Still mild

Apart from the first bit, I walked today without gloves. Not often can I write that in January. Five of us set out from the Miserden pub car park at 9:45 and returned there around 12:15. We had walked clockwise via Sudgrove, Througham and Wishanger. (This is the landscape to the left of our path between the last two places.)

It was not just warm and windless, it was 99% dry too, and a wan sun even tried to poke through the clouds at times. Underfoot, the going was slippy at times - hardly surprising in view of the rain we have had - and care was needed over the stiles; but a near perfect light. I photographed a Concorde weather vane near Ian McEwan's house at Sudgrove, mist in the steep valley below it and my first lamb of 2014. All very satisfactory.

Miserden

It wasn't the best morning for a longish outing, but we had arranged to meet an old friend to walk in Miserden Park, which he knows well. We had only just set off through the wonderfully ancient pasture, below the Park, when we heard the first shots: pheasants were fearing for their lives in the woods we were aiming towards. Having turned round to regain the car and look for peace elsewhere, I took this photograph: horses, 4: humans, 0 - about par for a Cotswold village these days.

We ended up parking at nearby Sudgrove, and walking from there N-W along the contour, opposite Througham: that hamlet, though close by, was hardly visible through the mist. It's another ancient landscape, and one we should return to discover in more detail on a sunny day - and when the ground is drier.