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A hot walk from Cabrières d’Avignon I parked behind the mairie in Cabrières d’Avignon, a suitably modest place to begin a walk into catastrophe. There was no drama there, only a small Provençal town already settling into the heat of the day. A woman in her thirties stood in the shade before work, having a cigarette. She was a cleaner, or so she said, and she looked at me with the directness of someone who knew the country better than I did. If I was intending to walk the full circuit, she said,[...]

The Dry Stone Trail The Sentier d'Interprétation des Pierres Sèches at Champlitte is one of France's most accessible and informative dry stone heritage trails. It is located in the rolling countryside of the Haute-Saône in eastern France, and passes through a landscape filled with traditional dry stone walls, stone shelters (cabordes), woodland, and evidence of centuries of rural life. For me, coming from the Lake District where dry stone walls are woven into the fabric of the landscape, I felt comfortably at home. Apart from the heatwave France was experiencing at the time,[...]

A Strand in the Grass Imagine walking through a woodland edge ten years after a war has ended. Birds are singing, trees are reclaiming abandoned trenches, and wildflowers have returned to ground once churned by artillery and tracked vehicles. Then something catches the sunlight. A thin strand stretches between two saplings and disappears into the undergrowth. At first it looks like a spider's web. It is not. It is fibre-optic cable, scarcely thicker than fishing line, left by a drone that flew this way years before. The fighting may be over, but part[...]

Hereford Unfolded There are cities that announce themselves with noise and skyline. And then there is Hereford. Tucked into a broad bend of the River Wye, close to the Welsh border and surrounded by orchard country, Hereford does not shout. It reveals. The approach is pastoral. Timbered houses lean slightly into narrow streets. The cathedral tower rises without drama. The air carries a faint sweetness that, certainly in autumn, belongs unmistakably to apples. Do not leave the place without at least sipping Hereford cider. Many decades ago, I lived near the city[...]

Inflation Road Trip London - Prosperity and Fatigue It began in darkness. London, 4:45 in the morning, drizzle on the windscreen and two empty beer bottles under the tree outside my flat. A man and a woman, both vagrants, passed by silently, heading somewhere with more purpose than comfort. Even before I had started the engine, I could sense the theme of my journey. Wealth on paper, weariness in reality. This so-called Inflation Road Trip was never meant to be about travel for travel’s sake. For sure, I had to make it to[...]

On the road to Madrid Beginning in the rain – a very British departure There is something very British about beginning an adventure in the rain. Mine started in the Lake District, the clouds hanging low, the wind nudging drizzle against the windows. I was sitting at my desk, about to drive to Madrid. The satnav promised 1342 miles. My ageing Audi Q5, part-electric, part-guilty conscience, was already humming on the driveway. Why I refused to fly People asked why I did not fly. Two and a half hours from Manchester to[...]