Time, like an ever-rolling stream

Two weeks of steady work in unexpected early-spring sunshine have achieved a slight improvement in things. Most of the work has been structural: raised beds constructed, earth moved, rubbish cleared, structures repainted and a pattern imposed on the place. Just as planting had started the weather closed down, and although there's been a little much-needed rain the sleet and snow that followed has not been what the blossom on the newly-planted fruit bushes need.

Maybe next week will be more clement, and more plants can be bedded in.

Whilst we were working away we were entertained by the birdlife: a buzzard; herons from the nearby stream, flocks of small tweeters and an opportunistic sparrowhawk, perching slateblue and speckled off-white on a water butt opposite.

Progress can be measured in many ways: I haven't found a scale to measure this.

The idyllic place is in another time, another country, another existence ...

And we feel that if we can only change what we have and what we do we can reach out and touch that other place.

The travel supplements in the weekend press are full of the promise of Another Place and Another Reality: at the same time the Lifestyle sections tell us to simplify our lives, to de-clutter, compile capsule wardrobes, get ourselves allotments and we can live in our small cabins in bee-loud glades.

Or, failing that, in a tent. Lots on offer at the moment: Camping is the new way to proclaim that we have stepped away from the Gadarene rush and are returning our lives to bucolic simplicity.