In 2016 I made a little book to capture a snapshots of a cottage in Ceredigion which I came to know very well as it was in my partner's family and became our favourite place. Bought 50 years ago, it provided a home from home for three generations and many branches of the Thomas family, originally from Wales and who love Cardigan Bay. Its furnishings had barely changed since it was first taken over by the family, everything had its place and it had a very particular smell of coal and books and carpet and holidays. It remains nestled in a quiet unchanging valley but no longer belongs to the family. Before it was emptied I made a book with image and text capture snapshots of how it was. Some images and excerpts below.

How to describe the resonance of this place?

What is the sum of the things inside? Each person has their own capsule of experience here,

memories triggered by smells or sealed in ritual repetition.

The cottage is so much more than the things inside, but they're layered with sedimentary traces of all our times here.

they joy of life stripped to its simplest elements-

making warmth, preparing food. the comfort of cooking with the same old pans, awkwardly improvising with inadequate tools; grater, knives, chopping board.

Clammy condensation gathers on the kitchen and bathroom walls. these are rooms which have their own weather

We share the knowing of this place.

It resonates within us and between us,

We are connected by the people

who dreamed it, who built it, who bought it,

who put plates on the wall,

who left shells on the shelves and sand in the carpet,

and all the generations who've slept in that bed.