The hawthorn along the lane had grown leggy and gappy, so this was the winter to lay it. Pleaching is slow work: each stem is cut most of the way through near the base and bent over to about thirty degrees, still attached by a sliver of bark that keeps it alive. Stakes every half metre, hazel binders woven along the top. Three weekends for forty metres. By May it was already throwing new shoots from the cut stools, and the sheep next door have stopped testing it.