I say neighbours but you can’t actually see them from our house (unless you include there sheep which reside in the fields between their house and ours). To see the human neighbours and their farm house you have to walk down a steep hill through four fields, a mass of bracken across a path into another field and then you’ll be there as you can imagine months can pass by without us seeing one another. However when we first moved in the neighbours which consisted of two brothers, who were the remaining family running the farm after they had inherited it from their parents, the other eight siblings had long ago left the family nest. There had been a third brother who had stayed on at the family farmhouse, this brother we never got to meet as he had passed away serval years before our arrival, though if local legend is to be believed he was something of a character, stories for another day.
We first got to meet Delmy the oldest remaining brother, a gentleman well into his seventies possibly eighties, as he arrived bouncing over the top of the hill from his house having walked up through the five steep fields to get to us with his two dogs, Juno and Bobby in tow. He was so spritely and smartly dressed, I later learnt he had donned his best suit to pop up and visit us that first day. We were most definitely not donning our Sunday best but instead a sweaty, dirty mess dressed in old jeans and torn t-shirts still busy clearing the house out. Delmy didn’t seem to notice the state we were in, or if he did he politely ignored it and it can’t have put him off too much as his visits became a regular occurrence. Delmy would arrive a few times a week, sharing great stories with us about how our house had once looked and all the fun that had been had in it. According to Delmy, two owners previous to us it had been a grand house. Now our house is by no means huge, but it had apparently been well very well maintained, a swimming pool installed in the garden (when he was telling us this, said pool was a murky, dark bog full of broken pallets, fallen branches and discarded plastic pipes not the glorious pool he spoke of) patios had been laid all around, trees planted and the best interior design used inside. Delmy told us how he used to come up to the house and enjoy spending sunny days swimming and lounging by the pool. Delmy would tell us all this whilst lending a hand loading up the cars and van with the boxes and bags coming out the house. We understand also that the land had once been used as a caravan site and the track leading up to it had been well maintained to allow this, through chats with both Delmy and other locals we have managed to piece together a fair bit of both recent and ancient history of the property and land. I’m not sure we alway fully understood what Delmy was telling us, because despite his knowledge, communication was somewhat difficult, Delmy some years previous had suffered with throat cancer which had left him with a very stained voice combined with a strong local accent, it could make conversations between us a little confusing.
Sadly our visits from Delmy only lasted our first few months in Wales as he became unwell during the summer, and later that year Delmy passed away. I am very grateful that we got to know Delmy in those early days and he certainly made us feel welcome, which was comforting when you so often hear how difficult it can be to be accepted in a rural area. I hope Delmy enjoyed getting to know us too, I think we amused and intrigued him.
Recent Comments