Country mouse on Old Macdonald’s Farm

From the cow and her calf to the lambs, sheep, and now chickens, everyone’s enjoying the onset of spring; and not least our country mouse

Country mouse, Country Life magazine
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Nature is painting in yellow: daffodils, primroses, forsythia and my favourite, the lesser celandine, have all appeared simultaneously. Yellow announces spring, but the animals trumpet it. We feel as if we're currently living on Old Macdonald's Farm. There's a baa, baa here from the ewes and plaintive high-pitched bleats from the newly born lambs, a woof, woof there (the relentless barking of the farmer's dog is a bit tiresome in the small hours of the night) and a moo, moo here from the cow and her calf.

The calf is pure white, utterly beautiful and just the sort to have Damien Hirst reaching for his formaldehyde. Watching her play in the stream under the alders is a wonderful time-waster, as is the sight of the lambs as they line up in gangs for evening races under the sinking sun. And, best of all, there is now a cluck, cluck here and a cluck, cluck there, from the four chickens I received for my birthday.

I'd really missed not having chickens since we moved house, especially when scraping rice and pasta into the bin. The four girls have already started laying eggs, eating the scraps and munching the slugs. Every year, I enjoy spring more. I think it's wasted on the young.

Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.