THE ENGLISH COUNTRY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22371, 7 April 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE ENGLISH COUNTRY

(By Margaret HalU

My aunts have a little cottage in the country about 22 miles from London. So every fine week-end when we were in London we would get a ’bus at Oxford Circus and go to Beaconsfleld where the cottage was.

When we got out of the ’bus we had to walk along a little lane hedged with hazel nuts and blackberry bushes.

The cottage was a two-storeyed house ,with four rooms. It was a brick red colour with a brown tiled roof. Next to the cottage was the farm, where there were all kinds of animals, from horses to cows, and from cows to pigs and chickens. The farm and the cottage were surrounded with woods. There are hundreds of pheasants and partridges in the wood, and keepers patrol up and down to see that no harm comes to them. Round the edges of fields there is much bracken, which grows waist high in summer, and turns to a goldy brown in autumn. There were blackberry bushes, and we used to go out and pick the fruit in baskets. Half of these, I’m afraid, never reached home. Also there were the cob nuts that we used to collect with bent sticks. In the spring the woods and dells were covered with strong, healthy bluebells, and under the bushes were little wild violets. The first time I saw these bluebells they were growing in one big mass by the side of a little stream in a wood, and made me quite excited. Sometimes we would go gathering wild strawberries that grew under the bracken.

At night when we went for walks we saw lots of baby rabbits running over the path, and the bats fluttering among the trees. If it was a frosty night a lovely blue mist would hang in the air. There were all sorts of berries to be found in the fields. There are the cuckoos that sing for hours and the owls that hoot in the night. In the morning we were awakened by the farm cock, crowing, and the cows mooing. One flay I hope to go back.