A short list of things that stand between you and the field
Nobody writes about gates. Route descriptions say "through the gate and bear left" as though a gate were one thing. It is not.
A gate that swings inside a small enclosure, so it lets a person through and not a cow. You step in, swing it past you, step out. With a rucksack on you learn to turn sideways. With a dog you learn that the dog has already worked it out.
Steps over a wall or fence. The wooden ones rot at the base first, and the give underfoot tells you long before it looks unsafe. The stone ones built into a wall outlive everyone who used them.
Field gates drop on their hinges over the years, so the far end drags in the mud. The trick is to take the weight on the latch end and walk it round rather than push. Half the gates I meet want this and none of them say so.
If a gate carries a handwritten sign about a bull, or lambing, or a dog that is not friendly, believe it. Those signs are put up by people who have already had the conversation they are trying to avoid.