It was just about 3 years ago that I discovered a useful plot of woodland for sale, sealing the deal by gloomy mid-November. Those first visits, although we had to hack through bramble which had been in full vicious growth for around 40 years, we managed to get to a couple of the woodland edges on the north and east sides. The easterly aspect was considerably different from the rest of the wood and marked a geological boundary of valley bottom, cut through by the fast flowing Yare, leaving sandy, shell-y alluvial soil behind. The position of our wood, on the western side of a sharp ox-bow lake offered a vast protection from the regular tidal surges which race across the valley bottom leaving our little woodland marooned in an island of dryness. Consequently, we have the holy grail of soil - a friable, fertile, deep dark loam of old alder carr, sitting on a perfectly drained calcareous bedrock, overlooking water-meadows. My god - I was nearly insane with delirious joy and right then, lists of plants passed through my feverish brain - plants I had coveted for years but had neither the soil, the water or the acreage - huge purple moor grasses, eupatoriums, silphiums, eryngoes, panicums, rudbeckias and ironweeds...and most essentially, the umbellifers - massive angelicas, giant fennel, lovage, seseli and selinums, hemlocks, hairy chervil and anthriscus.

Of course, it took us a whole year and a burnt out clutch to back the horsebox down the hacked about ride (the blood, the slashing, the tears and swearing). And on to the most worrisome aspect of all - I had cheerfully filled my tiny home garden to over-stretched capacity and this summer, the allotment has also been so crammed that paths are completely impassable and the shed can only be accessed on hands and knees...all those wild roses are now enormo-hulks, the perennials have run amok and the beds are either collapsed or merging into each other...in short, I have run out of space, but it took me over a decade to get there. At the woods, we have around 40x as much space and no money, yet we need hundreds of thousands of plants to fill the spaces left by the banished nettles and brambles, hence the long, slow seed route - years of vast rows of small pots, all of which require watering every single day,..for years! Even so, I finally managed to plant a small area as a precursor to the garden in my head, helped along by a last minute spree of plant buying. Finally, filipendulas, Joe Pye Weed, althea cannabina, asters, molinia skyracer, panicums, milliums, carex, rehmannia and dark-leaved angelicas were ceremoniously placed along the small bit of easterly wood (the spade practically fell through the soil though -like a big soft, loamy duvet)...and at last, I feel I can actually attempt a plan (instead of the usual random planting)...but loooooong, so long!

When we first signed the paperwork, we also, laughingly, made 5 year, 10 year and 50 year plans (trees are a long-term investment) but the reality, of years and years, starting over, is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying as I have the patience of a furious toddler and zero ability to extrapolate into the deep future. Already, I miss the comfortable feeling that every season had its rhythms and cycles - timeless as a river, and now feel as though I have been bundled into a flimsy canoe, hurtling down the Yare, without a map or compass and certainly no life-jackets. A medley of inappropriate metaphors, I know, but my head...my poor confused head!.

Please tell me, I am not alone in a world of confusion, wild hope and terrible impatience.