CAREFREE COUNTRY LIFE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 12

CAREFREE COUNTRY LIFE

“JgACK to London? Never for one

moment,” writes Mr J. A. Spender, in The Countryman. “Our retreat is a hilltop, 650 feet up, with a four-square view over the Home Counties which I think must be unsurpassed, a rather green house with a little observatory on} top which gives it the look of a pagoda in the distance, and an acre of garden in the loveliest setting of orchards and woods breaking steeply down the hillsides; an enchanting pink and white »dream in blossom time.

“The young should not live in the country unless their life is there; the old who have lived in London should be near enough to be able to drive there and be back by midnight—easy

Artist Paints Attractive Word Picture

enough with a small and trusty car. The advantages of being where I am seem to me overwhelming.

“I have fresh air, silence, the daily pleasure of stepping out on to a lawn instead of into a street, friendly and interesting neighbours who take me into their confidence about their farming and their fruit-growing, walks in all directions through woods and fields, sketching-ground at my door, freedom from' the innumerable small distractions which fret and worry the town-dweller and dissipate his strength. But to enlarge on this theme would be boring to the countryman and, as experience has taught me, unconvincing to the townsman. “We all have our tastes, and they vary with' the years.”