Clean-up brings joys of woodland home

I HAVE a small piece of land.

The main use I’ve put it to over the years has been to indulge my passion for planting trees. There was no pattern or plan to this. It was random planting, done on a whim, but the result is I now have a modest piece of woodland.

It had become a bit neglected and I’ve spent the past few days trying to do something about this. It has been satisfying work and it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful workplace. When the sun came out and made dappled patches of light and shade on the woodland floor — patches that rippled like water when the breeze stirred the leaves — I had to stop working and just sit down and admire.