It's a rainy day here in sunny Stamford. Generally speaking, it only rains if antipodeans are visiting. It gives them a complete text book holiday experience and we are sensitive to the needs of tourists. Once they are safely on the plane we are free to wander around in our flipflops and singlets right up until October. Today, with it being wet my options are a little limited and so I am having a day of harvesting between showers. The dog has been for a damp walk (I give him a laminated map and a couple of poo bags and he  managed quite well) and my daughter has been ferried to work and back again. I'm at home with a microwaved Tetley's. So, back to harvesting. I am not harvesting organs, children or fish. No, I am harvesting the generosity of nature. About 15 years ago I planted a twisted hazel twiglet to distract myself from an unhappy marriage and a mere thirteen years later, the monster shrub started giving me enough hazelnuts to pebble dash the Albert Hall.  Ev...

It seems to me that roads are symbolic of arteries for a reason. They shift blood from one place to another, and ultimately give the heart reason enough to keep pumping. Take me for instance. The A1 connects me here, in the softy South, to family and friends in the hardy North and has done for over 35 years. I assume its connected others for longer. As roads go , it's more or less vertical all the way to Edinburgh. I go up on the way to my childhood home and down on my way back here, to the utmost tip of South Lincolnshire. It's approximately a 7 hour drive to my family in Fife and yet the weather changes to an extraordinary degree. The manners change, the humour changes, the scenery changes, my accent changes from here to there and back again. I go back to ground myself, to not get above my station, to remember who I am, to eat scones and to laugh- a lot.  I come home to be serious and adult and capable and above all else, warm. As I write this, it seems to be entirel...