IN the Bible, shepherds watched their Christmas flocks by night, while seated on the ground. In the winters of medieval Britain, shepherds crouched in convenient, weather-proof shrubbery (hence Shepherd's Bush'). The modern English shepherd in December tends to haul him or herself off the sofa for a quick late-evening check of their charges. So, coming up to 9pm yesterday evening, I put on a head torch and the Barbour, went outside, grimaced at the cold, went back into the hall, put a gilet on top of the Barbour. It was two-coat cold. Only a single dog, my labrador Plum, could be budged from in front of the fire, but, then, she is my shadow.
It was one of those December silent nights when the air is pure and glass-hard when the stars are so close they can be held in the hand. There was no need for the head torch: although the slow-rising moon was netted by the scrawny branches of the hedge, the land was lit by a million stars and the gently rolling fields were silver-plated as far as I could see. The black dog's back sheened with stars in the night's quiet broken only by the sound of a tractor grinding its way up the lane on the other side of the valley and her wicking of a tawny owl down in the dark wood.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 15 - 22, 2021 (Double Issue)-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 15 - 22, 2021 (Double Issue)-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
