My first post!  This was an exercise in trying to set the scene and description - trying to see if I can convey to a reader what I am picturing.

The farm house at the end of the dirt track lane had stood alone for many years.  We used to ride our bikes along the unused gravel and peer through the murky cobwebbed windows, trying to snatch a glimpse at what had once kept this house alive.

We were its only visitors, keeping it company as the paint flaked from the window frames, dust filled its living room shelves and birds made messy nests in its eaves, knocking more slates loose as the spring months went by.

We imagined ghosts staring sadly out at us as we scratched our names in the dust by the broken gate or noisily played war by the huge oak tree, overgrown paddock and slimy, oily water butt.

Our voices echoed around the desolate hallway as we dared one another to shout through the letterbox – short, nervous bursts of sound the only thing to cross the threshold.

We never knew who had once lived there, but the house never protested against our imagined versions of its fate – crazed murderers, mad old women, witches, trapped children.  It remained solid, grey, but proud, defiant of its neglect. 

We were its only guests - children with scuffed knees, pockets full of stones and sniffing noses.  And even we left it behind it eventually.