I’m heading through the birdsong for Bog House. A pheasant clatters up squawking, where six months ago a deer had leaped from the snow as I passed. There’s a rainbow over Keswick and the river’s full after rain, but it’s the sun that has the best hand this evening, moving round the Derwent Valley amphitheatre to spotlight one by one the big names.

Clough Head is first – a brilliant yellow with a rare quasi-lenticular cloud show above, then it’s Barrow’s turn, the dark green profile of its ridge sharp against the evening sky. Next Catbells – it’s an unusual shape when seen here from the north. The clouds slowly shift while I thread my way through a birch thicket. As I climb the river bank, to NNE below a clouded Skiddaw, Dodd and its woods are slowly turning a golden green and brown. The top is shorn of trees, but the lower sections retain a thick canopy.

This is osprey terrain now and I can see the position of the nest. The parent birds aren’t flying, but a blackbird sings her heart out to me for a full four minutes from the top of a field post. Only as I get back to The Larches at 9.45 does the sun’s spotlight on Dodd click off. What an evening of son et lumière it’s been. Who needs a home entertainment system, when the best show’s outside?

POSTSCRIPT: For a map and description of a longer variant of this circular walk and more photos see Walk No 2 of the Walking and transport section of the site.