So the next week Bob and I walked again

Village life was new to me. I’m a city girl. I was a city girl, that is. Until circumstances brought me – drove me – to the quiet backwaters of rural life. I wasn’t settling well. Foggy, damp January isn’t a time to fall in love with the countryside. Leafless hedges, bare-branched trees, and a wind from the north which smelled of snow, although none fell to create a winter wonderland of my new surroundings.

The dog, on the other hand, had taken to this different life with uncalled-for zest. Each ...