I make my home in a place of accidental death.

The old barn is starting to rot and fall down now. One wall has caved in; a long rickety slab of ash-coloured wood sprawls out on the ground. Brown grass pokes up between the slats. The whole area is slowly being swallowed up by bushes and weeds.

I’ve been cutting back the bushes. On a mild overcast November afternoon I hack away with long-handled shears, powerful snippers that can take down a small sapling between their blades.

I will clear a path. Up from the river to the back of the barn.

That is as far as my grandfather was able to make it. He dropped his pack, he dropped his coat.

“In those days,” said Harold, “people kept their axe as sharp as a razor.”