The beginning but not where I started.

Sitting listening to the rooks squabbling in their rookery, with a new born calf in the field between the rookery and my camp, tree-creepers infesting the line of Wellingtonia under which I am sitting, chilling after a long day with Obama. It doesn't get much better then this, but then Obama is currently raiding the litter bins, and after scattering the contents he is now rolling in the mess he has created. If Obama was a dog, fine, but he is meant to be a pony.

We are camped somewhere unpronounceable, ie in Wales, and this is the blog of my trip with Obama from Brecon to Birmingham. Today isn't the start of the journey, that has happened three times already, and the last start day was Sunday, and I think this is Thursday.

Sunday was pretty laid back, ie a started at about 2.30 in the afternoon, nothing wrong with that, but the plan was to leave at 7 the day before.

The day before had been spent rebuilding the trailer that I had built the week before after the first test trip when I set off using two unsuccessful logging trailers welded together with a plastic barrel roped on top. Obviously it had to be improved and I have never traveled since, as far as I did those first three days. Gosh what an improvement. Day one Brecon to talgarth on the A470 to see the Harley Davidson rally, which finished a couple of hours before I got there, and then on to Trefecca to pretend I was camping at Siobhan and Andrews.

The A470 is an education, especially for Obama who was definitely anti bikes. After one party came past at speeds that make the large Hadron Collider unneccessary, Obama lost his nerve and set off up the embankment complete with Saddlechariot and camping trailer. I thought he might manage a perfect wall of death banked turn and really show the bikers something cool, but the embankment was too steep and I lost my nerve and pulled the ripcord. He relaxed as the vehicle released, so I brought him down and hooked up and on we went. Since then, bikes appear to be no problem, though I do still reassure him as they go past. But if bikes are no longer a problem, Cows are killers. I cannot imagine how Obama has reached six years of age and manages to pretend cows are not only terrifying, but really unusual.

Puddles are the other big problem in his life. Dangerous things puddles which I could live with but in the middle of the towpath, under almost every canal bridge is a puddle. To get saddlechariot and trailer through the towpath bridges is challenging anyway, perfectly possible, but there are only inches (2.5centimetres's) to spare Since the trailer contains all my kit, computer cameras and the usual rubbish I take with me, I like it to stay on dry land, which means Obama going through bridges, in the middle of the towpath.. But we are getting there.

Day two of my pre trip practice was from Trefecca to Bwlch, on to Llangydnir and back up the canal to Gilestone. Stayed the night in a huge tipi at Gilestone and set off for Brecon the third day.. Got home and decided to put all I had learned in those three days to making travel easier faster etc.

And set off again, but unfortunately at almost exactly 180 degrees off any course that might have Birmingham as its destination, But Ian of the beacons veggie Box scheme, hijacked me in Morrison's car park and persuaded me I didn't really want to go the right way so I set off past the Mountain Centre at Libanus for Ian and Theresa's farm. Only they would decide to grow high altitude vegetables. Surrounded by moorland whose vegetation spends its time sheltering from the wind behind anything stupid enough to stick upwards, is a vegetable garden, which seems to confuse the wind into ignoring it. That is the only explanation for how they manage to grow anything up there.

The other miracle is that Theresa hasn't collared the veg plot for more horses.

I got there for a late lunch. It would have been a normal lunch if i I had been on time but after setting off late, I met the chef at the Mountain Centre who collects MZ motorcycles. I have lead a pretty varied life and met a wide range of people but this was a first, and what I love about Ian and Theresa was that they accepted meeting an MZ collector as a valid reason to be late for lunch.

The fact that I lost a lynch pin in the gorse didn't help. Basically the new improved trailer looked far better than the old but had one minor problem, it didn't work. I had loaded up pretty casually as i knew I would have to go back via Rowanoak, so Nick could make more bad jokes about my inability to get going, and as an afterthought slung in the welder.

Well, you never know when a welder will turn out useful on a horse drawn journey, and when Ian and Theresa realised I DID have a welder in there, they got me to weld up the transport box on the tractor. It had seen better days, which is my pre emptive excuse for when my welds fail at the first use.

As I try to catch up with my blog, Obama is checking out the tent for anything that might be edible. I wish he could understand that after taking half a dozen apples, the remains of the carrots, my last two crispbread, and failing to get into two tins of sardines, which he could have had with my compliments, (God knows why I fell for buy one get one free, when I don't like the idea of one sardine let alone two. Well done Waitrose of Monmouth, but don't rely on the passing chariot trade to boost the sardine turnover. However I will be back as a very kind lady on the staff, offered to keep Obama company while I shopped.)

I really haven't managed yet to describe any of that first day, but I hope you are getting a flavour of the careful planning that has gone into the trip.

Odd though it may seem, this is a rerun of Cobbetts Rural Rides, hence "Rural Rides Again", the title, and if that doesn't put you off reading, nothing will. Cobbett was on a horse and riding with a servant. I am driving a pony, though Obama has me pretty well trained and his attitude is that "If i am going to walk all that way, he can!", so it is more of an amble. Cobbett was a noted politician, writer, agriculturist, an MP whose expenses were never questioned and a radical.

I am a bit radical, but I am amazed at the topicality of Cobbetts writing. Banks printing funny money, gamblers on the stock exchange losing their shirts and everyone else's, the Scots coming in and telling us how to run the country. Actually, the racism is the only jarring note in Rural Rides though it is vastly less offensive than the casual, and unnecessary racism in Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers or Bulldog Drummond.

So this blog is going to ramble off round England, pulled slowly by a pony called Obama, attached to a saddlechariot with a camping trailer Mark 3. In theory my route is from Brecon to Birmingham, but I am off on a detour to Cheltenham to see Patrick Meyer, who is keeping an eye on Obama's feet and let Obama take a break.

Currently we are camped with Mike and Denise, more mad friends of Ian and Theressa's who live on Symonds Yat.

Now the problem with journey planning is that when I see that to get from one side of the Wye, to the other side of Symonds Yat, is nearly a days journey, and nearly a days journey in the wrong direction, i don't let minor details deflect me. Just the name Symonds Yat is worth having on an itinerary, and the views are beautiful, yet oddly, the most memorable feature of reaching the top of Symonds Yat was the sound of children playing.

This is the first time I have heard children playing outside in a rural area, since I left Brecon.

This is part of a theme that resonates through Rural rides, and is coming home to roost in Rural rides Again.

Cobbett talked about the people he saw, and their condition and their problems. Over 50% of the people I have seen out of doors, while travelling from Brecon too Symonds Yat, are Polish Asparagus pickers and they were all in one field.

This is a desert Island, and we should be asking why. I suspect Cobbett has the answers.