Eponymous

I suggested a Cotswold walk to my Romanian walking companions of last May, who took up the idea. The date was fixed for later this month, but in view of the great rains I thought I had better investigate the state of the footpaths leading from Kingham Station, our rendezvous.

A pretty path normally runs North along the West side of the River Evenlode: after 400 metres it disappears, currently: the river bank is now no longer visible. So what remains is a walk along the road through Kingham village, till you reach a path across to the edge of the Daylesford Estate.

A series of more or less colourful owners have held Daylesford over the years. Warren Hastings, impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanours" in India; Harman Grisewood (not the actor); the 2nd Lord Rothermere; Baron Thyssen, and now the Bamford family. Princess Margaret's son has a cottage on the estate.

Walking through, it all reeks of expenditure - most visible through the sculpture and horsiculture - but, no arguing, it's well kept. My photograph shows one of the products that secured the Bamfords' position in the world doing its work, no doubt with a view to making things - ultimately - even more beautiful. I had to traipse through the mud meanwhile.

Madrid: pictures, pictures and more pictures

Our train whizzed along at great speed from Valencia to Madrid: we could watch the onboard video, listen to a choice of music (headphones provided by Renfe), or - as I did - gaze out of the window at the passing sierras, noting the wind farms en route: we saw them everywhere on our journey through Europe, but none more than in Spain - a sign of hope.

Madrid was one of two pivots for our trip: Thomas's move to Lisbon was the other. Majestic Wine came up with an amazing offer in August: buy a case of Marqués de la Concordia wine through them and you could stay for two nights free in the Marqués de la Concordia private Wine Club in the Barrio de Salamanca, the so-called Mayfair of Madrid. As Caroline and I had always wanted to visit the Prado, it was a no brainer. The bad news was that Caroline missed seeing anything of the Prado, either its permanent collection or the great Rembrandt exhibition, because of an enforced day in bed. The good news was that there was no more comfortable bed in which to spend a day during our entire trip. The Quinta turned out to be more luxy than any hotel we could have afforded.

Happily, we had persuaded our good friends Colin and Jessica to buy a case of Marqués de la Concordia too, so it was all four of us who had travelled together from Paris to end up here in Madrid. And we did all four together manage to visit and enjoy the two other big Madrid galleries, the elegant Thyssen and the excellent Reina Sofia: Guernica hangs there, a worthy setting.

After my day at the Prado in the presence of masterpieces by Velazquez and Rembrandt, I felt more comfortable with Velazquez, especially after seeing Las Menenias. Picasso's series based on that great work (dating from 1957: we had seen it in the Barcelona Picasso Museum) seems trivial beside the real thing.

Just being in Madrid is inspiring, even when you don't do any conventional sightseeing.