
The day started with thrushes and a deer barking, the sun shining through early morning mist. I put on wellies to walk through the fields, past the woods along the stream, stopped to take a photo of some of the neighbour’s daffodils, the ones the sheep have left.

I always take a stick just in case, but by the time I reached the château, the tracks of wild boar were so fresh they were making me nervous.

I turned for home as the cranes were passing overhead, in their noisy, undisciplined formations. The wind was fierce up there, the skeins dissolving and the birds circling in directionless flocks. Tired and hungry, none wanted to take the leader’s place. In bird world, that’s the hardest, least enviable place of all.
