We countdown the days before visiting Grandad’s. The drive feels endless—motorways and more motorways that stretch on forever—until finally, the landscape begins to change. The hills rise, slowly at first, and then all at once. We pull off onto roads that wind through fields of sheep up onto the fells. Then we turn down the bending track into the valley, and along the bumpy lane, until the house comes into view—steady, familiar, waiting.

Grandad appears at the door.
“Hiya Otis! Hiya Milo!” he says, in his familiar greeting.

The winters are colder, the summer days longer. In the mornings, we check the shed for mice that have become trapped in the tubs of bird seed, scooping them into glass jars before setting them free. In the evenings, we light the biggest bonfires. Smoke clings to our clothes, our faces lit by the flames, the night stretching out around us.

Inside the house, everything has its rhythm. The fireplace in the living room—tended to early each morning—burns steadily through colder days. The stove in the kitchen, coals always glowing. The soft hush of the rooms upstairs, where nothing much ever seems to happen. We don’t think much of it at the time, but there’s a kind of magic in how things stay the same—the rituals, the quiet moments. Time moves more slowly here.

Photographs catch something just outside the frame of memory—the slant of afternoon light in the garden; Grandad’s huge hands reaching out to us, without hurry; the quiet magic woven through the fabric of daily life. These aren’t big stories, but the in-between—the way we play, the way we linger. The house itself seems to invite curiosity, and to hold us, without ever asking.