In Budesti, as in other villages, the wooden church was by no means evident; you had to seek out your way there. There was no road to it, rather it was somewhere in among the wooden houses and fences, to be reached by asking and venturing, and as in many villages, the route involved opening the gates of people's yards and crossing to another gate, with the slender wooden spire in view or where you thought it was last time you glimpsed it. There was usually someone in the yard and you asked the way and were always generously helped and this help at some point took the form of a guide who dropped everything he or she was doing and led you where you wanted to go and showed you what you wanted to see. It was a courtesy, not an opportunity

At Budesti this was a young man, a wrought iron worker we think he said, in one of the strange rimless round hats they wear in that region ("Why is this person wearing a culender?" as Kathy said when she saw the photograph) whose dog had barked and so took us under his wing and led us through several yards across mud-patches and through gates until we descended into the churchyard. And again one of those extraordinary sculptural edifices standing in long grass.

He hadn't got a key to it, but he was proud of it, it was a "national historical monument" and it was in his village. We stood at the west end gazing at it and as we moved round to the south became aware of a woman sitting on the bench that almost encircled the church under its overhanging roof, weeping. "This woman," the guide explained, "is very sad." She was about 45 with a quite gnarled round face, wearing, for the first time, the widow's hood that we'd seen so many women wearing in the streets of so many villages, but wearing it anew. "This woman's husband," the guide said, "died two days ago." And this, I thought, must be what you do in a place like this if this is what happens to you. You go down to the old church and sit on the bench, for how long, I don't know, how many hours, days, perhaps nights... Here as anywhere, you claim a solitude in which you can donate yourself to the moment in all your hatred of it, knowing somehow, that this is how you work your way through it, and return to your life. Is this what you do?

Aware of these sightseers she became slightly animated and got up and turned aside from us and stood awkwardly in the grass, snuffling and shaking her head. Tears flew from her into the grass. As we moved round that side of the church, Beryl put an arm round her shoulder for a moment. We all bowed our heads involuntarily as before an icon.

The roofs of these things are made of oak shingles and rear above you like enormous waves.

First published in Oasis 100 (London June 2000).