Iolo’s Revenge: Sheep Farming by Happy Accident in Mid-Wales

They’ll do! They’re the ones I want’, said the old farmhouse, probably in Welsh, and the couple (the ones the old place wanted) were drawn into the life of the place – inspired by its beauty, its creatures, its moods and its stories. An orderly, retired, English couple accidentally buy a derelict farmhouse in the Welsh borders. They had never had any inclination to move to Wales, nor practice extreme farming, nor learn Welsh – never planned to fell giant trees, dig ponds, nor wrestle with huge sheep on freezing hillsides in the middle of the night. Life just took over and before they knew it they had rediscovered a sense of belonging and community lost since childhood. In 2005 Diana Ashworth and her husband spotted a dilapidated farmhouse with 25 acres in a rural hamlet in Montgomeryshire, the plan being for a holiday home. They were outbid at the auction, wished the new owners well and thought nothing more of it. But the sale fell through and before they knew it they’d had ‘their offer’ accepted (what offer? – I didn’t know we’d made an offer!) They moved in and were rapidly drawn deeper and deeper into the life of the place and its people, working all hours to make the tumble-down house habitable, and somehow stumbling into hill farming along the way. This is their story. Written with an infectious warmth and humour, Iolo’s Revenge is a hugely engaging account of the couple’s new life in the Welsh borders – a life embarked upon with gusto and generosity, openness and wonder, and interspersed with drama and a great deal of unintended comedy. Diana Ashworth is a retired doctor who lives on a twenty-five acre farm-holding in Wales with her husband Alan and their Spanish Labrador Pedro Gonzalez.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Logaston Press (6 July 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 184 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1910839248
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1910839249