Near where I live, there is a high stony plateau, whipped with icy winds in the winter, parched by a pitiless Mediterranean sun in the summer, overshadowed by one of the central Apennine’s most extreme mountain ranges, the Velino massif. In the past, when men struggled and scraped at the stony ground to grow food for a subsistence lifestyle, they planted almond trees here. Now mostly abandoned, twisted by decades of hardship, every Spring they still give a demonstration of resilience and vitality, bringing colour and hope to a landscape still wrapped in its winter garb.