Windows into a wonderful world--2

Old window at Canterbury Cathedral

Windows tell you a lot about a place, a people, a time, a civilization, We take ours for granted, though I wish our 1970s house had bigger ones. Many of the newer ones do, but they're not distinctive, just cookie-cutter pre-fab ones.  
Go back in time and you'll find American windows smaller, especially on the frontier, or in pre-white man days when there was no glass. We're spoiled today with storm windows, screens, air conditioning and more. 

Parliament, Union Jack, from Westminster cloisters

Over time, windows reflect a civilization and culture, and that tells you something about the shallowness of America. Only in some aging neighborhoods in the city and elsewhere do you find windows with character, grace and style.
Windows draw me, my imagination--so many stories, histories, ghosts, hopes, fears--demanding to be photographed, to be encountered.
In England and Scotland I found different stories, growing out of centuries of habitation.
Too many words--I was overwhelmed everywhere I went, and it's hard to write about, to organize. The windows help. 

Canterbury Cathedral, from its cloisters

Earls Court Tube station--our window to the rest of London

A sea of red buses outside the 18th Century pub, The Clarence
 

Parliament...windows on freedom

Westminster, windows on the past