Every day at 10 minutes past noon a lean, lugubrious-looking man in his 60s with long hair and a moustache emerges in running clothes from his formal, well-clipped garden near the village of Much Birch and sets off on a steady jog through the rolling countryside of Herefordshire.
This is Sir Roy Strong, aesthete and author, escaping from the cocoon of work and study to immerse himself for three quarters of an hour in a bigger world of sky and hills, woodland and streams and time-worn buildings. Without it, he says, he'd turn into a complete toadstool.
"I just put my jogging things on and do the circuit, and then I can feel my body move, I'm breathing, I'm looking at the countryside, and I just feel everything fall away," he says. "It's wonderful because one's subconscious takes over. You switch to another part of your mental make-up.
"I find I'm just looking and observing and absorbing the air and the landscape. And I don't ever regard it as irksome - if I don't do it, I miss it terribly."
The circuit begins along a hedged lane, then forks left for a dramatic descent into the valley of Wriggles Brook, which runs into the nearby River Wye. Here Sir Roy takes the brakes off and hurtles down towards the cottages and gardens at the bottom.
The road then climbs over the shoulder of a hill which gives dazzling views across the rugged landscape, crosses a rushing stream, passes an old black-and-white timbered farmhouse and comes to the pièce de résistance - the church at Hoarwithy, sitting high on a knoll.
"It's like a little bit of Sicily, with a kind of cloister and a tower - this extraordinary late 19th-century church up on the heights with a wonderful little rectory next to it. Some local worthy obviously had an enormous amount of money and lavished it on this magnificent building, almost in the middle of nowhere."
In the chancel, white marble columns support a dome with a golden apse and a mosaic depiction of Christ as the ruler of the world. The pulpit and altar are also white marble, inlaid with green marble, porphyry, lapis lazuli and tiger's-eye.
After this treat, he might detour for a look at the River Wye, but usually he takes a right turn and heads for home. The lane climbs, falls and climbs again through the cider apple orchards, and goes near a battery chicken farm to which Sir Roy objects because he's virtually vegetarian - "although I still eat Parma ham".
Sometimes he gets home without seeing anyone, but more often he meets cyclists or people on horseback, and occasionally has to jump out of the way of outsize farm machinery. His most regular encounter is with an elderly lady out for her daily walk, with whom he exchanges smiles and greetings.
"I've seen this circuit in every season because I do it all year, and you see the leaves come and go, and the hips on the wild roses and the berries on the honeysuckle, the primroses and the lilies and the whole cycle of the wild flowers, if they haven't been massacred by the local authority.
"I love doing it, and I may just pause and walk a bit if I see something in the hedge. If I see blackberries, I can't resist stopping and picking a handful and popping them in my mouth. Or if a dog rose or the honeysuckle is particularly beautiful, I like to poke my nose into it and smell it."
Spring is his favourite season, when he can shed his tracksuit and watch the lambs bouncing around in the fields.
"But I do it all through the winter, I don't mind going out in the rain, and I just observe it as a disclpline of life. I have this firm belief that you have to make a own contribution to your own health."
Sir Roy first started doing regular exercise at the age of 43, and now regards himself as "the master of the eight-minute mile".
His own parents could hardly get out of their chairs at his age, he says, but he's hoping to run for at least another 10 years: "My father-in-law was a great example to me - even when he was 83 or 84, he would always put on his coat every day and go out for a walk."
The practicals
Principal rail stations in Herefordshire are at Hereford, Leominster and Ledbury: National Rail Enquiries 08457 484950. For information about accommodation, transport and local walks, ring Herefordshire Tourism on 01432 26062. Long-distance walks include the Marches Way (204 miles) and the Wye Valley Walk (111 miles). Best map for Roy Strong's route is OS Explorer (approx 2 inches to 1 mile) 189 (Hereford and Ross-on-Wye), £5.50. See also OS Landranger (approx 1 inch to 1 mile) 149 (Hereford and Leominster), £5.25.
• The Artist and the Garden, by Roy Strong, is published by Yale University Press, £29.95.
