The world from my window

May is out and clouts have been casted. Whatever clouts are, spring is well and truly here. The daffodils are out and over, the primroses are running rampant and the bluebells won't be far behind them. Up on the hill it's quiet in the mornings but like Piccadilly Circus as the day progresses. There are families with dogs, older people whose energetic grandchildren drag them up the slopes towards the rope swings. Down in the fields, the sheep are safely grazing while young steers and heifers frolic among themselves when they spot a dog walker scurrying along rather too hurriedly. The best way to avoid their attention is to ignore them completely, although I have been known to stop, turn around then roar rather loudly if they get too close. Mind you, I have been known to run down in my wellington boots at half past seven in the morning, singing at the top of the voice. On those occasions, when I'm belting out Don't Fence Me In , the cattle generally sh...

It's a squishy kind of day here in The Enchanted Village. The rain wafts in sheets across the fields. And the trees on faraway Bluebell Hill roar as if their branch-lungs might burst. Cow tracks become rivulets, with water charging down the hill to meet the stream far, far in the distance, each droplet declaring the last one there is a sissy. Wellington boots are a must. And this is not the time of year to discover you're got a leak. Wellies just ain't what they used to be. Rainy mist covers the village where the workmen's vans jostle for space as the days of their owners are spent building, renovating, plumbing and scaffolding. Yesterday, the cattle moved through the Lush Places village square to pastures new. It was a fair old feat, this, the farming family providing an escort at the front, back and sides of this skittish procession. "What you doing up there? shouted the patriarch from his 4x4 as I struggled to open the upstairs window to ...