Embarras du choix

This almost obscenely large parade of boots is assembled outside Cowley Manor Hotel. Today's Wednesday walkers had met at nearby Cockleford - lunch at Cowley Manor is not for the short-pocketed - and on our way home, I requested a church photo-stop: St Mary's is bang next to the entrance to the mid-Nineteenth Century house, not so long ago converted into a luxury hotel with Sainsbury money.

It was the first walk I had had with the group on a really wet day - not cold, but unrelentingly damp. Making for the cover of a wood, we chose a path that turned out to be blocked by falling trees, and had to scramble steeply uphill, back out into the open. Our reward was to see a small herd of deer: they looked hard at us before scurrying away, outnumbered by five sodden ramblers.