Everyone still here? I hope you all enjoyed a taste of English Culture over the last couple of days. For me that meant plenty of traditional food, excellent beer and falling asleep in front of a blazing log fire surrounded by my delightfully diverse and disfunctional family.

Tomorrow, I'm off to walk part of the Wolds Way up on the Yorkshire Wolds where there's 4000 years or more of English culture, with ancient mounds like Willy Howe, the only square barrows in the country and the tallest single standing stone in England, which stands next to a 12th century church. There's deserted medieval villages, big estates, owned for centuries by the same families who are infamous for oppressing their tenants and workers, and hillsides rolling down to the Humber Bridge. Pretty much a microcosm of English culture.

I also received two interesting books as presents: The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore and Christopher Winn's I Never Knew That About the English. Plenty of grist for the mill there.