Anna Stenning (who is doing a PhD on Robert Frost and Edward Thomas) led a Friends of the Dymock Poets walk around some of the poets’ paths yesterday. It was HOT – both the day and the walk. Well, ok, maybe walks and dead poets aren’t hot hot but it’s a glorious bit of historic countryside around which to pootle on a sunny Sunday afternoon in company with Interesting People. There were about three dozen poetry and/or walking fans and friends on the trail. We started in the village hall with an introduction and some background from Anna.
(Click on a photo to see a bigger image)
We stopped for a glass of water and a look in the mini-museum shed celebrating the Dymock Poets.
We glimpsed the distant Malverns and May Hill. We met cows and bullocks. And a bull.
Luckily there was a fence between him and us. Hazards were nettles, cowpats, frisky heifers, nettles, thistles, stiles, nettles. I’d recommend a stout walking stick if it is shorts-and-bare-legs weather and three dozen stampeding poets haven’t already flattened the nettles for you.
We walked through fields of grazing, dwarf wheat, barley, rape, hay, flax and potatoes. We saw seed heads of the wild daffodils that were in flower in spring – maps of the daffodil trails are available, too.
We finished back at the village hall for tea, cake and a taste of ancient Welsh language tales. There were interludes of poetry in shady spots along the way.
And a fox. 
Fox Unkennelled - Myfanwy Fox 
ooh, where did you see that fox tree??
On a building at the back of the lovely farmhouse with the dogs in the upstairs window – the farm with the horse I photographed. We stopped in their lovely orchard for poetry.