The farm lies vacant, a vagrant, at the northern edge of the village.
It hasn’t been occupied for many years. This previously mighty engine once built to control nature has gradually succumbed to the persistence of its advance. Grass spikes sprout between the paths of split stones. In the main house, moss traverses crazy-cracked plaster walls and tree roots have surfaced from the dark earth to ravage tiled floors.
I bought the farm with the intention of carrying out most of the restorative work myself. My confidence had been inflated by my success in renovating an inner city, one bedroomed flat. In comparison to what I now surveyed in this bleak and inhospitable landscape, I realised that what I had achieved previously could only be considered redecoration.
Within the building, I consider the ceilings that have long since collapsed, fractured and falling exhausted to the floors. The chimney has crumpled to spew soot and debris from the fireplace. A trail of ash lies like a carpet of frozen lava across the tiles. Drunkenly, the front door lurches back and forth, hanging from a single hinge.
This will be my next home. For now, I retreat in search of warmth and sustenance.
In the bar of the local hotel I hide in plain sight listening to my soon to be neighbours chuckle and chortle about 'some idiot with too much cash and too few brains' buying the farm. There are three women and two men present. A comfortable group, they are clad in garments of muted tweeds and beige. They are at ease within themselves and with each other. They have eaten and a silver wine cooler sits centre stage; an altar for self-worship.
'Did I tell you that our eldest got into the University then? Biodiversity and Environmental Sustainability'. This from the dominant male, a ruddy faced bear of a man who rests his interlocked fingers on his substantial stomach.
'I had to ask him what that was exactly! Well, you don’t know these days. Things have changed so much'. The woman opposite is paper pale and pecks like an anxious bird when speaking.
'Just used to be called 'farming' in our day, eh, Bill? Agricultural College if you were lucky'. This second man mirrors the posture of the first. He is deferential and seeks approval. His wife rests her hand on his arm to soften the disappointment she knows will follow.
The one I now know to be Bill addresses his flock. 'No money in agriculture now, Tommy. Old style farming is a mug’s game. It’s all about stuff like intense tillage, inorganic fertilisers and genetic manipulation. Higher yields, better and bigger crops'.
'Prepare, produce and profit'. The group turns to look at the woman who has spoken. She sips from her glass while staring back across its rim. She is obviously the spare wheel, the partner-less friend. Her use of a mantra readily attributable to Bill goes unacknowledged.
The mood remains light. It is agreed generally that at least the old place will get tidied up, be less of an eyesore. The conversation assumes a darker tone as one of their number wonders if the purchaser of the old farm will be converting it into low cost housing. Maybe even social housing. A halfway house or refuge, perhaps? Or accommodation for the refugees who are spilling over from the city. Drinks are consumed more rapidly as each of these options is considered; arms are folded as the drinkers sit back in their chairs. With the soft glow of wine, nostalgia washes through the group.
I project a back story onto them. I realise that these are the local landowners. Representatives of the previous generations who have worked with the seasons and within this landscape to maximise the potential of these fields, forests and hedgerows.
As adults, they remember the village of their childhood and reminisce about how, as bold youngsters, they would scramble through the outbuildings and barns. The hayloft was their fortress, the abandoned tractor their tour bus and the grain silo the rocket ship within which they explored the cosmos. The summers then were warm as unbaled straw.
Now their children pointedly snub the farm as they do their aging parents. The discarded rolls of barbed wire would rip through their designer trainers. The mud and silage would smear their clothes, marking their passage across the yard and through the farm.
'Truth is,' says Bill, 'I said to the lad, I said, “no future in farming, not in the old style anyway”.’ Bill leans forward and his congregation mirror this, bowing to receive the gospel. 'Holiday lets. That’s the way forward. Rustic wooden cabins, posh tents, mountain bikes...' Tommy taps the side of his nose in genuflection.
'So, I told the lad straight, “you can forget about that university for now. This family has lived and farmed around here for years. It’s your turn to step up, your responsibility now.” Besides, I said, we’re sitting on an opportunity here, potential gold mine. Me and the wife have set you up, now it’s up to you. All you have to do is go for it.'
Returning to the farmhouse, I look around the ancient outbuildings.
In the oldest of the barns, the roof is held up by the three remaining walls, the most robust, being constructed of double brick. Over time, the elements have conspired to assault the brickwork. Thin tracts of mortar have been gouged out, small sections chipped away and rendered derelict and an inner darkness revealed behind these gaps in the weathered surface. Generations of swallows and house martins have used the cracks and fissures in this wall to nest. Every season, the hatchlings born into these nests jostle for position. Those who are either too weak or overly bold stumble and fall into the void between the double-bricked wall and remain there trapped, to lie unheeded upon the bodies of their ancestors, squawking in the darkness.