It might have been the world’s most beautiful night. No moon. Stars like searchlights. A thin layer of ice covered every branch and leaf and blade of grass. It was perfectly, eerily, still. Nothing rustled the hedges and I could imagine the rabbits and badgers, rolled up tight in their underground dens. It took the haunting scream of an owl to tear me out of my dream, remind me that I was not here to enjoy nature. There was work to be done.