Rock Cottage, clockwise. 6.45pm.

Slugs toil with thoughtful patience up the wet path. I plant my own heavy progress, step-by-step, over and around them and wonder if this will ever be easy.

Rock Cottage, clockwise. 6.15pm.

Needle cold rain pricks us at the top of the hill. By the time we turn the corner, a mist of clinging drizzle has fuzzed our world. Reality needs re-tuning.

Mount Ephraim, anticlockwise. 2.30pm.

It is so still (apart from the rain falling straight down out of an unknowable sky, the thunder rolling around, and the traffic on its way). It is so still.