I saw my first swallow on April 16, whizzing around our new house. We've lived with house martins, but have not yet shared a home with a swallow. The swifts will arrive in the first week of May, and I'm told they also nest in our village.
A few weeks ago, I would have been worried about the swallows and martins finding mud to build their nests, but not now. We may be in a drought, but, in Britain, it now seems that it never rains, but it pours. There has been a deluge for days. The rain caused the cancellation of a number of events, and we were forced to switch from going to a horse trials to racing at Newbury.
I hadn't been Flat racing for many years, although it was once my great love. I enjoyed it so much that my first job was in racing at Newmarket, before I became a racing editor for Horse & Hound. However, work and play didn't mix and I fell out of love, then became totally disinterested. The break has done me good-the old passion has returned and the hairs once more stood up on the back of my neck, when I was shouting home a winner.
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Rodel House: The Georgian marvel in the heart of the Outer HebridesAn improving landlord in the Outer Hebrides created a remote Georgian house that has just undergone a stylish, but unpretentious remodelling, as Mary Miers reports. Photographs by Paul Highnam for Country Life.
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380 acres and 90 bedrooms on the £25m private island being sold by one of Britain's top music producersStormzy, Rihanna and the Rolling Stones are just a part of the story at Osea Island, a dot on the map in the seas off Essex.
