As nature slowly ripens into August, the lush green field-margins, hedgerows and verges suddenly become too overgrown to navigate on the morning health-giving ‘ketogenic’ walks. 

We emerge from the meadows truly drenched from the waist-downwards. Stout wellingtons and heavy drill-trousers are no match for July’s dews; we literally wade through the undergrowth, like clumsy flamingos picking their way through a shimmering, yet silt-laden lake.

Far easier to negotiate are the farmers’ tramlines, which stretch the lengths of the fields, like a high-speed metro-route for wildlife. Rabbits, hares and pheasants shoot down these long straight corridors, softly overtaken by deer who arch gracefully overhead, following the roadways with their leaps but seeming scarcely to touch them. Swallows swoop, dive and bomb at dusk, powering forth in search of insects and moths.

And then two sets of wellington-boots lumber in, possessing neither the speed, nor the elegance of the pathways’ other users. These all flee at first sign of man’s intrusion; much like us when the farmer routinely catches us taking a shortcut across his field!

But at this time of year, the wheat-sheaves are still to turn golden. Yet as a nod to what’s to come, the leaves are beginning to yellow at their tips, creating an embroidered ‘tapestry effect’, flocked with the finest flecks of filigree gold. The natural corridors then are roofed in splendour, like the columns of a cathedral decked with precious metals which gleam in the bright dawn sunlight.

There is great beauty and pleasure in surreptitiously going off the beaten track in life; even if for only a brief minute or two. But one word of advice however… Just don’t get caught!

Enjoy the day and thanks for reading,

Adam.