A good year for damsons

They're hanging like bunches of grapes on the old withered trees at this tumbledown farm where I go to pick them each year. No one else ever does; they ripen and rot on the branches, untouched except by wasps and mould spores.

The fruit cooks down to an intense, slightly  astringent compote or jam that releases its mellow fruitfulness throughout the winter months. A friend turns them into wine.

The old ruined farm. reached via grassy lanes from a back road  over the mountain, could become someone's dream holiday home one day. Would it lose its Welsh name as 'too difficult to pronounce'? Would anyone recognise these shrivelled branches as the source of a rich harvest of anthocyanins? I doubt it.