​The village lay there Sunday morning like a drunk passed out, twitching in their sleep. No school run to herd the kids through, no mad scramble for lost shoes or abandoned homework — just me, a battered old Canon slung over my shoulder, wandering half-aimlessly through damp lanes where the hedgerows were exploding with new green and the crows were kicking off over scraps.

​It was a bitter, wind-shanked morning when the madness came clawing back. Walking the kids to school through the frost-bitten wastelands of commuter-ville — past the sullen faces of the sleep-deprived and the vaguely menacing thud of builder's radios pumping out brain-cell-murdering pop — I could feel the old itch creeping up the back of my skull.