A is for Anger – that healthy and yet thoroughly scary emotion. At least, we are told it is healthy. Let off steam at your workmates, exhorts the industrial psychologist. Go on, it’s good to clear the air. Scream and shout at your partner, advises the relationship counsellor. No holds barred if you really love each other, and the sex will be great when you make up. Howl and rant at farmers who obstruct footpaths, says… Hold on – says who? Only a precipitate fool, I have just come to realise.

The path I was following was overgrown, for sure. In fact the starve-acre Gloucestershire farm it crossed could not have looked more neglected. Everywhere there were signs of hardship and hopelessness – thistly fields, limping sheep, collapsing sheds. If times are tough in the mainstream banks and high streets, they are tougher still out in the agricultural backwaters. But still… this farmer obviously hated walkers. Why else would he have let his hedge smother the gap where the stile should have been? And here he came, a grim-looking chap with a sour expression.