ON TIPTOE
As I drive down the steep little hill to park outside Launde Abbey a cassocked figure, possibly the deputy warden or chaplain, is shoo-ing a small herd of heifers away from the parking spaces. He explains, though I’d guessed, that on a hot day the cows are looking for shade and don’t like sharing space under the adjacent tree with the sheep. (Better together, boys and girls!) Perhaps I’d like to consider parking my car in the open, where they won’t want to be? I decline, and then soon afterwards - but too late - question the wisdom of my decision. After all, he knows his local animals, and I don’t. He’s a very competent shoo-er -not in the average clergyperson’s job spec. Though herding cats may be. It's up and down all the way to Tilton on the Hill. Sweet-scented and shimmering in the midsummer sun, the countryside here makes me think of rural Devon or Somerset away from the moorlands. I follow the narrow lane between the broad top of Robin-a-Tiptoe hill, Whatbor...