Photo: Tom Canning

Three and a half years since Raphaël died, I’m back in France, walking barefoot on the long triangle of land that he rewilded. He’s with me in the way he always is, but alongside us is a new companion: my little dog Mishka, whose white fur is already dotted with tiny goosegrass burrs. Still a puppy, she bumbles through the long grass, chasing butterflies, stopping to sniff a new smell, gnaw at a stick, investigate animal droppings, or burrow into a molehill until her face is caked with earth. A world away from the city, we’re surrounded by ragwort, gorse, Michaelmas daisies, spider orchids, poppies, cow-parsley, and vast tangles of blackberry bushes, their red fruits tight and hard. The pleasure of feeling the dew-drenched grass and soil on my bare skin, to smell the scents of fresh wild mint and thyme, and to see more insects and hear fresh bird-calls than I have in many years is deep and visceral. A few nights ago I heard a nightingale, and every day a pair of grey redstarts visits our veranda. In the nearby woods I find the eggshells cast off by hatchlings, and a birder friend who stayed earlier in the summer tells me that in addition to the blackbirds, carrion crows, robins, woodpigeons, swifts, starlings, sparrows, collared doves, magpies and great tits that we most regularly see, he spotted nuthatch, serin, cirl bunting, robin, house martin, firecrest, blue tit, long-tailed tit, chiffchaff, greenfinch, chaffinch, blackcap, goldfinch, pied wagtail, jay[LJ1] , and heard golden oriel, cuckoo, raven, jackdaw, turtle dove, melodious warbler, woodlark and tawny owl. 

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