A Story of a Year

Chapter One

January

Oxfordshire, January 2024

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Along the uneven track that heads to the top line of the field, dense with bushes and old hedgerows where the damsons grow wild, along with the sloes, rosehips and blackthorn as a backdrop to my walk on this freezing afternoon. The rain sheets sideways, gusting in lines, horizontally across the field today in a cold spray that freezes my cheek as it beats against my face in the wind. As I walk, my feet are warm in my thick, lined boots, though the soles of my wellingtons stick deeply to the sucking mud, sliding as I trudge through the wet ground to where the trees will soon be planted.