Country diary: a walk before dawn on a moonless path

Sandy, Bedfordshire: My feet swish through leaves and I’m conscious of many missteps, slight stumbles over roots and slides into dipsIn dark December, so many walks traverse the fold between night and day. A yearning for unpeopled landscapes sends me out before dawn, past houses of spent Christmas with winking fairy strings and tinselled porches, down to the water’s edge.Sometimes, I encounter moving lights, the bob-bob nod of a jogger’s head torch, or the zigzagging coloured c