Today the first morning with a nip in the air. For the past week the clouds have sat low over the surrounding hills, skimming the treetops. Skeins of mist snake along the bottom of the valley, drawn by the colder air down there by the stream. The line of beech trees on Freezing Hill shrouded, sometimes invisible. Strange to lose the focus they provide to the west. The ‘caterpillar’, as locals call it, erased to a blank horizon.

Everything is drawing in, not least the evenings. The time for afternoon dog walks becoming earlier every day. I avoid the gloaming, as that is when the deer are abroad, and suddenly you find the dogs have disappeared, charging through undergrowth in the wood, unresponsive to call or whistle as the sky darkens. Tramping through the brush to find them the smell of rot, mould and fungus fills your nostrils. The ground slippery underfoot with wet leaves.