FOR THE first time since lockdown began, we left home for a few days, exchanging the steep wooded banks of the Hambleton Hills for the huge skies and flat lands of the Fens. Based in Cambridge, we soon headed to nearby Wicken Fen, the oldest nature reserve in Britain: one of only four wild fens remaining in East Anglia. The others have long since been drained and ploughed over, a process started by Oliver Cromwell. Low-lying places with high water tables, fens are difficult for humans to access without a boat. So, to fully experience Wicken Fen’s 250-hectare network of reedbeds, brimming dykes and boggy, orchid-crowded pastures, the National Trust has erected a boardwalk through the marsh.