THIS is a story of April flowers. A field we rent is in a wood, all by itself. It is a place at once curious and lovely. When you think ‘field’, you think of England’s familiar open patchwork landscape, where fields adjoin each other, separated by hedge or stock fence. But England’s first fields were hacked from the wildwood by the Stone Agers wherever was easy. Such as a pre-existing glade. Agriculture was not a continuous creeping frontier, but done here and there, in bits and pieces. Our first farmland was inside woodland. Like Mr. Geary’s field.
Going into Mr. Geary’s field, then, is to take a long step back into time. That is why his square, three-acre paddock is odd. The beauty of the place is its birdsong, especially on a rose-glow April evening such as this. The birds perform evensong on all sides, to make four walls of sound. The star performer tonight is the recently arrived blackcap. I can hear why, in its polyphonic song, it is sometimes called the Nightingale of the North, and so inspired that most cerebral and sensitive of French operatic composers, Olivier Messiaen. Messiaen accorded the blackcap the ultimate bird-lover’s tribute, the accompaniment to St Francis of Assisi in his opera of that name.
Anyway, to the flowers. When we took over the rental two years ago, Mr. Geary apologised for the field’s state, saying: ‘It is a bit overgrown.’ Having moved to the Big Smoke decades ago, he keeps the field as a remote souvenir of his roots. True enough, without husbandry, the field had gone rampant to moss and ryegrass, and little but. Brambles from the wood had extended their tentacles 10 yards in. There were assertive little sprigs of oak everywhere.
Denne historien er fra April 29, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 29, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds