MY first rented home in Somerset was owned by a hedger. She was fondly nicknamed ‘Hedger’ and she willingly relinquished her house when she saw my advert looking for a home with a fire and a garden, as I worked locally in a specialist nursery in East Pennard, Pennard Plants.
Hedger is a platonic West Country term and is very endearing to me. It denotes the wild edge and the priority to live in deep connection with the land, the earth, the air. And so, my benevolent landlady set aside her western worldly concerns for mortgages, taxes and bills, and went to live off-grid in a caravan, while I moved into
