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The Knack of Fear
I used to think that doing things that scared me would make the fear vanish, like popping a soap bubble. But leaning back off a rope at the top of a craggy limestone cliff to abseil down didn’t cure me of my fear of heights. Nor did jumping out of an aeroplane. Twice. What it…
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The Magic of Hiding
My boots crunch over gravel as I make my way to Parkes hide. It’s empty when I go inside, which, I admit, is how I like it. The shutters are closed, the light dim; I breathe in the garden-shed smell of wood and cobwebs. I open one of the viewing windows and sit down. ‘Greys…
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Finding Flow
MAY 2021. I am sulking. Arms folded, and despite the cloudless sky, a face like thunder. ‘I don’t know why you’re angry with me,’ Jeff says, the map hanging uselessly in his hand. ‘It isn’t my fault.’ We’re looking over a five-bar gate into a valley just south of the village of Rotherfield in south-east…