IS it the salt? The reason that seaside memories are so perfectly kept? My very first memories are absolutely brinepreserved. I was a toddler sent to stay with my Great Uncle Willi and Great Aunt Kath, who were sheep farmers on the Gower, Wales, their land sloping down to the sea.
Although I realise that the following infant incidents have become recall-polished in the way broken glass is smoothed by sea tide on the seashore, the grit in them is true...
Standing looking at the cresting waves, thinking that the surf looked like lamb's fleece. (Too sophisticated a simile for a three year-old; perhaps an image placed in my head by the Great Aunt.) Then taking the bright-red Massey 35 tractor and its woodsided trailer down to the beach to gather seaweed to be used as fertiliser on the land.
On other occasions, I remember taking seaweed home to give to my grandmother, Great Aunt Kath's sister and a farmer's wife herself, so she could use it to divine the weather. Seaweed hung outside the back door, swelled when rain was due, dried up to signal a more clement climate.
My grandparents had another morning meteorological ritual, Bible-touchingly observed: tapping the barometer in the hall.
Denne historien er fra February 28, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra February 28, 2024-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