This has been a crazy week, and I am wilting like a pale Edwardian lady on a chaise longue, so for today's blog I am handing you over to my friend Terence Blacker in the Indy, and his thoughts on why we must cherish and protect our great British countryside.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/terence-blacker/terence-blacker-we-must-fight-them-in-the-fields-1807569.html
What I especially like about this article is that it reminds me that it is not just the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty that must be guarded, but the ordinary fields and woods and streams. Once the hedgerows are gone, they are gone. And also, as an old bucolic lady myself, I would quite like it if people stopped regarding country people as a bunch of marauding fox-murdering nimbying braying chinless inbred heathery toffs. Although I must say I am very glad to read in the magazines that tweed is back.
For your visual amusement, there follow some snapshots of the countryside. These are not the famous bits that the tourist brochures show, but just places that I know and love and walk the dogs in, from north to south, and they are as precious to me as diamonds.
And my final, exhausted, whimsical thought, while we are on the subject: if you ever get a chance, plant a tree. Plant many trees, if you can. They will grow for hundreds of years after you have gone, and give keen pleasure to people who will never know your name, but will bless you anyway, and they might just save the poor old planet after all.
Now I am going to have a little rest.
Such beautiful photos. So many of them remind me of my family's estate in Surrey and my boarding school in Berkshire.
ReplyDeleteI agree, we must look after the woods and forests around the world as even now, its almost too late. xxx
So Lovely - Am so pleased. Whenever I put up happy bucolic photographs I do always think of you and my other ex-pat readers, so far away, having little nostalgic moments for dear old Blighty. Although if you could see her today you would not feel nostalgic at all. Sixth day of filthy, squalling rain, dirty grey skies, everything sodden and drenched and defeated. Even the dogs eye such weather with hesitation. xx
ReplyDeletePrinted off and read your blogs on writing. Sat at the breakfast table, looked outside and wrote for 10 minutes on 'washing'. Am amazed at what I wrote! Thank you Tania for the wonderful posts on writing.
ReplyDeleteConnie - that is the best thing I have heard for weeks. I could not be more delighted. Of course I hoped that some people might do exactly that, but it did seem rather a lot to ask, with the posts being so long and all, and so filled with demands and suggestions. So hurrah hurrah for you and your washing. Interestingly, I was reading an interview with Jonathan Miller only yesterday and he is quite obsessed with what he calls the 'negligible detail'; the thing that most people overlook but writers notice, and does, in the end, mean something. I think your washing counts.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing, and I wish you all good luck - Tania
There's nothing quite so lovely as a British country scene. Damned that ocean that separates us!
ReplyDeleteNice little site you have here!
All the best,
Tom Degan
Tom - very flattered that you like the site, esp since your own operation is so professional.
ReplyDeleteAs for our heavenly British countryside - I do quite agree on its marvellousness, although you should see Scotland today, after nine days of rain. The sky stays black as pitch all day and my dogs shall soon be developing gills.