A field full of Druids.

The promised downpour didn't. But under louring skies Druid Camp 2017 has opened, on a field atop a hill three quarters encircled by the River Severn.

I've been coming here for I don't know how many years; more than a dozen and less than twenty... and I've seen all sorts of weather - Tent levelling gales, skin blistering sunshine, torrential drenching rain. But if you're going to call on Nature you have to expect her to answer.

Camp proper starts with an opening circle ceremony, which allows everyone to get together and wave across the field to friends seen only annually, and also allows the organisers to put out the necessary domestic guidance notes.

In the foreground a child's bicycle lies briefly abandoned, in the background the windmill turns slowly, sheets tight set in the strong evening breeze. The cafe is serving delicious vegetarian dishes - tonight it's baked spud or wild rice with garlic mushrooms or black bean chilli, and the cakes are hard to ignore...