In the English countryside, lessons for a city dweller

To understand who we are is to sometimes roam among those not like us.

- Rohit Brijnath

Assistant Sports Editor In Rio, a fine espresso at a cafe. In Paris, a walk in the Tuileries Garden. In Oslo, pickled herring on a room service trolley. Morning breaks delightfully in the city when you're on holiday. But wander to the countryside and the day begins with a distinctly unfamiliar tone. To be precise, with a yell and a rugged invitation.

"Hey, want to learn how to use the chainsaw?" It's mid-August and I wake up on the moors in south-west England to this question from downstairs.

Upstairs I do a city dweller's eye roll. Phone, speaker, vacuum, blender. This is where my interest in machinery ends. Anyway this invitation arrives from my older brother, who once expertly chainsaw-ed part of his finger, which was somehow held together by his glove, resulting in a 30-minute drive, four local anaesthetics and much high-pitch complaining.

So, no, I'll pass. Thanks anyway, pal.

I'm in Devon, land of Agatha Christie and Walter Raleigh, for a post-Olympics de-stress. The Games are raucous, here silence wraps the fields like a mist. Blood pressure returns to its normal range and clean air washes the lungs. When darkness falls it's as if someone's coated the outdoors in an impenetrable coat of black paint.

I recommend a week in the country where there are no nightclubs, museums or malls.

Only gumboots which stand like sentries at doorways and horses in a neighbouring field which might wander close to say hello.

An evening walk is not a gentle amble down Yio Chu Kang Road but a vertical climb up the moors, past three indifferent pigs, to an ancient gravesite marked by giant stones.

UNDERSTATED BEAUTY