A note from the editor

Flicking through the pages of this issue before it goes to press, I am struck by how many of the features bring to life the feeling of summer in an evocative, almost visceral way. May and June are my favourite months, the time when I really yearn for a lifestyle totally connected to the outdoors. I am always inspired by our featured artisans, food producers and farmers, the people who live and work with the rhythms of nature every day. Take Jake Fiennes, conservation manager at the Holkham Estate in Norfolk (below left). His passion for the land, and for savouring every moment of the changing seasons, shines out in our interview (p186). Through his powerful descriptions, he evokes the feeling of summer so vividly that you almost feel you can smell the hay meadows and hear wood pigeons pootling about in the stubble.

Then there’s retired-teacher-turned-sculptor Stephanie Smith (below right), who now lives on the Lancashire coast and describes how her home is cut off from the mainland twice a day as the tide comes in. She tells us that she embraces that isolation because it gives her time to observe the personalities of the resident curlews, something she captures so exquisitely in her wirework pieces (p90).

While I’m slowly edging towards that nature-centric lifestyle, I’m by no means there yet. Like so many of us who are desk-based, I have to make a conscious effort to step outdoors for daily walks and weekend gardening sessions – and I always aim to take at least two UK holidays a year. These snatched moments – together with my vicarious excursions to the countryside via this magazine – give me a regular dose of nature, even if they leave me wanting more. So, wherever you are this June, I urge you, at the very least, to take this issue into the garden or park and read it while absorbing the sights and sounds of the season… it’ll be worth it, I promise.