It started with a red bike. Stabilisers on, little denim jacket and a helmet, riding in circles around the garden. Until evenchally off came the stabilisers and I was away. Cycling around the forests with my dad at weekends, down the canals with the whole family, then pushing further alone, searching for whatever was beyond the next trail, next corner, next tree. That instinct never left. It just kept finding new expressions; mountainboarding, snowboarding, skating, surfing, anything that put me in contact with a surface, a landscape, a feeling of peace.

Weekends away hiking the mountains, camping in nearby fields. Family trips to the coast to surf. Climbing trees in the woods as a kid, wild swimming in rivers and the sea. I tried football, preferred rugby, learned to figure skate so I could eventually play ice hockey. My connection to yoga and the gym developed later, as a way to stay prepared for everything else.

What connected all of it was never just the thrill of the sport. It was the world the sport happened in.

THE WORK THAT SHAPED ME

After university I came up through the landscaping industry; fencing, hard landscaping, garden maintenance, working the land properly before I ever owned a company. The move into tree care wasn't a leap. It evolved from a drive, a passion and the desire to grow. I wanted qualifications. I wanted to develop my skills further and I wanted to climb.

What arboriculture gave me, beyond the career, beyond the company my family eventually joined me in, was a different kind of connection with something living. The care of trees and the surrounding countryside is a genuinely profound pursuit. You start by getting competent and then you keep going, because there is always more to learn, fresh problems to solve, new things to develop.

Some days you feel unstoppable. Others, everything works against you. You learn to manage yourself mentally, to know when to push through, when to pull back and how to stay composed when the tree, the weather or the kit throws something unexpected your way.

And then there's the feeling of it all. The freedom of moving through a tree, swaying with it, feeling the wind, something most people may never experience. The view from the top of the canopy. Sun through the leaves. The smell of the countryside, the timber, the woodland air. The sound of the canopy and the wildlife around you.

Early in my climbing career I used to feel the pressure of time when things slowed, the urge to hurry up, push through to completion, race the daylight. Eventually I came to understand that those quiet moments were exactly the right place to just exist for a while. Take in a view not many people get to see, settle into my harness and appreciate all that this work can give you.

There is nothing quite like a brutal day in a difficult tree, rough weather, hazardous work, strange terrain, nature at its most uncooperative. However, there is also nothing quite like those somewhat perfect days, when the weather is right, the tree is a beautiful climb, the location is stunning and everything just rolls like the breeze. Both completely different. Both worth every moment.

I built that company to six figures with my family eventually joining me full time. I wouldn't change a day of it and have often considered going back. Yet, when the people closest to you tell you that 'you're living to work rather than working to live', you listen. I stepped back, tried a new direction, and found myself slowly drifting further from the outdoors that had shaped everything for me so far.

ALONG CAME KIM

Kim is my partner, my best friend and the person I now explore the world with. She has climbed more of her life than not, and has, I say this with honesty and a heap of affection, considerably more stability on a rock face or a wall than she does walking to work on flat pavement. She shares the same pull toward the outdoors that I do. She has taught me things, learned things herself so we could do them together, and meets every idea with an openness I genuinely love.

She brought me back to climbing, but this time on rock. I'll be honest here, outdoor bouldering and sport climbing are becoming more and more ingrained in the things I seek out to do more with Kim. I think it may quite addictive actually. The Peak District that was always so close, is becoming somewhere I actually inhabit again more frequently, back to the edges, rivers and moorland roads I'd ridden and walked for years. My connection to those places was never really gone, I just lost my ability to make time for them for a while.

WHY NEMETONA

I have had kit work. I have had kit fail. Found brands claiming environmental credentials while building products that don't fully match the claim, that won't tell you where the materials come from or hide their true cost to us in the marketing. Gear made for the photoshoot, not the hard miles and the difficult days.

NEMETONA is what I'm building instead. Climbing chalk from seawater-sourced magnesium carbonate. Woven trousers in hemp and organic cotton. Technical activewear with organic materials & lyocell made from sustainably sourced wood pulp, all plastic-free. Every material decision made honestly & documented. Nothing that costs the landscape more than we can give back.

WHAT THIS TRULY MEANS

This is about starting again. Reconnecting with the sports and places I've always loved and finding a way to make that a permanent part of everyday life, not something just saved for weekends if there's time.

Your support doesn't go to a large company watching its stock price. It comes to me and in such to Kim, as we try to build a life that keeps us close to the things that matter most. To stay connected with people who move through the world the same way we do. To make products worthy of the spaces we use them in, made as honestly and sustainably as we possibly can.

I am like most in this world and not without my flaws, our first active cap if the proof here working well for its use but not truly living up to the true weight of my environmental concerns. For this reason I am sure there will be more lessons ahead. However, I am trying, every day, to build something better than what came before.

I hope you find something here that resinates, that feels like it was made for you and for the places you hold sacred.

Benjamin - Founder.