Originally published December 2021.
How uninvited guests can bring unexpected delights
Farmers are apt to rail against uninvited people on their land. I am no exception, yet the farm would be a poorer place without them. ‘The 1066’ runs out from Pevensey Castle’s Roman walls and Norman keep, along our riverbank and on across the county. On a busy summer weekend, several hundred people will cross the farm and in the week it can be nearly as busy. Many thousands of visits in a year. In the depths of winter or in bad weather, nobody comes. We can claim some peace in those moments.
When stopped on the path, visitors are immediately defensive. Polite enquiry into their business though, is greeted with relief and what follows is usually a genuine interest in the farmer before them. Somehow their traverse through someone’s home is made more remarkable by the actual manifestation of that someone. In welcoming them, the landscape becomes more special and more connected. They, too, become more acceptable to the farmer.
“He had grown up in the Italian Dolomites on a mountain stock farm, one where in winter the cows were housed in a downstairs room in the family home”
