At last we can go outside without our winter layers. Of course being Brits, we’re bound to complain that we’re now too hot. But then I don’t think this mini warmth-wave is set to last beyond a couple of days. Even so, it called a halt to digging up the lawn, which will doubtless resume later in the week when it’s reported to be several degrees cooler.

Instead, we meandered along Bishop’s Castle’s green lanes where all is a shadowland of dog roses and foxgloves among aged gnarly roots. The overarching boughs of sycamore, field maple,hawthorn, elder and ash create a sappy coolness.

Green lanes are a covert feature of the English countryside – unpaved, their one-time hedgerow borders grown up into tree arcades. Some of these byways may be old drovers’ roads. Others are far more ancient, once on trading routes used by Bronze Age and even earlier travellers.

This particular lane takes us up to a high meadow where the grass has been mown for hay. There is an antique barn, settled in scenic decay, and fine hill views all around. Bishops Castle town lies way below, quietly.

*

* “Summer is icumen in”  a thirteenth century English round, hear it sung here in Middle English