I was following the flight of the Red Admiral, along the grassy path of a long disused and overgrown railway line, where there was a distant light at the end of the tunnel of evergreen hedgerows.

Out and about, stretching my legs and striding out with purpose from my country pile of an overheating two-man tent, I was mulling over last night’s events on the not-so-Secret campsite, where I almost sparked a forest fire while cooking my steak and celebrating my publishing win over a few glasses of Argentinian Malbec.

Taking a spontaneous diversion through the welcoming shade of ancient woodland by the sunken railway bridge, on route to the caffeinated delights of the local farm shop, I found myself facing a sobering reality check on country life. Under the summer heatwave, I had stumbled on a field of bony sheep starving to death in an alternative directors cut of Silence of the Lambs.

Lost without a GPS or compass, like Jarvis in his party field of shattered dreams, my inner radar eventually brought me to the gates of the farm shop. Boarded up and showing no signs of life, let alone a trade in imported coffee beans, there was nothing doing for this privileged camper stepping across the countryside divide in a hunt for a flat white.