This walk took us down the small road to Rye Farm and then along a muddy pathway and across a large field to Swift Ditch and beyond, then back to Abingdon by the Thames path.

As we set out there were a few people – like us – out on their allowed lockdown exercise walk.

The view from the Rye Farm track is across ploughed fields with crows, towards a green rise where there are sheep and trees.

On the other side is a hedge that has been cut back, and a few buildings including Kingfisher barn which people can book to stay.

There were fewer people beyond Swift Ditch.

I have blogged about Swift Ditch a few times before. In 2007, the police had found the body of a lady, suffering from dementia, who went missing. She was found in one of the pools between the faster streams of water.

This time there was nothing quite as tragic but it might be sad. Over the other side of the River Thames there were long piles of cut down trees. Somebody asked me last month why they were cutting down so many trees down that way. Could it be for gravel extraction? The area is adjacent to the former gravel pits of Radley Lakes. I didn’t know.

There are a lot of boats moored by the Thames Path. My wife likened them to the Gyptian boats in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, recently on BBC 1.

One boat was sunk in the middle of the river. Bundles of dry vegetation came floating downstream. Somebody was cutting a new clearing on the river bank. Possibly to help rescue the sunken boat.

At Abingdon Weir we had to wait a few minutes as people kept coming the other way. The new convention is that you wait until you have a clear path before going across. Sometimes it pays to wait. I did see the blue flash of a Kingfisher.