The June air infected us with primitive hungers, grass-seed and thistledown idled through the windows, we smelt the fields and were tormented by cuckoos, while every out-of-door sound that came drifting in was a sharp nudge in the solar plexus. The bright times passed, we sat locked in our stocks, our bent backs turned on the valley. Housman lamented is forever gone), but also a ladder with which to climb into it. What Lee summons is not only a glimpse of our hidden childhood (which poet A. 'In the essential prose of things, the apple tree stands up, emphatic among the accidents of the afternoon, solvent, not to be denied.' from Wendell Berry's 'The Apple Tree.' Photograph by Ellen Vrana. The noise of the rain drowned our cries and whimpers, and there was nothing to do but sweep. We found the drain blocked already and the yard full of water. We grizzled and darted about for brooms, and then ran out to tackle the storm. 'Damn it and cuss! Jesus have mercy on us!' When the drain blocked up, as it did in an instant, the floods poured into our kitchen - and as there was no back door to let them out again I felt it was natural at the time that we should drown.

Chest puffed out, like he needs to hold our hand in case we get lost. I never forget I'm reading Hem, he is so affected, so showy. I point my finger at you, Ernest Hemingway, for never allowing us to disappear into your words. It is a rare gift of the pen to persuade the reader that they've entered the farmhouse kitchen to make flower wine, or sweep furiously against the flood waters. Lee, whose other autobiographical essays are being republished with flurry, is most well-known for Cider with Rosie which has not gone out of print since 1959.

'Bramble is on the march again' begins Robert Macfarlane in his ode to the language of nature.

Cider and rosie