It was late September and I was rushing through a long list of jobs that needed doing before heading off on holiday. There were vegetable seeds to sow, tomatoes, peppers and melons to harvest and process for storage, beans to pick to leave drying in the garage, pots to water, last minute laundry to do, the little barn to get set up for the dogsitter and a recipe to line up for Dig Delve while we were away. It was a lot, but I was up early, had my schedule worked out and was certain I could get everything done before focussing on packing.

Dan had gone to Greece ahead of me, and it was on my way to the cold frames to check on his precious plants that I suddenly saw them. Walnuts scattered all over the ground. I don’t know how I had missed them before. It was as though they had all fallen from the tree that morning. The walnut tree was a gift from our neighbours up the lane, Josie and Rachel, sisters who have lived here since they were children. We had become used to their unexpected but regular gifts – half a dozen eggs from their hens, jars of honey and bars of beeswax from their hives, even two fat trout on one occasion that they themselves had been gifted, but did not care to eat – but the walnut seedling they gave us eleven years ago has outlasted them all. It was a seedling of their own tree, which they had dug up and carefully potted up. Dan let it grow on for a year before planting it out in March 2015.