I lived in Siena Close. A “close” is what a “compound” is in Manila.

One of the few regrets I had was not being able to take as many pictures as I can when I lived abroad. Homesickness got the best of me like some unexplainable disease. Now I understand how those overseas workers feel every time they leave home and stay in a land where you don’t actually matter.

I lived and stayed in one of those brick houses with real chimneys. In my drawings as a kid, I always had chimneys on the rooftop just enough for Santa. These days, it is rare you’d find brick houses with fireplaces. Modern housing technology has replaced it with what they call heaters or boilers. These boilers do not just act as your heater but are also responsible for your water temperature. You would know that a house is using their heater when you’d see smoke coming off their roofs. When the boiler in my cousin’s house broke down, it was a winter wonderland experience. No one really took a bath.

The backyard

Those reddish brown bricks are basically a protection from cold. They are an exterior covering on top of plaster and wood. English houses do have attics where they store stuff they rarely use. Some modern houses in the neighborhod have their own mini-storage houses in their backyards.

My room. That’s the heater below the window.

I spent my evenings reading volumes of books in my room, It’s a well lit room, although one would have wished for a Hinkley lighting. Reading whatever books I could find in the house became some kind of an addictive hobby. You can’t help it when you’re bored. My cousin bought me two fantasy books of Robert Jordan. I also kept a diary where I wrote down my plans, dreams and the things I missed back in Manila. When you’re outside the country, Manila seemed like a very distant galaxy.