For the past few weeks, as their buds swelled, it looked as if it was going to be a dead heat between the ash and the oak as to which would burst into leaf first, but, in a photo finish, the oak emerged victorious (‘oak before ash, we’re in for a splash; ash before oak, we’re in for a soak’).
As a result, hopefully, like last year when the oak won rather more convincingly, we will be in for another glorious dry summer.
Now is the time to drink in the countryside’s chlorophyll—the green of May is one of Britain’s wonders and it’s no wonder that the Green Man played such a part in our folklore to represent the rebirth of Nature. This pagan deity is found on huge numbers of both secular and ecclesiastical buildings as well as pub signs.
Above all, May is the time of England’s green and pleasant land. Those words made famous by Blake’s poem set to music by Sir Hubert Parry and known to all of us as Jerusalem was first performed on March 28, 1916, during the First World War at a patriotic ‘Fight for Right’ concert. Today, the song still resonates, as does our nation’s natural beauty.
Spectator: Big ideas for small farmers
Lucy Baring clues up on big farming ideas for small farmers.
Town mouse visits the Falmouth Bay Seafood Café
Town mouse enjoys a fish dinner.
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Caveat renovator: The TV star, the writer and the salvation of a crumbling farmhouseThe actor, writer and comedian Robert Webb and his comedy writer wife Abigail Burdess embarked on a renovation project in 2019 which became far more than they imagined — and just as the job is at last complete, they've decided that it's the right time to put house on the market.
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'People always think that, working on The Telegraph, I'll be told that things aren't right wing enough. But in 37 years, I've never, ever been told that’: The Telegraph’s cartoonist Matt on his consuming passionsThe Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt — AKA Matthew Pritchett — talks to Lotte Brundle about his career as a cartoonist, his love of Snoopy and how he ‘stole’ his wife from Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen.
