The season and the light have shifted significantly in the past few weeks, and so have we. The surrounding area feels like new country. Only it isn’t – we have moved a mere mile from our old home. I walk my new purlieu, the boundaries of our new patch, which overlaps the old in a Venn diagram of localism.
With my centre shifted, local farms are revealed from fresh angles. The light falls differently on Manor Farm, Pinks, Northcroft and the old moated farmhouse at Balsdons. Above the backs of grazing cows, the big hill I could see from my former bedroom window, and still can from my new one, is like seeing an old friend in a new light.
Autumn is in full swing now; beech leaves tumble like toffee pennies from the trees, softening the flint track from the house. An orange clay caps the chalk in the remnant heathland and tall pinewood. It is alive with little birds: goldcrests, long-tailed tits, treecreepers and, as confirmed by the Merlin app on my phone, siskins and redpolls that I can hear but not see.
The track takes me between the paddocks of a thoroughbred stud farm. The mares and foals are as glossy as conkers, fetlock deep in grass that is lusher now than in spring.
In Long Copse, a fallow buck calls a guttural rut-season invitation and challenge. Near the church, an enormous cooking apple lies windfallen on the lane. I can balance it, just about, on my palm; this is an apple for a carthorse, too big to pocket.
Crossing “the rushes” field, there is a huge molehill, a fortress that will provide a little more room above and below ground for its inhabitants. On the slope above, two giant hoofprints seem to be imprinted, side by side: actually a large, incomplete pair of fairy rings or mushroom rings; horseshoes of darkened grass, studded with white caps.
I spot the fallow buck on my return, in a gap between trees. A big, dark animal, he turns his head and the great candelabra of his antlers towards me majestically, cradling the whole wood. Everything seems bigger here.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
