Steadfast

Imagine the certainty in the future that was necessary to sustain the construction of that wall in this harsh landscape. And not just a utilitarian barrier; rather, it is square-cornered, plumb-sided, its track responding intricately to folds in the land's surface, every stone carefully chosen and laid to contribute to the finished work. An unexhibited masterpiece. A stoic defiance of the hardships of weather and husbandry and economics.

On a day with leaden skies and windblown rain, the dead bracken acquires a colour that adds effect to photographs. But to our farming hosts here it seems it brings little but stomach-churning anxiety. A lifetime's losing battle against its remorseless advance. Hours of strenuous cutting and flailing and strimming; more stoicism, more defiance

It takes special people to wrest a living from this land