This is the time of the green pause, when the wood is heavy and stilled, its main growth rush over, poised before autumn ripening. Quietness hangs between the trees, disturbed only by the high, distant keening of a young buzzard.
Riding early on a hot morning, my horse’s neck is soon damp with sweat. Veins rise on his sleek, bay shoulders as he puffs his way up the hill. We go slow and keep in the shade, avoiding the open heath where grasshoppers are already zizzing madly. We hope to elude the horseflies, but they find us anyway, sawing into our flesh with their serrated mouthparts.
