The Night Planted Orchard is toward the end of a long path and sits on the very fringe of the fen where the southern slope of the Isle of Ely meets its catchwater. At this point it begins to turn north, cradling the orchard and keeping it dry, if not unbattered by the winter winds. In the daylight the fen can look seamless from here, but on this endless night of the winter solstice wandering headlights betray its wounds and cast woeful xenon stares through the hedges and the not-yet-fallen sedge.

I am startled by an ambulance far away, running straight and hard, its blue lights a broken streak. It is the precise inverse of the kingfisher flying like a missile across the bright, warm midsummer noon.

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