any cohousing community is its common house - a cross between a village hall, and a communal living/dining room; a space to help us deepen our connections with each other.