Dolgellau, Gwynedd: The animals graze unconcernedly among clumps of soft rush as I wander past
My late start meant that the sun was already much further west than I had hoped. The light had moved on from the eastern slopes, and deep shadows lay across the shoulder of Cadair Idris, with the summit outlined in sharp relief against the deep blue of a flawless sky.
I took the lane that runs gently uphill between stolid banks of mossy stone towards a band of low woodland. As I walked, I tried to roughly calculate the mass of the stonework I passed – and before reaching the top of the rise, less than a mile distant, I had accounted for several hundred tonnes.