Oglet, from the Anglo-Saxon for “oaks by the water”, has been described as “the last piece of countryside in Liverpool”. But to local people, this braided edgeland of fields, scrub and river is known simply as “the Oggie”. The place is packed with heritage and history, from 300-year-old cottages to pyramidal tank traps, relics of wartime anxiety. Today, my footsteps mirror those of the adolescent Beatles. Mike McCartney once recalled how he and brother Paul “soon got fed up … and headed for the Oggie shore cliffs”, while George Harrison reminisced: “I used to go all the time down to Oglet … I could walk for hours along the mud cliffs.” Oglet is my rural escape too: I can walk for hours there. It never disappoints. Today, on a calm, warm day, as summer cedes to autumn, random blooms of moribund fleabane, knapweed and great willowherb testify to the shifting seasons, providing late-season feasts for pollinators. Thistledown floats lightly down the lane, momentarily captured by grass stems until lifted by the gentle breeze. Vanilla-pale grasses offer temporary rest for large white and red admiral butterflies. Plump acorns, succulent crops of blackberries and cascades of hips and haws are further testament to summer’s waning. Swallows chatter urgently as they surge across the stubble field in a farewell feeding fever. Skeins of Canada geese fly overhead, seeking roost ahead of the incoming tide. The River Mersey, renowned for its wader gatherings in autumn and winter, is the “water” of Oglet. Oaks are a portal to the shore, where an oystercatcher pipes and a lone curlew probes the soft, silty sands, while the languid incoming tide steers a trio of tufted ducks upriver. Carrion crows, grey herons and redshanks mooch at the water’s edge. Along the cliffs, tits and finches flit among oak and willow. I rest on someone else’s temporary beach hearth, grateful for momentary repose. Like many urban edgelands, Oglet is at risk, prey to occasional fly-tipping, marauding quad bikers and, more significantly, loss of green belt status and the proposed expansion of Liverpool John Lennon airport. All of us who take refuge here hope that their Oggie will survive.