The house next door

Sometimes when it rains it looks as if Mr Griffith's house is crying as the water pulls colour out of the limewash on the walls. Centuries of stories whisper from the stones, the voices of children grown old by the fires in the chimney fawr, cats who have cozied by the flames in the winter.
Once there were chickens here, and horses. Once an old badger made a home in one of the barns, a lame fox came to be fed in the late evening light. Now the grass grows long in the yard, but Mr Griffiths still feeds the birds and small creatures who gather around whenever he comes outside.