A Home

Dear Diary,

My little Welsh cottage is writing today.

(She writes in Welsh but I have translated).

I am of the riverside, Ty’r Gof is my proper name which means 'home of the blacksmith'. My other half, the Forge is set apart but not far away. Happily I nestle not too near the water’s edge, I know her moods too well and am always prepared for those rare days when she can quickly roar, flood and turn against me. There are sandbags at my door.

Do come and visit me. Everyone says I have an aura of calm and I will surely welcome you in like a long lost friend. The locals used to call me 'little house' in Welsh for I was not much more than a cabin once, if truth be told, but I have been added on to overtime and always very much loved. I am built of river-stone, no-one knows my age but it is over two hundred years at least. A road of the Romans is in my pastures, I may have dwelled here before but in some other form, a past life is highly likely.

No word like property defines my soul (I am a home) and there are no en suites to be found. My mistress would not allow the words master bedroom over my threshold. She is a feminist and she is rather eccentric She cares not that all about me is offbeat and quirky, all is small. But I do have a big heart (but then between you and me she does too).

I am built of ancient heartbeats, there is buried silver in the ghosts of passed children’s laughter and the sound of the blacksmith’s anvil breathes in my rough-hewn walls.

My kitchen has walls of deep red now, she is like a scarlet woman who comes into her own at night. Her bare wood shelves spill over with staples and pots and pans hang over the cooker. Everyone and everything is just comfy here,not grand but comfy. It is a place to eat, to watch birds at the feeder outside the window, to mull and to moodle or to lose oneself in music or the radio, to cook even and to maybe bake a poem from a dream.

My tiny snug is rough-ceilinged but walls of gold adorn her and the view past the river is of an ancient wood. A very old Rayburn lives here. She is an easy-sleeping and a peaceful reading room, I cast a spell on all who enter here as I sit upon a magic spring.

Come into my parlour where fairy lights adorn the walls and crystals dress the windows - like dogs they are not just for Christmas for the angels love them all year round. They love my bright colours, candles, music too.

My bedrooms have not much room for more than a bed of brass with patchwork thrown across them but there is a vast patchwork of green without for the tiny windows open on to a river-view, the tops of the pine trees and a field with hills beyond.

My garden is still sleeping but as if from a dream has been reluctantly emerging from the deep snow which adorned her for weeks. She was beautiful and magical then, I miss it so, we made such a pretty pair. And now she is just a soggy mess. But Spring is nigh and I promise to show you round her then when she is looking her very best.

For now she must not be disturbed……..

Remind me, do.

Bye for now,

Ty r Gof.xx