[EDIT: you can read the stories from my progress across my map here.]

September. Sleepy eyed kids at early bus stops in too large blazers. A grey hint of coolness on the air. A faint drizzle and the scent of honeysuckle. A telephone box has been repurposed as a library. I glance inside, secretly hoping I might see one of my own books in there. Of course I don’t – I rarely see them even in bookshops, let alone a little community library filled with discarded bestsellers. Still, a vain man like me always has to hold on to secret hopes! (Whilst in confessional mode, I have always dreamed of seeing somebody enjoying one of my books on the Tube or a train. I sit nonchalantly and anonymously for a while, watching their rapt expression or hoots of laughter… There: I told you I was a vain and deluded fellow! Anyway, back to the map…)

I’m in a small one-street town whose narrow road can’t cope with the busy back to school traffic. Cars wait, back up, rush, manoeuvre. I cruised past the chaos down the pavement. Many towns would be so much nicer before on street parking filled everywhere up.

The village was looking a bit sad. The village shop had shut down (a sign in the window read, ‘ The shop has permantley [sic] been closed since the 1st Oct. Thank you.’) The post-war homes were tatty and the Victorian terraces built for workers of the since-demolished cement factory needed a coat of paint. Round the back of the pub a man was cutting the grass, pushing a lawnmower up and down with a cigarette clamped firmly between his lips. At the edge of the village was a large 16th Century farmhouse with a, 18th Century Georgian front, three storeys high with 15 large windows. A large locust tree filled the front garden and an irrigation system dripped onto a row of geraniums outside the front gate. Beyond this house was the end of town and the fields had already been harvested and ploughed. Hawthorn berries were ripening in the hedgerows and today was the first time in months that I’ve wished for a wooly hat. Summer is almost over. Swallows and martins still circled overhead. One day I’ll notice that I haven’t noticed them in a while, and they’ll have gone, flown south to Africa without saying goodbye.

A sign on the village church invited me in, ‘You are welcome to share the quiet, beauty and friendship of this church’. I passed beneath the lych gate built to commemorate the local young men killed in World War 1. In the churchyard was the grave of the oldest man aboard the HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar where Lord Nelson was killed. Almost alongside that grave was another of a little girl who died the day she was born, decorated with a fresh wreath for her 18th birthday from ‘Mummy and Daddy’. Alongside that was a lady who died in 1875, aged 60, and mother to 22 children (’11 of whom are buried near this spot’). When I am in a melancholy mood I am often drawn to reading grave stones. More often than not I find them uplifting, inspiring and encouraging.

Beyond the village the river was lapping gently, muddy and peaceful this morning at high tide. I listened to the susurration of the wind whispering in the reeds, then questioned myself whether susurration was even a word. (Turns out I was right, it comes from the Latin word for ‘whisper’.) I followed the river downstream to the edge of my grid square, past a tribute to the lime kiln workers who used to work here, past the site of the cement factory that brought wealth to the area, and past where the ferry ran for hundreds of years until 1963. You could take your bike on the ferry but it cost 1/2p extra! I passed a smelly sewage works, past a quiet bench where I watched the water for a while, past pylons in the reed beds wrapped in barbed wire and warning would-be climbers of the 33,000 Volts fizzing through those cables over the reed beds.

I turned away from the river and began climbing the long gentle valley side. Today’s grid square was a rare foray for me onto the far side of the river and it felt like a new land for me. I was keen to gain as much elevation as possible (not much) to afford the best possible view over the landscape of my map from this novel perspective. I pedalled past an electricity substation, past the old school, past a smelly cattery and boarding kennels and up a narrow lane between two tight hedges.

Riding a stony bridleway into a wood I made sure to enjoy the lush green trees overhead, for in just a few short weeks autumn will be here and the leaves will be falling. The path became a beautiful holloway for a short distance, with beech trees arching overhead and the tangle of roots visible on the elevated track sides. A nuthatch scurried up and down one of the trunks, calling ‘dwip, dwip’ as it searched for food.

I had crept beyond the boundaries of my grid square now, but the road through the woods kept calling me on and I knew that I should savour this summer day in the trees before they were gone for another year. Emails and chores (and writing all this) could wait for another day.

At the top of the woods was a lookout point, provisioned with a picnic table and an excellent view over the village (and the inevitable new development just to its south), over the river and towards the chalk ridgeline of fields and woods that I have often enjoyed visiting on my forays across this map. The picnic table bore the scorch marks from at least half a dozen disposable barbecues.

Dropping back down to the village I cycled past a golden field lined with rows of straw, drying out before being baled. Beyond that a hedge bursting with blackberries. Finally, it seemed, I had reached peak blackberry season. I stopped to gorge myself for a while, my body an efficient machine whirring through the movements of pick, eat, pick, eat, my eyes always scanning for the next ripe berry. Blackberries must be the highlight of the British forager’s calendar year (excepting, I allow, for those savvy enough to harvest wild mushrooms) – a food that is easy to find, plentiful, won’t kill you, and actually tastes delicious (unlike quite a lot of foraged food which tastes mostly of leaves).

One of the earliest known instances of blackberry consumption comes from the remains of the Haraldskær Woman, the naturally preserved bog body of a Danish woman dating from approximately 2,500 years ago. Forensic evidence found blackberries in her stomach contents, among other foods. The use of blackberries to make wines and cordials was documented in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1696.

Blackberries were thought to protect against spells and curses if gathered during a certain phase of the moon. Children with hernias were known to pass through an arched area in the bramble to cure them. Boils were supposed to be cured when the sufferer crawled through the brambles.