GreyShuck

Back then I was living and working on an island nature reserve (great experience, but nothing like as idyllic as that sounds to a lot of people) and my marriage was going through a rough patch.

Since then I’ve changed roles, been promoted, moved back to the mainland - moved 3 times in fact - but am now settled and our marriage is going much more smoothly. Retirement is on the horizon.

These days just surveying for the national bat and dormouse monitoring programmes, but I have done quite a range of other things in the past including: starting and running a Green Drinks group, pagan prison chaplain for the Pagan Fed, direct action with Greenpeace, local wildlife group committee member, starting and running a toad patrol group, helping at an old folks day centre, running a tea stall and car-parking at a few green festivals, crash and bash conservation work with various groups etc.

The last three have been s/h when I have bought them and then I have hung on to them for around 5 years each myself.

As a kid, in the UK, back in the '70s, I was watching Roots and was wondering why they were so keen to get to Scotland. I eventually realised that this was set in the US, of course, and the north there was different.

So I suppose that was my default then but, these days, I typically find myself trying to work out exactly when and where a thing is set, if it isn’t obvious, automatically - before I actually settle into the plot or anything.