Fifteen minutes, and the usefulness of dogs

The mechanic swore slightly and gesticulated to the door of our aged Golf - "eet will 'ave to come off, Madame, eef you want to replace ze retroviser (wing mirror) quinze minutes, d'accord."
'Okay', I said, 'I'll walk the dogs'. I would have gone and sat in their - unusually, for a garage - warm waiting room but the dogs were starting to howl, so a walk in freezing drizzle seemed a kinder option for him, and them.
This particular fifteen minutes of my life turned out to be a lot more inspirational than drinking a weird version of hot chocolate from a plastic cup and flipping though Tyre Monthly.
Behind the garage and beyond a sign that read - no admittance, skulked a vast, mostly-derelict building set amongst sweeping tracts of weed-pocked concrete. Beautiful.
Oddly, this very morning I'd been thinking of finding a suitable place to set up and film/photograph a few scenes from my 'Dyst - hopian' (Dystopia with hope) book. Thanks to a stubborn door panel and howling dogs, I think I may have found it . . .





Large building and small runty dog

Building No 3

As part of my series on odd buildings, I snapped this one in St Girons on the way to the St Lizier music festival.
It sits at the side of a prominent road in the town centre like a depressed lego brick; seems to have no purpose, but no for sale sign on it either. The paint colour suggests a bruise, apart from the top which has a fresh layer of concrete - as if the top of the building had tried to escape from the rest of itself. The doorway is a yawn and the shutters sleepy. I wonder if someone added the small quarry tile decoration in an attempt to liven it up.

Dental surgery? Ministry of boredom? Concrete storage facility . . .?