"The Plot"

Last month, I reported on a visit to the late John Bunting's Chapel, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, above Oldstead. Returning home, I picked up "The Plot", John's daughter Madeleine's book about the Chapel and the small plot of land on which it stands.

Not many single acres of land can have had its own biography written about it! Some of it struck me as being a little uninteresting, but I did admire the author's treatment of the concept of "landscape". She quotes Trevor Rowley, "Large areas of rural England... are seen by millions and trodden on by hardly anyone at all."

This bears out a reflection I had, looking back on the 20 "Wednesday walks" I've done with others this year in various parts of Gloucestershire - never once retracing our steps. On hardly any occasion did we see other people on our path, and only rarely saw we people working the land through which we passed.

21 and out

The 21st and final Alan Hancox lecture at the Literature Festival was given yesterday morning. "A hugely successful series," John Randle said, by way of introduction: he paid particular thanks to Shelagh, Alan's widow, "a gentle encourager to us all."

The series, as John predicted, ended on a high note, Humphrey Stone giving a most affectionate portrait of his father, whose "life and work were one". We recognize the name, Reynolds Stone less readily than his artistic output: the Royal Arms on our passport, currency notes, the Dolcis logo, the Victory and other postage stamps... Humphrey Stone presented us with illustrations galore, projected onto screens that - because of the wind blowing outside the marquee - jumped around at times, making this member of the audience feel slightly seasick.

We saw also samples of his father's 350 bookplates and 100 memorial slabs. Mostly, they were drawn at a chaotic desk in the drawing room of his Old Rectory, three miles from Chesil Beach. Stone was essentially a miniaturist - "the eye, delighted by a small mouthful, is soon surfeited," he himself said. Pedantic, maybe, but nevertheless Stone was described by Iris Murdoch as "a totally unpretentious being," working with imagination, scholarship and good taste.

Besides lettering, Reynolds Stone's other great love was landscape, the inspiration for his "salad paintings", many featuring waterfalls and trees: in Sylvia Townsend Warner's words, it was "almost as though he was exiled from being a tree itself."

Wormington - Sapperton gas pipeline

My first photograph of this scene near Farmcote was taken on a Winter walk from Stow to Winchcombe a couple of years ago. Today I went in the other direction from Winchcombe, but only so far as Guiting Power.

In the meantime, the massive operation to lay 28 miles of controversial gas pipeline through the middle of Gloucestershire has been undertaken. Despite National Grid's claim that the pipe, laid between Wormington near Broadway, and Sapperton near Cirencester, was essential to cope with growing demand, countryside groups were apprehensive about long-term damage to a sensitive landscape.

An extensive hub for the works - as big as a hamlet - was created more or less overnight just off the A40, not far from the Andoversford traffic lights. Driving past today, however, I saw no sign of it: without close observation, it would be hard to know it had ever been there. And the same goes for the pipeline near Farmcote, apart from a smart new wooden fence.

Lost in Whittington

Caroline has been teaching this week: we have a young man from Chile staying with us, here on his Summer vacation to improve his English. As a result, I was on dog duty today. It was sunny at home, so I decided to drive up to Whittington, the parish in which we lived for nearly 12 years. There, however, the fog was dense. The footpath I remembered was easy enough to find and follow, through the woods, but when I emerged into the high, open country I felt surprisingly lost. Though the traffic on the A40 seemed nearby, there were none of the usual landmarks - until this familiar, rather beaten up copse came into view - and the sun poked through.

When I retire

At the end of next week I retire, after forty years as a solicitor. In preparation for this we put the house on the market in January, but that - for the moment - is where it rests. Not a good time to be selling a house! But it's a good house, and especially now it's Summertime, we are enjoying being here. The bore is having it looking spick and span all the time for when people come and look round.

If and when we do find a buyer, the plan is to have a Gap Year - renting a house in the South-West of France, the Gers. (This photograph of Gersois landscape was taken near La Romieu on 2nd October 2006.)