A re the roads getting more packed, the traffic goes faster. Or is it just that I'm getting slower? Possibly all three. Come to think of it, definitely all three.

Even in the depths of the countryside, it's getting harder to get away from roads, noise and places like MacDonalds pretending they're giving you a great deal on plastic food.

I have been asking myself a question; where do you go to get away from it all?

My preference is for the West Country and by my definition, that stretches as far as the tip of Cornwall, east on to the Thames and west into the Malvern Hills.

Beaches are nice at this time of year, if there's nobody on them. Depending on whether the prevailing Westerlies are blowing up your kilt, it's pretty certain that you'll have the beach to yourself.

Walking briskly is the done thing in October. Sitting in a deckchair hoping to catch a tan is not. All you'll catch is a cold or a dose of windburn.

Don't laugh, the latter is quite nasty. I got it once while boating down a river. Unfortunately I had kept my sunglasses on. On taking them off, I looked like a panda – great white circles around my eyes. And my nose was red. I could have taken bookings for Christmas as a stand-in for Rudolf.

Personally, I prefer forests at this time of year but only when the leaves on the tops of trees are gold and red against an azure sky. Such conditions are wont to throw me into poetic terminology – I don't usually go for the word azure when blue would do.

So where is that ideal autumn weather that makes a Wordsworth of a straight-to-the-point Jeannie? It could be under the apple tree with the fairies. That's what I tell my grandchildren when they can't find a favourite toy or the half-eaten packet of Smarties.

The fairies under the apple tree are now responsible for everything that goes missing in their house.

So an Indian Summer is away with the fairies.

My other preferred vistas are combes. I like combes. You see a lot of them around the top of Exmoor, falling away from the road, the landscape rolling like slices of cake cut into the hills.

There's something dark and mysterious about combes; it doesn't matter if the weather is a bit grim, neither sunlight nor rain can penetrate some of those combes. And, of course, that's where the fairies really do live – or at least, the pixies do.

There is another choice. A friend of mine has just returned from a boating holiday on a narrowboat. This is her second venture on to the former industrial highways now turned over to the leisure industry. Luckily she caught the best of the weather – not that it would have mattered much anyway.

I asked her the best words to describe her getaway; slow, restful, beautiful, enjoyable. She did point out that it does help if you're a size 12. Although the boat had all mod-cons, the beds weren't too wide. Being of Junoesque proportions, and her old man not as skinny as he once was, this necessitated him sleeping with his head next to her toes and her having an eyeful of his. In other words, it can bring new angles to many a stale relationship!

Friendly natives peopled the banks bordering the canals and also on other boats. It was as though a new community had sprung up among people out to get away and enjoy themselves. Books and board games took the place of the television.

Other interesting games occurred to me, such as was it possible for two voluptuous people to squeeze past each other in the very narrow passage through the kitchen? I think a voluptuous pair might be stuck there for a while, but hey, they could have fun trying!