The spring unfolds before us, unstoppable now. Every day change and momentum. Each peak within this wave of energy is replaced not by a trough but with another. Profusion and plenty as the primroses are eclipsed by hedgerow fullness, dog’s mercury, dead nettle and the rise of first cow parsley. The gold of dandelions which flushed the crest of the Tump and now, so suddenly, a new moment of light-filled seedheads before the buttercups rise around them. Just last week, the Dutch iris on the banks behind the house stood tall as the main point of focus in a gathering mass of cowslips. Above them a  pink flush of bud on the Malus transitoria has since given way to blossom and sweetly scented air (main image), one moment coinciding with another, a layer upon layering that each year we see deepen. 

In the fifteen years at Hillside we have already witnessed change. A land hard grazed and kept in check by agriculture now relaxed and softened at the edges. We chose to let go of the reins in places to invite nature in by allowing a number of the hedges and the steep banks below them to rewild. We returned pasture to meadow and planted new orchards, which now dapple the slopes that were stripped hard back by the cattle that dominated the land before us.