This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Well, why not have a bit of hyperbole when you’re back walking in your home country! My sister and brother-in-law guided myself and two friends on a selection of walks around Hereford and North Wales. The landscapes we traipsed were peppered with ancient monuments and structures: either high for the view (Bryn Dinas), low in the fertile valleys (Llanthony Abbey) or stretched along the border of Wales and England to create a barrier between hostile folk (Offa’s Dyke – not shown). Walking higher up reveals of one of my favourite views of the British landscape: patchwork fields—stitched together with hedgerows and creeks—their patterns changing as the season of haymaking unfolds. In North Wales, the drystone walling bewilderingly carves up the hillsides, on seemingly impossible slopes, for a long-forgotten purpose of division or protection. Moss hugs trees and drips off stone walls or nestles together with heather and stone as a contrasting trio. A few bloody blisters but some bloody lovely walking.