This week I found the white spine of a slow worm fused to the tar of the road near the edge of the village. The smudge of dried skin and flesh shadowed that chain of delicate bones. A broken necklace that used to wriggle in the grass. Now the steady procession of cars runs it over and over into a bed of bitumen. Softened last month by the baking summer heat, it holds the bones of the lizard in their final twist.

I found the body of a buzzard face down under an old oak tree. I turned the big bird over gingerly, as if I might wake it from death. It hadn’t been shot, just a few feathers were ruffled by the fall from the tree. Crouched down by that stern, broad-shouldered bird, I felt the dread of the wide-eyed creatures in the bushes. I grazed a finger gently against the point of a talon, sharp as a dog-rose and stiff with death. Both feet were clutching hard at the air, as if it was trying to hold onto the world like the warm bodies of the rabbits that had kept it from starving all its life.

I found two beefsteak mushrooms, fanning out from the stony grey bark of an old oak. I clambered onto a little lump near the base of the trunk and gripped the deep, rough furrows of the bark with my hands. Using a branch above me, I swung up haphazardly and wrestled one of the mushrooms free. At home I sliced it up, each blood red piece capped with a fatty white strip, strangely similar to the dark flesh of a cow. The mushroom even bleeds a bright red liquid when you tear into it. I fried it and served it to my hesitant parents alongside our English breakfast. It sat there on the plate, an alien steak beside the bland comfort of baked beans. The sliminess of the dark red flesh made it hard to swallow, but the firm white underside was delicious and citrusy. I ate it all.