What to Look for in ....

If you would like to look at the countryside with the eyes of one who grew up there, forty years since, can I recommend Ladybird Series 536, What to Look for in Spring/ Summer/ Autumn/ Winter. These beautiful little books, with their gorgeous illustrations by C.F. Tunnicliffe, R.A., tell the tale of a lost land - of frosts and snows, horse ploughs and fox hunts, red squirrels, hares and song birds - if they did not make your heart sing, they would make you weep.
Mostly when I wax lyrical about a children's book or series, it will undoubtedly be a pony book! But these little guides are a window to a better time, and do you know, all those old ways you will see therein, are more sustainable than our new practices?
What have we done? Can we ever get it back?
If you see these books, buy them for your children, or for yourself, treasure them, and dip into them with the passing of seasons, and if your heart sings, then look at the wonderful art of Gordon Beningfield, at the work of the Countryside Restoration Trust, and learn to treasure your rural heritage.