What could in fact be better than a log cabin kitted out with a hot tub at the heart of a dense forest (3,300 acres of it) that absorbs any noise? It wasn't long into our stay - a week away to celebrate Mum's wedding - that I realised how much stress the never-ending sound of traffic in Zurich had put me under. From the first night, I felt my body exhale a sigh of relief. Here, instead of the roar of nighttime engines, from our bed we heard animals scraping around outside. Each day we awoke to glorious sunshine piercing the treetops then shattering in a starburst across the golden mosaic of leaves on the forest floor.
Days were spent in the outdoors - one walking around Sherwood Forest, another at Cresswell Crags, a limestone gorge moth-eaten with caves that tell a story dating back 50,000 years (archaeologists found tools and animal remains from the last Ice Age there). We also went further afield, to Chatsworth Park near Bakewell, Peak District, where a delicious slice of salted caramel cheesecake at Edensor Tea Cottage set us up for a lovely walk through an oil painting-like setting.
Another day, Tim and I hired mountain bikes and went out into the forest - it was sold to me as a "step up from the route that is Segway-accessible", but turned out to be a rangy course of ups, downs, mud and leaves. But it was amazing fun! After a year of what has quite literally been 'the dark ages' in Zurich (perpetual fog, cloud and rain - deeply depressing), it was a revelation to spend a week in the sunshine - and in England. Tim and I shared a treehouse separate to the main cabin: inside it was topsy turvy with an Alice in Wonderland theme.
And 'wonderland' was where we had landed, I thought to myself each morning, as I opened the curtains onto a seemingly endless curtain of tree trunks. The only thing better than the view in daylight was the view after dark, from the hot tub - like now, where I have not a care in the world save how I am ever going to drag myself out of it ...
