Imagine if, as a teen you visited a place. 

 

A place of grey rock and mist, dramatic skies and gentle meadows. 

And, at the top of the place, the highest hill - a view. A mountain no one talks about, in a corner of the world no one visits.

 

It isn’t yours, but you wish it were and as you grew you went back from time to time. Wistfully, looking from afar. 

You got busy with life. You start a business, then another and another and 15 years pass. 

 

The place changes too; weeds and thistles grow where the earth was disturbed and then left. Projects half done, dreams only partially fulfilled. 

 

And then one day comes word from a friend. 

It isn’t a good time, you’re too busy! What will you do with it? It’s huge and needs so much work. 

You don’t hesitate. 

You buy it before it hits the open market and every spare day you get you go there and start the slow, painful process of healing the soil, scraping away the years of rubbish, letting light into dark spaces and warmth into cold floor boards. 

 

A fortune is spent in time, sweat, money and heart and finally, the place is that place again. A world unto itself. 

 

 

In sterquiliniis invenitur - In filth it will be found. 

- Alchemical dictum