Just Popped Out

In the part of Britain where we live, the value of land and development rights is so high that a sight like this is almost unthinkable. It's not the first time I have seen such a thing in the remote areas of the West, but this is 7km from Cardigan, 4km from a large coastal village and 3km from an airfield that amusingly styles itself "West Wales Airport" (actually it is a centre for companies wanting to test drones - not the sort photographers use!). From this house, there is an uninterrupted view around the entirety of Cardigan Bay, from Bardsey Island, off the tip of Northwest Wales, 70km away, to the flashing lighthouse on Strumble Head, 40km away in the far Southwest

West Wales does not do tumbleweed but, if it did, there would be a large sphere blowing accross the picture. The scene here is straight out of Hollywood, like an abandoned farm in the 1930s dust bowl. The house was once handsome - that blue around the window is intricate decorative plaster-work. Machinery lies abandoned in the barns: a bailer, a plough, a hay-tedder, though the barns themselves have disintegrated around them. The remains of the engine room still holds the vacuum reservoir from the milking plant - as was common, it is actually an upturned milking bucket: very high quality stainless steel still shining bright amid the ubiquitous rust. There is even a much-vandalised car, overgrown with brambles, sitting in the garage - the steering wheel is still in situ, which I found unnerving. I did not goi into the house, but I feel there should be a kettle on the stove and remains of a meal on the table 

It is hard to imagine the combination of financial, social and personal factors that have brought this about. I expect the locals know and that there are some well-spun stories, but they have kept it off the internet, so we must spin our own