Clare Balding and the Black Hill

The Black Hill in winter

Packing the car, I slipped the sax in beside thermos, walking boots and wetproofs before heading up the Black Mountains for Radio 4's Ramblings with Clare Balding and Nic, the erudite geography teacher.
We're to wander up the Olchon Valley, crest the ridge at The Garth and return along the spine of The Black Hill, reflecting for radio on the landscape and its inspiring qualitites: Bruce Chatwin's On The Black Hill, Francis Kilvert's Diaries, Raymond Williams' People of the Black Mountains and Owen Sheer's Resistance spring, somewhat prepared, to our lips.
I want to touch mine to the sax while we're up here, add a surprising note to the keening buzzard's, the high-up lark's and the raven's kraak.
But it's neither the time, the place or in the script.