We set off down the hill, looking for a glade and the Elm wood. Fingers feel their raspy leaves and their corky stems; a sensation some decades ago that was part of a child’s universe. On a day with an evening shower, the yews will keep our shoulders dry. We walk up the hill, as the river flows, and emerge from the trees protection, looking up at the Cedar of Lebanon as it recedes into the sky, a 20 metre parapluie, with a rainbow to the east. While we dash to shelter of the next Pin Oak, walking in soft shoes on acorn cupules, and round to the Holm Oak with the Payne’s grey Diploicia on the trunk base, where we tarry, for the next phase of the walk is exposed. Wet spectacles are wiped clear when we complete the round, and fog up as Burco tea in the galley from a hot tap flows. Such tea soothes our spirits, before the contemplation ahead.