Countryside

Osterley Park on the western fringes of London is a rare survival. A Robert Adam house, with splendid Adam interiors, it’s still surrounded by its Elizabethan stables, an 18th-century landscape and classical follies — in the middle of urban Hounslow. Over the past decade, this Georgian gem has been increasingly despoiled and dumbed down by the National Trust. The Trust is spending £356,000 to turn Osterley Park into a child-friendly leisure centre. As one of the huge posters strapped to the park fence says, the money will pay for ‘A new skills area for young families providing kids with a safe place to learn to cycle and gain confidence’. Why splurge this vast amount of money on something you can already easily do on the paths at Osterley, i.e. bicycle?

February Fill-Dyke. But north Norfolk is dry, at least in terms of rain. Instead we have coastal flooding. Three years ago, a tidal surge caused major damage and destruction to sea defences, wildlife habitats, paths and buildings. Another surge last month was less dramatic but still reached the gate of a friend’s house, set well back, behind marshes and road. It is terrifying to experience this unstoppable force and hear its mighty roar. Whole shingle banks were flicked aside. As a small child, I stood on the cliff top above raging seas in Scarborough, and the storm seemed biblical. You never underestimate the force of nature, and possibly the wrath of God, once you have witnessed a tidal surge. Brexit has been as bad as any surge in washing away hitherto strong foundations.

British placenames are so good you can read the map for entertainment rather than navigation. Hardington Mande-ville, Bradford Peverell, Carlton Scroop — they sound like characters in a novel. In fact, P.G. Wodehouse often raided the atlas when writing: Lord Emsworth is named after a town in Hampshire, while a village in the same county gave Reginald Shipton--Bellinger his surname. There’s plenty of silliness out there — Great Snoring in Norfolk, Matching Tye in Essex, Fryup in Yorkshire. Some good old-fashioned smut, too: Lusty Glaze, Pant, Bell End and a couple of Twatts. Kent boasts a Thong — and it’s only a mile or so from Shorne. But enough of your sniggers. Our placenames are educational, telling the history of who was where, when.

The astonishing has happened at Stonehenge. Some prehistoric force has driven ministers to make a decision. It is to spend half a billion pounds burying the adjacent A303 in a tunnel, to bring ‘tranquillity’ to the ancient place. The result has been a predictable outcry from protestors. The television historian Dan Snow has compared the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, with Isis in Palmyra: ‘vandals and zealots who destroy ancient artefacts’. Stonehenge drives men mad. The stones have for a quarter of a century been as impregnable to change as they have always been to interpretation. Whitehall has been unable to decide what to do with a single-carriageway road which runs 200 metres from the stones and causes hour-long traffic jams in summer.

A few days ago, on the Dorset/Somerset marches, autumn was still in orderly retreat. Although a pear tree’s leaves had turned sere and yellow, the last fruit was still peeping through. Across the lawn, a horse chestnut was undressing, festooning the lawn with bronze. Out of a cloudless sky, a mild seasonal sun blessed the scene with a gentle glow, as if it were pouring Sauternes. Along the Ladies’ Walk, the yellows and greens were reinforced by bushes in russet mantles and by the triumphant redness of acers and liquidambar. We could have almost been in the New England fall, at least for a few yards. Autumn, fall: the two have profound resonances from different histories. As one might expect from its French name, autumn is full of good eating.

For three months after I move to the country, I am told, I am going to be in the most almighty panic. I will ask myself repeatedly what on earth I have done. I will have sleepless nights worrying that I should never have left London. I will wake in a sweat in the early hours gripped by the idea that I cannot possibly survive now I am not ten minutes’ walk from the Northcote Road. And then, magically, one day, about three months in, I will wake up in my country cottage and look out of my bedroom window at the sea of green and say, ‘This is the best decision I have ever made.’ I’m really glad a few friends who have done this move have talked me through it, because I panic at the best of times.

The week began badly when I spotted three grey squirrels gathering beechnuts in our arboretum. During our time at our home in Northamptonshire, my wife and I have anguished over our reluctance to indulge in wanton killing — and how far our tolerance of damage to the trees and nesting birds will stretch. But two years ago, we resolved the dilemma when squirrels wrecked our 30 nesting boxes. They had gnawed into the entrance holes before destroying the eggs and chicks. We employed two expert keepers who, in nine months, shot or trapped more than 400 squirrels over the 70-acre area. The increase in young birds the following summer has made us determined to maintain our ‘no squirrel’ policy.

The Sail Loft is under a castle on a mountain on an island in the sea; for that, I could forgive it anything. It is on St Michael’s Mount in Marazion near Penzance, an island so charming and devoid of internet connection it almost strips me of words. If I lived here I would not write again; I would not need to. I would be happy, and who judges fish when they are happy and finds it not enough? It is accessible along a granite causeway for four hours each day — then the path goes back to the sea and one must take a boat; it is more ruthless than magic. I wish I lived here, and could drown my neighbours, who are customers at the betting shop in Camden. We do flood them, but only with the shower, and grouting does not have the malevolent possibilities of the Celtic Sea.

I’ve just tripped over the damned hedgehog for the second time in as many days. He has retreated into the greenhouse and is glaring out at me from under the workbench, rigid with indignation. I suspect he has learnt this expression from my cats. Truth be told, after 14 months’ acquaintance, with time out for hibernation, we’ve got each other’s measure by now. My two elderly rescue moggies barely spare the drama king a second glance. I’ve worked hard to acquire a hedgehog. And a great spotted woodpecker, goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, grey squirrels, dunnocks, tits of every persuasion — you get the picture. But Mr Hog is my triumph to date, proof of a project that is nearing fruition.