On a warm summer's morning you can stand on the banks of Ardingly reservoir, deep in the Sussex countryside, watching the mist rise off the water and the great crested grebes flying past, and believing for a while that the world is a place of peace and harmony.
That's what Laura Moffatt did one day this month, taking in the familiar sights and scents and breathing the fresh air. She grew up in nearby Crawley, where she is Labour MP, and has always relied on this corner of the Weald as a place to go walking with her family and visit country pubs.
The morning idyll by the reservoir was soon fractured by another Boeing 747 coming into nearby Gatwick Airport, and before long it was time for her to catch the train to London for another day at the House of Commons, where peace and harmony no doubt took a further knock.
But she'll be back many times with her husband Colin and terrier Manny (as in Lord Manny Shinwell, the veteran Labour politician) to look at the calm water and walk up the hill past the red-brick Victorian buildings of Ardingly College and the "hammer pond" at Saucelands.
From the pond, they do a circuit through woods and fields to Ardingly village - building styles medieval to executive box - and back to the reservoir car park. This is the area they visited when they were young and short of money, driving an old banger and drinking at the Gardener's Arms.
"These are all home walks for me, for days when there are other things to be done. You can be at Ardingly, or even in the Ashdown Forest, in about 10 minutes from where we live. It's very different from when we go to Cornwall on holiday and go for long walks along the cliffs.
"I'm a bit of a townie, though - it's lovely to go for walks, but I also like to see signs of people coming and going. I'm not very keen on disappearing into the wilds and not seeing anyone for ages. This area suits me because it's very diverse, a living landscape where there's plenty going on.
"I prefer to walk with Colin. Then it's a time for relaxing and talking and having a giggle. If I'm alone, it's different - I tend to relive the mistakes, how I could have done things better at the Commons, think about future battles. I've been known to talk to myself, saying out loud the things that are going round in my head."
After visits to the Falklands and Kosovo with the defence select committee, Moffatt is fully kitted out with weatherproof gear: "I enjoy going out in the rain - I just get well wrapped up and go. I'm not much of a sunshine person because of my pale skin, and now I've got these wonderful walking boots, I'm ready for anything."
High Weald Landscape Trail
The walk described by Laura Moffatt touches on England's latest waymarked long-distance path - a 90-mile west-to-east crossing of the High Weald, the great undulating stretch of heath and woodland that sits between the steep chalk rims of the North and South Downs.
The High Weald Landscape Trail offers a week of walking, starting from Horsham in West Sussex, continuing past East Grinstead and Tunbridge Wells into Kent, then curving south through flatter countryside to the ancient port of Rye on the Channel coast.
The route has been designed to pass close to public transport, pubs and places to stay, wildlife areas, and attractions such as historic houses. Famous gardens, such as Sissinghurst, Nymans and Bedgebury Pinetum are all within striking distance.
It also gives an insight into the forces that have shaped the landscape, especially the iron industry which dominated until the 18th century, stripping the woodland for charcoal and building dams and "hammer ponds" for water power.
Also seen are old brick kilns, apple orchards, hop gardens, oast houses and meadows of grazing sheep: less definable is the closed and dreamy atmosphere retained by the Weald in spite of its nearness to London. Siegfried Sassoon, brought up in the area, called it "green contentedness."
Gerry Sherwin, of the High Weald Unit, said they started to plan the route by mapping places they wanted it to pass. "There are lots of long-distance paths in these parts, but they tend to focus on the Downs or run north-south through the Weald.
"We wanted to go east-west and give people the opportunity to see the variety of the landscape, from the hills of the High Weald to the river valleys near Rye. This approach has been more common in the last two or three years - a lot of paths just take you from A to B without necessarily taking in the best parts."
Work included putting boardwalks over muddy sections, clearing branches and bushes, replacing stiles, and putting up the waymarks, which show a church and an oak tree. Sherwin said early feedback indicated people liked to walk the path over three weekends, using public transport, pubs and B&Bs.
