Pont Abermaw

I once considered buying a flat in Barmouth, out on the north Wales coast. It was at the top of a tall four storey building overlooking the sea. At the front of the property you had an amazing view looking across to the wooden bridge that carries the railway over the water and into the town.

Access to the flat was via a winding set of external metal steps. Going up and down on a frozen winter’s morning would probably have been lethal, And how did you get furniture into the place? The flat was old and unloved, the fuse box a potential death trap of exposed switches. It was best to draw a veil over the state of the bathroom or the damp patches on what presumably would’ve become my bedroom.

None of these angles had been visible in the estate agents pictures which had first persuaded me to make a two day pilgrimage here from the furthest western edge of Cornwall. Maybe that was okay though. It’s good to get out sometimes.

The flat belonged to the sister of the woman who showed me around. At one time the whole building had belonged to their parents and after their death it passed to them. She owned the bottom two floors – on the ground floor there was a bustling pizza restaurant – and her sister the top two. Floor three had been converted into a luxury holiday rental and the top flat retained for the sister’s own use.

It was explained to me that the sister lived and worked in London. She no longer found the time to get back to Wales as much as she once had. She needed the extra money, hence the sale.

The flat was being offered at a very reasonable price. Property prices in north Wales were generally as low or lower than where I was living at the time. Barmouth bridge itself is amazing. I could’ve sat watching trains coming and going across it all day long – although they are few and far between given the two hourly service connecting this remote coastline to Aberystwyth at one end and Shrewsbury at the other.

I don’t really have any regrets about that flat. It would’ve needed a lot of work to make it liveable 24/7. I didn’t know any local builders. It would have been hard to supervise works from hundreds of miles away. Then there were the stairs to tackle every day. That didn’t seem like fun. I imagine on stormy winter nights, that flat would’ve been very exposed to the elements. The flat I was renting back then had the same issues. It was probably a blessing that there were so many impenetrables that stopped me from even considering making an offer. But that view. Oh man, that view was as potent as a Colombian field full of poppies.

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Barmouth is a seaside resort. I was there in March, out of season. At the guesthouse I stayed in the owners told me how the town became overwhelmed with tourists in the summer. That didn’t particularly bother me. I lived a few miles from St Ives and nowhere compares to that for summer tourism. Even Penzance ebbs and flows with the seasons. I liked both states – the derelict charms of winter and the bustling throng of summer months where you can move anonymously through the crowds with a certainty and knowledge that outweighs that of the visitors. I was more worried about being an outsider. My lack of the language. The town felt more imposing, more remote than Penzance. But I’m sure in time I could’ve found my space. I live a very discrete life.

If the town didn’t steal my heart, the surrounding area offered ample compensations. Wide open beaches. Coastal walks. Keeping watch over it all, the mountains of Snowdonia. It was a lot. A small man could easily feel overwhelmed by it all.

Adjacent to Barmouth was Fairbourne, a coastal community built on reclaimed salt marshes and now at incipient risk of being given back to the sea. At the time of my visit you could buy one of the many bungalows that made up the bulk of the village for ridiculously low prices. The reason was simple – no one would give you a mortgage to buy them. The area was high flood risk. Climate change had already sealed their fate. The local council had decided not to spend more money on flood defences, instead instituting a longer term plan to remove and relocate the entire population elsewhere.

The villagers appeared to be split. Those who wanted to sell up couldn't because that decision had flicked a switch that made their properties worthless overnight. Others simply didn’t want to leave, wanted alternatives to be found, further flood defences to be considered. It crossed my mind to buy one of these properties. Fairbourne seemed less imposing than Barmouth. I was a cash buyer, so the lack of mortgage options wasn’t a barrier. The odds were I might see out my days there before the forced relocation even occurred. Any resale value didn’t concern me, I had no dependents to pass the property on to.

But I suppose I’m not a gambler. The prices seemed too good to be true, even once I’d come to understand why they were so low. And floods don’t run to a timetable, unlike the trains. It could’ve been safe for a decade or two, it could've been overwhelmed by water before I’d even set foot inside it for myself. Fairbourne was just the first quiet rumbling of a problem that was and is going to percolate its way around every coast of this exposed island nation.

I still sometimes think of an alternative me that moved to north Wales. Trekking by bus to one of the larger towns once a week to do grocery shopping. Walking in the foothills of those imposing mountains. Learning the local language, but never speaking it out loud. Reading by the shoreline. Standing by the famous wooden viaduct, watching the trains lumbering into town. Summers and winters pleasingly delineated by the size of the local population.

I think I made it okay. I think I’m happy there. But I’m always watching for the tide, aware of how much power it holds over me.