Above Sheepscombe

Being deprived by festivities of our last two Wednesday walks, we met at Foston's Ash yesterday morning, to shake away some cobwebs. The mud was our main prospective enemy, because of the terrific rainfall recently. (Our drawing-room alcove ceiling almost gave way: just in time, Edmund drilled holes to channel the water leaking in.)

To avoid the shooting at Climperwell, we walked towards Cranham and then leftwards into the beechwoods above Sheepscombe. Hard core has long been laid on the tracks there, providing a firm path for us as well as the forest machinery. This giraffe-like trunk caught my eye.

Delaying our start till a squall had passed, we then missed any more rain, and indeed the sun lit up the tree tops on our final stretch, through the woods that the late John Workman gave to the National Trust.

That is an organisation evidently not solicitous about its punctuation: "Workmans Wood" on one sign, and "Workman s Wood" on two others. Should one be surprised when one of its top brass sends us a family round robin displaying a similarly cavalier approach to the apostrophe rule?

Oh dear! Bang goes my New Year's resolution - to be less nerdish. It contrasts somewhat in scale with Ian Jack's. Writing in today's Guardian, he says:

New Year resolutions rarely see out February because they're born in a… wishy-washy sort of hope, too weak to resist the seduction of old habits. Fear, on the other hand, keeps you on the straight and narrow… Domesticated ruminants are the largest source of anthropogenic methane and account for 11.6% of greenhouse gases that can be attributed to human activity…The use of highly productive croplands to produce animal feed is [also] questionable on moral grounds because this contributes to exhausting the world's food supply. Other well-known consequences include tropical deforestation and the erosion of biodiversity, but unless governments intervene… it seems unlikely that the demand for animal flesh can be curbed. 

But which popularly elected government will ration meat or deliberately price it as a luxury?… 

Nonetheless, my resolution this year is to become a vegetarian… I doubt that I can stick to it. Where's the terror at three in the morning that will change my behaviour? A gale may be tearing over the house and a flood running down the street, but the link to a lifetime's mince consumption will be hard to fix in my imagination. When it comes to the bleak future of the world, the complicated route between cause and effect is the greatest barrier to our doing much to change it.

National Mistrust

Kind friends took us out to lunch today. We met them beforehand in the National Trust car park for Chastleton House, and had a walk together round the village to get up our appetites. (They are serious foodies.) Though we had visited the House previously, we hadn't explored the village: it's rather pretty. But feelings are running high against the National Trust amongst the villagers - judging from the irately-worded posters stuck up everywhere. The House is now open on Sundays, and there are said to be plans going in for a tea shop: what has been 30,000 visitors a year is feared to jump to 60,000, with a fair number of them driving through the village. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Chatsworth

It must be 20 years since we went to Chatsworth last, and things have changed a lot. That was clear from the outset of yesterday's visit: many more people make for it nowadays, and no wonder. It's a most welcoming environment for all sorts, and yet retains the quality of a family home. As when we were at Burghley last year, you felt that everyone on duty was somehow part of the family - such a different impression (again) from what you receive from your average National Trust property!

We needed more than the few hours our busload spent there to do it justice: the nearest we got to seeing the gardens was this view through one of the windows in the house. But perhaps it was as well we didn't leave later than we did, as less than halfway home the engine of our coach sprang a diesel leak: kind bikers alerted the driver to it. So we crawled off the dual carriageway and spent the evening (more than three hours) experiencing the antidote to stately homes, a suburban pub garden in the Midlands. Good for group bonding at least.

Welsh Newton House

Caroline has Welsh ancestors, and this is the view they constructed from the rear of their Carmarthenshire mansion, near Llandeilo. I say "constructed", as it apparently involved razing a village and getting in Capability Brown to do the necessary. The result - after a couple of centuries' bedding in - is certainly pleasing.

We hadn't visited Newton House before: it's a stark place, with little but some family pictures to tell its story. Nevertheless, the setting with White Park cattle grazing is alone worth the National Trust's admission fee. Who would be a volunteer at such a place though?

Cycle 4

All through the night, we heard the rain drilling down against our windows, and so it has continued. Our most kind hosts took pity upon us, making light of throwing our bikes into their people carrier and driving us to Burghley this morning. So instead of 45 miles' exploration of some grand houses and village churches to the West of the A1, we contented ourselves with a good look at Burghley House and its amazing collections.

Not that I have anything particular against the National Trust, I can't help thinking that a house like Burghley benefits from being held within a family framework: certainly, a visit makes an exceptionally pleasant day out, and it would have been even better if the weather had allowed us to see the gardens. We spoke to many different people working there as we went round and without exception they seemed to confirm the same thing: it's a very tight and happy ship.

There was still a dozen or so miles to do at the end of the day, to reach our final B&B at Woodnewton - an enforced route along an awful lot of A roads. Our hostess looked justifiably horrified as we appeared, dripping on her doorstep.

Lord's Wood

Caroline dropped me off at Foston's Ash yesterday morning, to meet up with a friend and his dog: ours isn't up to much. We all later gathered for a protracted pub lunch.

From the busy Birdlip-Bisley road, you are soon it seems miles away, dropping down into the National Trust's Workmans Wood. A muddy track descends through the beeches, past a lake and into Sheepscombe. From there we climbed up the bank into Lord's Wood, before swinging round North of Ebworth House and back to the road. Many hares were started: few solutions arrived at.

Marches past

Caroline and I had a happy fortnight's holiday in the Marches. We spent four nights in a bed and breakfast by the River Wye, in West Herefordshire: Winforton Court - thoroughly to be recommended. After that, we moved into one of the National Trust's holiday cottages on the Croft Castle Estate in the North of Herefordshire, for six nights. From there, we drove, via Hereford, to stay a night with our good friends Marius and Clare Gray in Kentchurch, in the South-West corner of the county. Finally, we spent last weekend in a mews cottage right in the centre of the small town of Presteigne, just over the border into what was Radnorshire.

Means of transport (this was supposed to be a low-carbon holiday!): OK, so we did drive 466 miles; but taking our bikes on the back of the car: we had three days' cycling round the villages - no punctures and not too many hills; and we had a number of longish walks - along Hergest Ridge above Kington and in the woods at Croft.

Sunshine? The swimming trunks I took for all those refreshing dips in cool river pools came back unworn. It seemed to rain most days, but never for too long that we were in danger of losing our sense of humour. The worst moment was listening to the actor playing Richard III say "All the clouds that lour'd about our house" were "in the deep bosom of the ocean buried" whilst sitting on a plastic chair in a pool of water.

Food: we liked all the pubs we visited for lunches (and some suppers) out - and the little Hat Shop Restaurant in Presteigne. There was much emphasis placed everywhere on local produce. It's not quite the same as being in France of course, but the food was just as tasty - and probably cheaper.

Best bits: the landscapes; the villages; churches, and their embellishments; little things that catch the eye; the architecture; the gardens; the trees; the windows and doorways; the friendly natives; the history - including lots of Davis family history, inevitably (boring for poor Caroline) - and being an hour's drive from the nearest dual carriageway.