I took a different path today turning right out of my driveway and walking West under a sky that was full of the promise of snow until I got to a turning in the road and veered South walking along a narrow road and eventually I came to a very broad, and, out of context, glaring driveway made of  large pieces of grey stone. It had not been there before. The planning permission sign caught my eye and the name of the applicant infuriated me because it belongs to a  local developer who seems intent on destroying this ancient townland. I kept walking though accompanied by the dog and I admit,  some very coarse language that I let go out loud. There was nobody around to hear me, thankfully. I walked until I reached the original lane that led to the old property that Mr. Moneybags is going to ''transform''. The lane is beautiful, overgrown with a thick ribbon of grass running up the center. The hedgerow lining it is what some people pay money for nowadays, people who have a clue, that is.  Alas, it won't be long before the hedgerow is bulldozed. I walked along with the  sniffy  mutt drinking in the serenity of the place, knowing that its days are numbered. When I got closer to the house I had to cross a very large mud puddle, full of cow shit and rotting matter and  I cursed the fact that I wore the wrong shoes, a pair of old canvas sneakers that soon got destroyed. No matter, it was worth it. The house was hard to discern, it was practically covered in brambles. I pushed open the rusted garden gate that led to the front door and the only windows consisted of two that faced south, smart I thought for the sunlight the people living here must have craved but depressing as the light in the rest of the house must have been limited. The walls, judging by the width from the inset of the windows were about two feet thick. I pushed at the front door but Mr. Developer had put a large lock on the door and so I turned back to explore the farm yard. In an old shed behind the house a small mound of furniture was stacked and along with it some  chipped  teacups, a blackened tea kettle and  a  cooker, chipped and stained, made up the sad sight. I was hoping to find something, something that I could take away but there was nothing worth salvaging. It crossed my mind though how all of this must have meant the world to the people who lived here long ago, how all the material goods mattered and here they were now, discarded and worthless, all forgotten about like the very people  who eked out  their existence in this place . The dog was restless and  pulled at his leash and so I turned away to walk back, and to avoid the mud puddles, I took the new gravelled driveway. I felt I had gathered something though. The value we put on our possessions is futile, how irrelevant they are in the end. I thought about my cosy kitchen at home, the pottery and the pine table and my lovely new fangled gas stove, the pictures and the jars of seeds and flours on the shelves and I felt sure that in years to come, a woman walking along the road would come across my house. She would push open the stiff and unused door to  see a broken old table and bits of china strewn on the  floor and I bet she will  wonder at  who lived there and that she might possibly even hear the voices of the ghosts laughing  and mocking her from way down the hall. And like Mr. Developer we are all only passing through.