It had turned chilly and you had to be the slightest bit brave to risk a hammock. But we hammock-writers are known for our courage so, down jacket well zipped, I once again lay at my ease beneath the boughs of the giant ash.

A peal of mocking laughter greeted my ascent, but I rose above it. It was a green woodpecker and they call to each other by way of this high-pitched cackling, descending the scale a little as they do so. I sometimes imagine it’s the sort of laughter that, in a Hammer Horror film, would follow the line: “Oh dear – we seem to be locked in together!”

But this was a cheerfully sunny day for all its chill and I was in no mood for macabre thoughts. We lack armadillos in this country, we are short of aardvarks, we have no aardwolves and the giant anteater has yet to grace the mashes of Norfolk. So we have green woodpeckers instead,

Green woodpeckers have turned away from the hard job of knocking holes in trees in search of beetle larvae: instead they hunt for ants on the soft ground and slurp them up eagerly. Catch them in a good light and that green is marvellously set off by the red decorations around the head.

But you’re more likely to see one flying away: abandoning the picnic of ants at your arrival and moving off in that uppy-downy flight that woodpeckers go in for, that lemon-yellow bum shining like a beacon. Not that I saw anything of the kind. I lay still, eyes closed, suspended between heaven and earth, hearing the woodpecker laugh once again and nodding solemn approval.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/spring-is-the-only-season/simon-barnes/9781526667359

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spring-Only-Season-Works-Matters/dp/1526667355