Fate and the Farmhouse.

There’s a farmhouse in Mill Lane that was built in 1854, the year before Charlotte Bronte died. It’s a typical example of an English Victorian yeoman’s dwelling – double fronted, with the door in the middle, a window either side, and three windows on the upper wall. There’s an extended section on the back that would originally have housed the kitchen and food store, although I don’t know how the rooms are laid out now. It isn’t used as a farmhouse these days either; the number of smallholdings in the English countryside is dwindling.

It’s a solid, sturdy sort of house and looks to be in good condition. The yard, fences and boundary wall are tidy enough. There’s nothing scruffy about it, and no sense of decay. And yet it looks unhappy.

More than that, it looks resigned to its fate. It has the air of a place that’s been lived in, but not loved; a house, but not a home. It needs someone to connect with it and form a partnership, to encourage it to show its true character and develop some self-esteem.

You’d think that fate would place it in my lap, wouldn’t you? But fate is ever pragmatic; fate rarely does fanciful.