IT was on a mid-February morning that a westerly brought the first hints of spring. Since then, despite hesitancy and downright back-tracking—snow at Easter, a sheen of dew each April dawn— the hints have become a pledge, something to hang our hopes on after a frightful year.
On that first morning of promise, I sat with my back against the abandoned bowling pavilion, eyes screwed tight to the rising sun, and listened to the birdsong from the surrounding trees, mingled with the dog walkers’ ritual pleasantries. When I’d warmed up, lizard-like, and the pink glow behind my eyelids had become uncomfortably bright, I walked down to the little ornamental strip that’s fenced off from the rest of the park. There’s a streamlet here, landscaped long ago down some mossy steps for the soothing plash, and also a stand of bamboo and some exotic trees. Around all these had sprung up, seemingly overnight, an ecumenical array of snowdrops and crocuses. The pure white snowdrops depended over the grass and the crocuses, all different confessions of yellow and purple, stood proud in their little mitres.
Denne historien er fra May 12, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 12, 2021-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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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.
