‘Do you care about the woodland? Do you care about the wildlife?’ shouted the bearded Woodland Trust volunteer from his table of tree-hugging paraphernalia set up outside Waitrose.
He had pitched his camp – a trestle table covered in leaflets and bedecked with pictures of foxes and badgers – so close to the supermarket entrance on Cobham High Street that it was impossible for customers to get through the doors without running the gauntlet of his leaflets.
No doubt these leaflets explained that the Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection and restoration of our native woodland heritage. It has planted 55 million trees since 1972.
I did not stop as I was in a hurry to buy a sandwich, because one of the things I care about is putting calories inside myself so that I can keep going. That day, as usual, I needed energy in order to tend four horses and six acres of land, although I know that would be something the man with the beard would probably frown upon, for where is the woodland in that situation?
It’s around the sides of the fields, as it happens, but in the main, the place where I keep my horses is a farm producing food.
Let’s be clear, once there is no locally grown produce, not many people are going to shop at Waitrose
There is woodland, but there are also crop fields, where the stuff we put in our mouths to sustain our time on this planet is grown.
And I rushed inside Waitrose to buy an example of this, a sandwich including the sort of iron-rich greenery that is grown on the estate where I keep my...
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