In the middle of wild swampland where the trees are intertwined in an inextricable thicket, there is a plain with very green vegetation which attracts the eye by reason of its fertility; no obstacle impedes the walker. Not a particle of the soil is left fallow; here the earth bears fruit trees, there grape vines cover the ground or are trained on high trellises. In this place cultivation rivals nature; what the latter has forgotten the former brings forth…. this is an image of Paradise; it makes one think already of heaven.’ William of Malmesbury on Thorney Abbey.

I looked this quotation up recently. It was in a little anthology I made years ago of writings about gardens and nature, and our place in nature, and the phrase that struck me vividly then and still does is no obstacle impedes the walker. Recently I have learnt that Thorney Abbey is near Peterborough on a slightly elevated spit of pebbly land, an island in the fens. Part of the huge abbey church survived the reformation and is now a parish church. Various websites give different versions of William’s description. Unfortunately I don’t remember where I found my version. None of the others think it worth including my detail: no obstacle impedes the walker, although it surely says something important about life in the middle ages, any more, I suppose than they would think of mentioning that unfortunately the approach to Thorney on the B 1040 is made a little tricky by potholes.

Now it sits alongside a sentence in Ennion, p. 58: I turned off between the trees along the roadway leading to the forgotten mill. It was overgrown with reed and sallows and best followed by the feel of hard ground underfoot as against the spring of peat on either side. If you didn’t watch your step and feel your way you could be up to your knees or worse in mud.

And I rmembered this, from Deviations, Boundaries, Prohibitions, (revised) Raving on his return to Britain about the delights of Guiana Sir Walter Raleigh claimed that he ‘never saw a more beautiful country… the river winding into diverse branches, the plains adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the ground of hard sand, easy to march on either for horse or foot… the birds towards evening singing from every tree, with a thousand tunes; cranes and herons of white, crimson and carnation perching on the riverside; the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind; and every stone that we picked up promised either gold or silver by his complexion.’ As if easy passage is an integral part of the experience of paradise, and every day life is marked by the difficulties of movement, of progress.

Now even serious walkers are on the whole spared the troubles of mud and rough ground: often more for the sake of the landscape, to prevent erosion, than for our feet, the National Trust and National park authorities are busy repairing paths with the help of hundreds of volunteers. But I remember the relief we felt after climbing Foinaven in the north west highlands and crossing a mile or two of bog and ankle twisting tussocks on the way back, the luxury, the excitement when we reached the road of a smooth, firm surface underfoot, where no obstacle impedes the walker.

Tarmac, what a wonderful thing! But now we don’t appreciate it, we just feel outrage when it’s imperfect. Everything must be smooth, and every political party promises us that it will be.