Just watched the programme with Robert Macfarlane who spent a year, in Essex of all places, in search of the wild.  He found it, surprisingly, amongst the roads, intense farming and rubbish tips.  He spoke of finding small patches of woodland, large forest, reedbeds and marshes and even discovered watervoles making a come back (their numbers 95% down nationally) at Rainham marshes which was rescued only ten years ago by the RSPB.  It turned out he was a friend of the late, brilliant nature writer Roger Deakin whose books such as 'Wildwood', and 'Notes from Walnut tree farm' are essential reading for all of us who cherish the wild and are more than embarrased by what man has done, and is doing, in the name of 'progress'.

At one point in the programme Macfarlane enters a wood amongst barren arable fields, and quotes Deakin who said a wood or forest is a good place to find yourself, particularly by getting lost.  He then visits Deakins farmhouse and finds the original shepherd's hut that the great writer often slept in to get close to nature, often lying in bed listening to a deer rubbing itself outside on the tin, or looking out at the wild flowers around him.  Deakin particularly liked to sleep in his hut during a storm, listening to the rain hammering on the roof; feeling 'part of the storm yet protected from it.'

Perhaps a shepherd's hut, like a woodland, is a place to lose yourself, find yourself and maybe feel part of the wilderness too.