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  • This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Around us every frond of bracken and sprig of heather shone, while the birch trees were dusted into spectral shrouds.

    The black earth revealed how the passage of feet printed into gloop days before was now frozen iron-hard, so that a misplaced step might prompt a stumble.

    There had been no snow after all, just a clear night that had teased water from the air into labyrinthine patterns of hoarfrost that now encased any structure that could support its feathery weight.

    Four hundred human generations have inhabited this corner of the English uplands, and I’d bet each one of them at some point marvelled at the intricate beauty of such a heavy frost in sunshine, especially after days of wet grey, when you feel your soul’s force weaken.

    Temperature and how much water vapour the air holds determine the structure ice crystals create, from needles to thicker-based pyramids to hexagonal columns that can be either solid or tubular.

    Close by, for example, was the neatly cut stump of a birch that had sprouted with hexagonal columns fat enough to judge as hollow.

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