‘Get out of the bloody field!’ 

‘I’m on a bloody footpath!’ I yelled back, both because I was angry and because the man leaning out of his 4x4 window was far away on the road. 

It was an ineffective, hard to hear argument, so I just turned my back on the irate driver and continued following the path across a grassy field. I hate any form of confrontation – even a cross tweet upsets me all day. But this one particularly annoyed me because I was on a public footpath. 

I would have understood the landowner’s anger had there been no right of way and I was trampling crops, tearing up the land on a motor- bike, dropping litter or worrying livestock. But his assumption that he had more right than me to the earth, wind, sun or sky irritated me. 

We all need to access the natural world for our enjoyment and health, and if enough of us develop a connection with nature we might be able to reverse its destruction. But our history and laws have put so much of the countryside in the hands of so few people, that we have allowed a culture to establish where going for a walk is seen as invasive or damaging. 

This ‘get off my land’ ticking-off put me in a blue mood when I should have been enjoying the clear blue skies and the bloom of blue- bells. And it was a shame, because I could see that a lot of trees had been planted here – something that always lifts my spirits – so the landowner and I probably had far more in common than the gulf of our shouting match suggested. Had we chatted congenially and disagreed agreeably, the two of us would more than likely have ended up cheering for trees but feeling frustrated at government feet-dragging. 

For example, one tree-loving landowner told me they tried to plant 200 acres of woodland, aided by receiving a grant that didn’t make the venture profitable or even balance the books, but at least made it man- ageable for them to do the right thing for the land. But they were then told to apply for planning permission to plant the wood. By the time it came through, policies had changed and the planting grant had been withdrawn, leaving them with tens of thousands of tree whips sitting in their greenhouses. It is so frustrating to hear stories like this.