Adam and I sat over our coffee watching the birds on the bird feeders in the garden of the Bed and Breakfast where we had spent the night.1 The dense plantation of conifers at the eastern end of Kielder Forest rose above us behind the house, and looking north, we could see over the river and across the wide valley to more dark close-planted trees. We were waiting contentedly for Max McLaughlin of the Forestry Commission to come and collect us for a tour of the forest.Between the house and the river was the road; we had come in from the east on it, and it continued westward, along the side of the reservoir and into the heart of the forest. It felt just like the beginning of a fairy story. So many of them start with the hero or heroine leaving home on the edge of the woods and setting out on a road through a forest, to meet new people and learn new things and have an adventure.The day before, Adam and I had come down the lovely A68 from Edinburgh and crossed into England at Carter’s Bar, with the vast views along the western shoulders of the Cheviots.
