I was almost 40 years old and with nothing to show for it. No partner. No career. I'd just sunk that well and truly. Now having reached a crescendo of desperation, I was pitching a tent halfway up a Turkish mountain, because I just couldn't think what else to do.But it was another world up there, one without power, lights, or water. Scorpions scuttled under rocks. Boars' eyes shone in the dark. And there was someone else lurking in the shadows between the trees. Someone I knew, but didn't want to. The dirt, it seemed, held a secret.Weeks turned to months, and slowly I built a new world from sticks and mud. But as winter approached, the question loomed. How long can a person live without a house, a job, and the rudiments of civilisation? And what happens to them when they do?

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