The afternoon was hot and sultry as I walked the footpaths on the property of our friends, Hans Kraus and Mariana Cook.   No wonder Mariana has had a project photographing primitive walls (see Mariana Cook, Stone Walls, Bologna, 2011) because the estate is surrounded by ancient walls made up of large boulders, dating from a time when the land was grazed by sheep and including a nineteenth-century sheep pen.   It felt prehistoric because of the old oak trees, including some dead, and the wealth of untamed vegetation.   I swam in the pond.