This week it is exactly fourteen years since we left London and moved to Hillside. Although a lot has changed since then, this time of year still takes me back very strongly to that week. The sense of excitement as we drove along the ridge above our valley through heavy mist illuminated by a hidden sun. The astonishment of having long views to east and west after the claustrophobia of city skylines. And the magic of lying in bed with a view of sky and the treetops. Morning sun lit up the yellowing foliage of poplar, hornbeam and hazel, on the flank of the opposite hillside. The vista animated by the passage of rooks, crows and ravens, black as voids in the glowing backdrop.

The farmer before us had kept all trees away from the grassland to maximise grazing for his cattle. All that remained were an old holly, an exhausted damson and dying plum. In that first winter, determined to make our own mark on the landscape and eager to get a head start on growing food to eat, we planted our westernmost field with an extensive orchard of apples, pears, plums, gages and damsons. However, it was another two years before we got the long planned for nuttery planted, and we wished we had done it sooner, as the hazels were so slow to get away. Seven varieties were chosen, both cobnuts and filberts, with three or four of each variety, to make a total of twenty four trees. Their rate of growth was a little dispiriting for several years. In fact, some varieties looked as though they might fail, but now, twelve years later, all of them are thriving and threatening to burst through their tree guards next year.