I have just returned from the most luxuriant Spring I have ever experienced. After a mild, wet winter, north-eastern Sardinia was in full bloom, and what a bloom. The colours were dazzling—the vivid yellow of mimosa and gorse, the pale purple of topped lavender, the candid white of rock rose, against tall verdant grasses, deep myrtle trees and a sea an impossible shade of turquoise.

We walked everywhere taking in the sweet floral scents, the buzzing of beas, the gently crashing of wavelets against rocks. The best walk took us to a prehistoric temple high on a crag at the top of a hillock. It required the spirit of a mountain goat, but was well worth it. We traipsed up a steep dirt track flanked by an explosion of grass, king’s spears, daisies, cyclamen, gorse, juniper, myrtle and a million other plants whose names I don’t know. We spotted lizards tanning themselves in the sun, huge grasshoppers, and delicate butterflies, white mostly, but also unusual ones with yellow and black patterns on their wings.

At the end of the path, among whimsical outcrops shaped by the wind, overlooking the lush valley around Arzachena, hid a tiny temple, which has been standing there for four thousand years.  Nicco and I climbed on the rocks opposite the temple and stood staring at it, and the flowers and trees at our feet for a long, timeless moment, the sun hot on our backs. I couldn’t ask for more inspiration than this.