Destination: Herefordshire

To move westward in England is easy: simply hop onto the next train headed towards the Welsh Marches. As trains continue, farms flash by the windows, and small signs inform you when you pass through the various shires. I landed in Herefordshire, a country of farms and hedgerows that seemed to me mythical in its idyllic greenery. I was not disappointed.

Several trains and buses later, I've alighted outside of the Kington Market Hall, after staring in increasing awe out of the windows as stone and timbered houses cluster in small villages around soaring church steeples. This is what I've come to see: tractors and trailers rolling through the streets, and hills rising upwards from the village scattered with sheep and traced with hedgerows, occasional white houses resting lazily in the creases of the pastures. The streets are hung with bunting, and there is the requisite war memorial in the town square, the obligatory town church complete with bustling ladies. Footpaths lead off in every direction.

Thoroughly provisioned with local cheese and apple juice, I head into the hills for the day, sharing the paths with grazing sheep and a herd of horses. Because I can, I stop for a leisurely lunch under a tree, looking southwest, where hills undulate gently as far as I can see. The sun is hot as I realize I've accidentally crossed the border into Wales, and I step into a church for the shade. A man from the local hostel informed me, with the air of one imparting a great and indulgent secret, that it's possible to make tea in the Gladestry church, as if there could be no greater treat. He's right; it is, and I do. I wait in the quiet with my tea, out of the sun and in the company of ancient stained glass, and sign the guestbook on my way out.

Daylight seems to last forever, and I spend the days going through stile after stile, poking my nose into different footpaths and public ways and gardens, tramping through pastures and resting companionably with the sheep. In the evenings, doves coo, and in the morning mist lies heavily on the hills before burning off in the sunshine to reveal richly emerald woodlands and hazy skies. This is the time when spring has become summer in everything except the calendar, and yet there is no hint yet of high summertime, when grass lies ripe and the countryside has turned gold. Right now, there is no hint that summer could ever end, just a path that leads upwards and bends out of sight among the seemingly interminable hills.