We walked down the shadowed lane. Chiffchaffs called in the birch trees, cockerels crowed from the farms. A gate allowed us into woods. Slipping through aspens, our path skirted a hillside tangled with holly, and honeycombed with badger setts. At last we reached the water: an eye-shaped tarn set in ancient woodland under biscuit-coloured cliffs. A swan slid silently into the reeds; a pike nosed through waterweed; everything else was motionless.