Ever since the ‘main’ road through to Marsh Green was closed for resurfacing a few months back, I’ve taken to riding up to the Quartermile crossroads via Silver Lane. It’s a quiet route dotted with just a few cottages and farmyards where the mud has thankfully now mostly dried to dust. Today, just out of Rockbeare, I pass a young man walking into the village. He is oblivious to me or to anything else, his ears not only plugged with headphones but also eyes fixed imperviously to whatever is happening on the screen that he holds up close to his face. I can understand the impulses of young people to escape from the ravages of the everyday world into whatever electronic realms might be available to them, but it still feels like such a sadness to willingly cut oneself off from the environment in this way. As I negotiate the bend at Little Silver, guiding my wheels between the potholes and gravel, a little cluster of marigolds cheer me from the bank and a blackbird darts ahead of me before quickly slipping back over the hedgerow.