Introducing our correspondent:
My name is Caroline Cash. I live with my husband Andrew, Topsy, a Jack Russell/border terrier cross, and house cat Morse in the village of Beckington, Somerset.
We have a smallholding of just under two acres in the village, about five minutes walk from home. Here we have a couple of horses, hens, cats and a vegetable garden, which keeps us fully occupied in and around work. I originally trained with horses at Catherston Stud and have been lucky enough to work with three Olympic riders and top class horses in eventing, dressage and showing.
For the past 20 years I have worked for Farmkey freezemarking horses and I also teach, train and clip. Alongside this I work part time at a local architects.
In common with many, I try to juggle fitting my animals in with my work and earning enough to be able to keep and enjoy them! Caroline Cash 2011
Caroline writes:
I have been walking far more in the last two years than ever before, since getting Topsy and not riding. Topsy is the first dog we’ve had who is a real adventurer with itchy feet and wanderlust. Our other dogs 
have been content to walk to the field at least twice daily and then spend a happy couple of hours running about, patrolling the boundaries and barking at passers-by, hunting small creatures or rolling in various unmentionable delights. Topsy on the other hand (or perhaps paw), while happy to do this, makes it quite clear that she also wants to go other places.
On walks she always wants to go further, with a determined policy at cross roads of turning away from home direction. Rather than routine and regular walks she desires new routes, sights and smells. This has resulted in us going further and finding new (to us) paths around the locality.
It’s surprising what a different perspective of the village and its surroundings you get walking rather than riding, and how many more places are accessible on foot.
Recently quite a few paths have been fenced, causing some consternation locally. There have been different approaches by the land owners. On one hand our local farm has opened up some permissive routes around their land which, while still leaving the original footpaths open for those who want to use them, has made some other routes around field edges. These have been fenced leaving a generous width of path which is topped a couple of times in the summer and the hedges are kept well trimmed and in general they make a safe and pleasant walk close to livestock without interfering with it, or it with you. As a complete contrast another landowner has fenced a very well used footpath into a narrow area, complete with prescriptive signs of “Keep to the 
Footpath”, “Keep Dogs on Leads” and “Private land”. The same has happened on a local estate where what was a pleasant walk through open parkland and around a lake has been fenced on both sides over undulating, sloping and in places boggy land and is likened by many to taking exercise in a prison camp. The path in places is very narrow which makes passing with dogs in opposite directions difficult and has made the area just about inaccessible for the less able bodied.
I can see both sides; walkers feel constrained and that they are losing their historic access rights while the landowner feels no option but to fence when faced with inconsiderate walkers who roam off paths, through crops and livestock and who litter and don’t pick up after their animals.
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