I’ll give you a glimpse of Tegfan’s secret garden. To find it, you have to leave the house and walk down the lane. It’s not far but it’s very secret. You can see the garden in this photo because the leaves have fallen from the hedging plants. In the summer it’s much harder to peer through the stalks and branches.

In the past this plot has been a vegetable garden and a great site for big bonfires. In the future we thought it would be a good place for visiting young people to camp out: the tent would be close enough for easy washing and eating with the family at Tegfan but far enough away for a bit more space and independence.

Other houses in Dinas have secret gardens too. When we summer holidayed with my great aunt, at the other end of the village, I knew that she had a garden behind the high hedge on the other side of the main road. We children were never invited to play there but I remember her emerging onto the road, through the greenery, carrying armfuls of fresh vegetables. And there was nothing fresher than the smell of  her home-grown parsley, chopped for cawl at lunchtime. That smell still reminds me of sunny childhood holidays in Dinas.