The past two and a half weeks have had as much impact on my fitness as they have on the landscape. As I struggle to haul my wheezing body up every tiny incline, the countryside shows the ravages of three Atlantic storms in the shape of innumerable felled trees in the fields and the gutters of the lanes. Nowhere is it more apparent than outside West Hill, where a fallen tree must clearly have closed the entire road. To the south lies its massive lower trunk, resting on saplings crushed in its descent. To the north sit the remnants of its upper branches, detached like a severed hand with its fingers picked clean to the bone reaching forlornly to the void.