What better place to hold a literary festival than the Lake District, with its magical scenery and literary associations? This month nearly 100 writers, broadcasters and other national figures will arrive in Keswick for Words by the Water, a ten-day event held on the sylvan shores of Derwentwater. The Theatre by the Lake, where they will speak, is a short stroll from the water’s edge.

If you’re driving from Oxford to London, as I was privileged to do as a third-year undergraduate with a car, you have two main routes: the A40 via Stokenchurch and Beaconsfield, nowadays more often the M40, or the A4130 following the river via Dorchester, on to Nettlebed and down the hill to Henley-on-Thames.