“We were nearly at her hut…”

“We were nearly at her hut, passing beside a large, circular vegetable and herb garden and through a young orchard where a dozen or so chickens were scratching about.

On the other side of the orchard was the edge of the woods, where her hut nestled amongst the trees at woodland edge.

It was almost invisible from even 20 yards away, its green roof trailing down over low, round earthen walls.

It had the gentlest, most natural presence I’d ever met in a built structure.

I was moved almost to tears.

Here was a home that completely embodied the elemental simplicity and connection to the earth I had been longing for.

I could hardly believe my eyes – and even less so after stepping inside through the blanket door.

Emerald lit some candles, then blew the embers of her fire into a flame and quickly built it up with dry twigs and sticks into a lively blaze, lighting up the space with warm dancing light.

I’d never been inside a building remotely like this one before.

With its earthy roundness, the smell of woodsmoke, its dancing firelight, its three low windows set into the muddy walls and looking out into the woods like a hide, a living library of crystals of every colour on every windowsill, and the elegant structure of what I later learned was a reciprocal-frame roundwood-roof spiralling above with a five-pointed star of hazel poles in the centre—it was a totally magical space!

I felt at once held in a soft embrace, and opened out into the woods around—a beautiful feeling.

If I hadn’t already sat down on the thickly woven sheep-fleece rug, I think I would have fallen over – my sense of reality and what is possible was shifting and reconfiguring so fast inside me that it was disorientating.

It seemed Emerald was quite used to this kind of thing, and took my reaction in her stride, putting the kettle on and making us some mint and nettle tea and chatting away to me lightly while I gathered myself into these new surroundings…”