Kneeling on the stony cold earth, I regret leaving bulb planting until the beginning of December. Neither my trowel nor my wrists feel up to the job.

Living in a house with its back in the forest creates a feeling of seclusion and protection.

Just as you think the transition from winter to spring is never going to happen, you awake one morning, look out across the valley and there it is; a hesitant haze of leaf and bud, and life feels better for it.

Deep valleys studded with tough silver holm oaks and hardy heather, craggy low mountains and uncompromising granite outcrops, remote waterfalls, serpentine rushing rivers and hushed chestnut forests.