Peter Rhodes on the lure of Baptiste, the Afghan lifestyle and the scariest moment in grandparenting

I admire viewers who have access to iPlayer but religiously tune in each Sunday for Baptiste (BBC1) instead of binge-viewing all six episodes. Where do they get the patience? As it approaches the end of its season, no-one can fault the acting of Tcheky Karyo and Fiona Shaw. But without giving anything away, as a binge-viewer take it from me, the final plot's not up to much.

How did the Taliban conquer Afghanistan so quickly? The simple answer is that no-one stood against them. This reluctance to fight reveals that the loathing felt in the West towards the religious zealots of the Taliban is not shared by every Afghan. The major cities have acquired a veneer of liberalism, especially with female education and employment, during 20 years of US-led occupation. But Afghan men were simply not prepared to die to defend the rights of women, or lay down their lives for a notoriously corrupt government.

More than 30 years ago a British war correspondent just back from Afghanistan told me about the lifestyle of the average rural Afghan household. While the women did all the housework, farmed the land and tended the animals, the men lazed around eating raisins and chatting. Afghanistan has always been a conservative, violent and male-dominated society. The old order resumes.

In ye olden times Lammas Day was celebrated by bringing to church a loaf made from the new crop of wheat. And that, by chance, was the day this year when tractors and combine harvesters, until now merely the stuff of our grandson's picture books and toy boxes, suddenly burst into action in the field down the lane to begin cutting the wheat. He is 18 months old and I've never seen him so excited. He won't remember it directly but we'll remind him how he squealed with joy as the harvester wallowed through the swaying wheat, and how the farmer waved as he went by, on Lammas Day. The year turns.

Whatever the travel firms and airlines may tell you, whatever baloney they will spin about Costas and cruises, there is no more wonderful place than the English countryside at Lammastide. Assuming the rain holds off.

It occurred to me, walking back from the harvest field, that I may soon be approaching what my father described as the scariest moment in grandparenting. It's that moment when you realise your grandchild can run faster than you.