I am in the city; glitzy mobile phone palaces vie for attention, assaulting my eyes with bright lights and brash colours, but salesmen wander the floors, lonely.

Shop doors locked, with SALE signs half-hanging like last year’s Christmas decorations; insular pedestrians gaze through shop fronts at luxuries out of reach; grey concrete, lifeless and drab.

Bright sunlight makes diamond slashes of the waves; overcoats are buttoned against the winter wind, but scarves fly and flap like trapped starlings.

Bags of rubbish bask in the sun, awaiting collection; Tess sniffs the air, appreciating forbidden aromas; puddles of seawater lay where they were hurled overnight by storm tides.

There are warnings of storms, with high winds and torrential rain; but on the beach, the sea rolls in, sedate and benign; the sun shines, and the dog wags her tail to say that everything is okay.

Unusual for winter, cows get to sample fresh air outside barns; barren fields await the gentle caresses of spring sunshine; then the rise and fall wail of a police siren shatters the tranquility, and in the distance, a hovering black helicopter becomes a harbinger of the return to urbanity

All ambient noise is blocked by the music in my ears, but I can sense the wind shaking the garage. Cats look through the window, wanting shelter, but wary of whirring wheels.

The smell of woodsmoke drifts across the landscape, unseen. The sounds of chain passing smoothly over sprockets, and the miles passing by my wheels. Serenity, broken by the white-noise hiss of tyres over tarmac, approaching fast.

Rain-soaked ground yields mud, although sure-footed dogs can use four-paw drive. Distant whistles and shouts indicate holiday dog-walkers.