Do you love the place where you come from? Me too. So strange that everybody should feel so strongly attached to that patch of land they call home. And I suppose it is true; we are a part of the earth that nurtured us, in the same way that we are a part of the mother and father that raised us.

So I am more than English, more than Devon. I am a small, grass-green field; white sheep huddled under a dark hedge, protecting themselves from the winter rain. I am the wheat field that sways with the breeze and shines with its own golden light in the summer sun. I am a high hedged country lane, arched over with oak and elm, splashes of cool green light through the leaves. I am a country village, twenty houses, thatch or dark grey slate, whitewashed walls, all painted black a foot-high along the bottom to hide the scuff marks. I am the grey granite, pointy steeple church, resting on foundations that are perhaps a thousand years old. I’m the village pub too, oak beams and horse brasses.

I am high, dark Dartmoor, the ferns and the heather, the fast-noisy peat-brown stream. I am a granite Tor, standing like a sentinel on my moor peak, a stone-stack chimney that reaches up from deep inside the earth. I am the radiation that pours from the great granite Dartmoor mass. I am a four thousand year old ring of stones, built in honour of the stars. I am the wild Dartmoor pony, proud stallion, big belly pregnant mare, not more than ten hands high, running fast beneath the lightning storm, head up.

I am the country show, the 5 ton heifer, the jealous sow with 15 piglets, the home-made cake and blackberry jam, the cart horse and the pony, a large red tractor, shiny new. Tea and scones with clotted cream; soft showery rain on a warm summer’s day. I’m all that.

Celt and Saxon, Norman too, they’re all here, looking over my shoulder as I write, part of me. The culture they made defines me. My reactions were conditioned since long before I was born. I can’t jump a queue or complain about bad food, my hardwiring doesn’t allow it. I know my class.

And that’s why I came here. What you are is not what you will become. You do get to choose. I am Devon, I always will be, but I am also Castilla-La-Mancha. High fir covered mountains and sun scorched brown plains. Thunder storms that seem to break the sky, rain that comes down so hard that the drops splash back up as high as your head. Cold Fino sherry and Serrano ham, the smell of sun-dried grass that fills the city in the summer. An empty blue sky that stretches from horizon to horizon. Skiing in pine scented mountains in the winter, spring days with crystal clear air. The sun. I’m all that too.

I sit here and translate it all, day after day, for the last ten years. And that’s who I am.

Reading and writing, walking in the mountains, astrology, dancing.

All sorts!

The Piano, Pride and Prejudice.

Euch!

Anything by Magaret Atwood or Martin Amis.