The Cotswold Way. Kev Reynolds

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      Dodington Park, a series of graceful meadows between Tormarton and Old Sodbury (Stage 11, Southbound; Stage 3, Northbound)

      Views were lost in a grey mist of rain that had not let up since breakfast, but needing a hot drink I sank onto a cushion of heather, settled back against a silver birch and dug my flask out of the rucksack. The tea was welcome; the rain and lack of views had not affected my spirits and I was aware of being immensely happy. It was a privilege to be there, to be walking this land of timeless beauty, absorbing its past and present, gleaning experience for tomorrow’s patchwork of memory. And as I wiped the steam from my glasses I noticed, among the swamps of nodding cowslips that crowded the hillside, early purple orchids standing sentry-like here and there, their helmets tossing minute cascades of spray as raindrops fell upon them…

      The soft light of a June evening pushed shadows out of a stand of beech trees. From a pathside bank I watched the patch of darkness spread down the knoll as silvered galleon clouds drifted overhead and a blackbird piped his own last post from a hawthorn bush nearby. At the foot of the slope a roe deer slipped out of the woodland shaw and sprang across the long grass, as though leaping waves. Reluctant to break the spell I delayed my onward walk and sat, content to absorb the moment…

      These are just two of the vignettes that spill unbidden from a host of memories gathered along the Cotswold Way, but each time I’ve walked the route end to end – and others when I’ve snatched isolated sections for the sheer pleasure of being there – I’ve been seduced by the region’s special attractions. There are the curving bays and spurs of the escarpment, the beech-crowned heights, open breezy commons, deeply cut dry valleys, mile upon mile of drystone walling from which anxious wrens dart and where snails cling limpet-like to the verticals.