No one is born a writer; literacy is a peculiar mode of being, but I was all about stories from a very early age, before reading.

Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.

Sometimes a few passionate people change the world; sometimes they start a mass movement and millions do.

More and more I think of privatisation as being not just about the takeover of resources and power by corporate interests, but as the retreat of citizens to private life and private space, screened from solidarity with strangers and increasingly afraid or even unable to imagine acting in public.

We are entering an era of heightened disaster, thanks to climate change. Being prepared for disaster will mean being prepared to sift truth from rumour, and being prepared to adjust our worldview.

All gardening is landscape painting,' said Alexander Pope.

The Earth we evolved to inhabit is turning into something more turbulent and unreliable at a pace too fast for most living things to adapt to.