Barnstorming

The splendid and well-proportioned house is backed by a farmyard of derelict and partly restored barns. You can sense the movement of the old agricultural years and seasons between the different buildings - the cow byres, the winnowing floor, the haylofts and labourer's cottage and the giant stone wheel and trough of the cider mill.

Behind the yard is a 'tump'  -  a small hill and possibly a motte from the time that this area was dotted with motte and bailey defences before the border was settled and the Welsh subdued. And on the back of the motte were three giant old cherry trees like the Three Graces grown old and truculent in all the weather Wales could throw at them (see extras).

I wended my way back over the A44 through Kington,  Pembridge, Leominster, up over the over the Bromyard Downs with its ancient 'Live and Let Live' pub, by Doddenham and around Worcester and interminable roundabouts before climbing the Cotswolds by Fish Hill and stumbling through Moreton-in-Marsh and Chipping Norton and Woodstock and past the gates of Blenheim Palace before stopping in Oxford to give my sister and Mum a hand moving a few things. And then on down the M40 and around the M25 before heading for east Kent along the foot of the North Downs.

My I Spy book was quite full by the time I turned down the lane to the bay and home.