In the spring of 1997, I fulfilled a long dreamed dream. I went walking in England for two months.

My companion said, “That’s not England.” I looked at him askance. I asked what he meant. He said, “That’s not ENGLAND: all those YELLOW FIELDS!!! That’s NOT ENGLAND!!!”

There was no lodging along The Ridgeway. Every evening I had to walk down from its height to my reserved Bed and Breakfast. This was fortunate; otherwise I would have missed one of the outstanding sights in all of England.

How can one write about the English countryside without mentioning earth works: barrows, mounds, tumuli, tors, standing stones, circles? They seem to be everywhere. The first one I saw was near the Uffington White Horse. It was a circle about…

I wanted to climb the Glastonbury Tor. It was a place that was treacle-thick with the myths and legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail.

As with The Ridgeway, it was along the top of a range of hills, only this range was called the Cotswold Scarp, and it was much more Grandma Moses-ish.

As I walked the Ridgeway and then the Cotswold Way, I kept hearing a bird song that melodically warbled on and on coming from some winged singer that seemingly never paused for breath.

When I was only two days from Chipping Campden, the north end of the Cotswold Way, I fell on a stile that was not nailed down. I got slightly damaged.

As I got on the bus, I told the driver where I was going and asked if he would notify me of the right stop. He said “Don’t you worry, Love. I’ll take you right to the door.”

One of the beauties of the country was that the rhododendrons were in bloom-- an introduced species: Rhododendron ponticum. They had orchid colored blossoms that were spectacular against the Forty Shades of Green. I thought if they had been native…

I also saw another engineering marvel: York cathedral. But in comparison to these bulls----ho hum.