In Kentish fields - a welcome return and a stark reminder.

I know it's been too long since I've set finger to keyboard and I'm not even going to try to describe all the things that have happened since, at the end of July, I left Paris and headed for pastures new yet familiar; Ashford, Kent. The name doesn't quite summon up the same images as where I last laid my head, but brings a whole raft of new ones and judging by the first ten weeks, it's going to be just as memorable.

By the end of three months in Paris I'd been to at least three different gallery openings. In and around Ashford these are fewer and further between, but by the end of three months here I will have gone for three fabulous walks in the stunning Kentish and East Sussex countryside.

The view from the lifeboatmen's cottages across to the Seven Sisters - sheer cliffs of blinding white chalk undulating in peaks and troughs as far as the horizon - was simply spectacular. Never mind the fact that upon reaching our destination we realised we were an entire week late for the bus.

Munching on the tartest of blackberries brought a spot of child-like happiness to a wander along the Great Stour Way. Never mind the fact that tying a thin plastic bag of said fruit to my rucksack for later was akin to setting off an indigo paint bomb every time I moved my right leg.

However, for sheer pathos and points of interest, the eight-kilometre circuit to and from the little village of Appledore has been my highlight. I went to get some much needed inspiration for this blog - well, that and to avoid wasting a glorious late Autumn day on housework - and I found it, but not in the form first anticipated.

It wasn't the most auspicious of starts, as it turns out that Appledore pulls off the Ryan Airesque feat of having a railway station about two miles away from the village itself, where my walk started. Not relishing yomping along a main road, I was relieved to soon find a footpath veering off toward Appledore through a ripening cornfield. The stalks and leaves were reminiscent of sun bleached packing paper. They looked barely strong enough to hold the bulging ears and certainly not to deter rodent raiders from their sweet golden snack.

As I approached the village, camera poised, Mother Nature taught me a lesson: perfection can very rarely be photographed, as the now descending, mid-afternoon sun slanted its rays across the languid flow of the Royal Military Canal. Where variations in depth set the water rippling, showers of diamonds would seemingly hover in mid air like mist. That said, the refraction caused by these liquid gems meant taking a worthwhile shot was nigh-on impossible.

Once I'd joined the path though, I elected to walk with the sun behind me. The light now brought out the colour of every autumn leaf, every blade of grass and every particle in the clear, blue sky. I had to discipline myself, as otherwise I'd lose the day, snapping away, before I was half way around.

The Royal Military Canal - the third longest British military monument after Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dike - that runs for 28 miles between Seabrook in Kent and Cliff End in East Sussex, began construction in 1804, in response to the threat of Napoleonic invasion. However, the only combat in evidence today was that age-old war of patience between the angler and his fishy foe. Over three quarters of those 28 miles had been dug by hand. Perhaps those engineers had taken inspiration from the resident badgers, whose excavations dotted the landward side of the embankment.

Despite the canal never having seen action - in either Napoleonic or Second World Wars - evidence of the readiness for it to do so sat in squat, concrete contrast to the nature around. Slipping (literally) down into the hexagonal pillbox was like slipping back 70 years. I could only wonder if a rifleman had once stood where I now stood, periodically peering nervously from the milk carton-size opening, waiting for an enemy that would never come.

What was surely coming now though was dusk and as I'd feared, I was going to have to up the pace if I was to cover the eight kilometres before nightfall. It seemed sacrilegious to quick-march past the ranks of majestic, russet-cloaked elms stopping only to retrieve my hat as another hawthorn branch snagged it off my head.

After ten minutes or so more of bank-side yomping, the path cut left up a road before heading into hilly farmland. Half way up an incline I glanced left along a ridge, where a lone tree and several electricity pylons stood silhouetted against a backdrop of field and sky, the colours of which had been distilled emerald and cobalt by the fading light.

Turning back now toward Appledore, the path now took me, first up then down, across pewter-grey furrows of newly-ploughed hills. However quickly I wanted to walk now, the soft, sticky clay underfoot was making the way distinctly heavier. Not as heavy, though, as I'd thought on first entering, nor as difficult as it could have been weighed down by more than my little backpack. I don't know whether it was the blush of red seeping through the clouds, or the memory of that pillbox sitting obsolete on the banks of the canal, but I suddenly remembered that it was Remembrance Day.

On this day we mark the loss of those who fell in fields of mud not unlike the ones through which I now walked, to be cut down, not unlike that field of corn I had first wandered blithely through. Though there were no poppies, scarlet roses marked the edge of rows of vines, that, it didn't take much to imagine in the dimming, resembled the lines of coiled, barbed wire upon which bodies lay bloodied and torn hundreds of miles from home.

At the summit of the final descent into Appledore a grassy hillock stands, upon which sits a makeshift bench. After an eight-mile trudge, most would welcome the jovial nature of the words inscribed on it: "Take a pew, enjoy the view." I declined the seat and stood taking in the peaceful serenity of the village below and before descending into civilisation once more. Down on the square, I sighted the church's flags, flying respectfully at half mast, so I offered up a quiet salute to heroes past and headed for the train...

...we will remember them.