As soon as we lost skin contact the water around me turned cold as ice. I leapt to my feet screaming, and stared at Beverley who stood glistening, naked and unconcerned on the bank.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘Give me some warning next time.’

‘Woke you up, though, didn’t it?’ she said.

‘How are we going to get back to the car?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Beverley as she climbed up the bank ahead of me. ‘I know where we can get some help.’

For a moment I was too lost in admiration to speak, but by the time I’d joined her at the top I’d recovered enough to ask her how far the help was. All I could see was clumps of trees and the metalled track that led up to the main road.

‘That’s the A44,’ said Beverley, pointing to the road. ‘Down there and to the left.’

‘Just a quick stroll down the road,’ I said.

‘Ten minutes tops,’ said Beverley.

‘Stark bollock naked?’ I asked.

‘If you like, you can stay here while I fetch our stuff,’ said Beverley.

Across the road there was a rather tasty regency cottage with cream walls and a red tiled roof.

‘Should we just ask them?’

‘Come on, come on,’ said Beverley and pointed. ‘Civilisation is that way.’

Despite the fact that it couldn’t have been much more than six o’clock in the morning, the sun was hot enough to quickly dry the water off our skin. Fortunately, out in the countryside pavements hadn’t been invented yet. So at least we were walking on grass.

‘After you,’ I said.

‘No, no,’ said Beverley. ‘It’s only proper that the woman walks two paces behind her man.’

I set out down the verge, gingerly watching where I stepped.

Beverley said something I couldn’t make out.

‘What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ said Beverley. Then, ‘Have you been doing a bit of training recently?’

I squared my shoulders – I couldn’t help myself.

As we walked away from the bridge a middle-aged white man came out of the cottage and was climbing into his car when he stopped and did an actual double-take when he saw us.

‘Morning,’ called Beverley.

‘Morning,’ said the man and then, noticing me, nodded. ‘Nice day for a walk.’

‘Splendid,’ said Beverley.

Unlike Beverley, you can see when I’m blushing, although the worst bit for me was when we reached the roundabout and the morning traffic picked up.