These weeks in March have hung on a knife edge. Now, I am ready to cast off my thermals and reach for the sun cream and, a moment later, the fire is lit all day and the hatches remain battened against the driving wind and rain. Life can be so full of contradictions and it seems that March this year is proving to be no different. The first glimpse of daffodils begins like a rare discovery, ditto the cherry blossom. And then, seemingly within a day, they transform into a check-list; daffodils

'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.’  So said the great Taoist thinker Lao Tzu.  I don’t know where I sit on the enlightenment scale, but I have taken his advice and recently found myself chopping a lot of wood.

Penpont, the family run estate, set on the banks of the River Usk in the heart of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park, has that tantalising, electric feel.  The estate has been in the family since 1665 and there is a far-reaching sense of hundreds of years of history blended with the youthful energy and dynamism that the current custodians, Gavin and Vina Hogg and their sons Forrest and Josh, are bringing.