The week following Valentine’s Day is traditionally when the birds start pairing up and choosing their mates. However, the rooks are already building their nests below the church—they start early, so that they can feed their young on the eggs and fledglings of other birds—and the woodpecker has been drumming his hollow tree for the past fortnight to seduce his heart’s desire. Despite the cold, the days are lengthening and preparations for the coming year are everywhere to be seen, nowhere more so than in the great thoroughbred studs across the country.
Every horse has its birthday on January 1, irrespective of when it is actually born and, in the flat-racing world, where horses race mainly as two- and three-year-olds, being born as early in the year as possible gives a foal a precious advantage over his rivals born in May and June. A horse’s gestation period is 11 months long and so, just to be on the safe side, the first coverings start on February 15. Some desperate romantics have been known to begin a day earlier, despite the fact that a foal born on December 31 would be almost worthless.
Country mouse denounces those who disrespect nature
Country mouse is saddened by the modern human condition that treats the countryside as if it were a rubbish dump.
Country mouse remembers Churchill
Country mouse remembers Sir Winston Churchill and celebrates his love for his pet poodles.
Country mouse ponders upon winter
Country mouse ponders upon winter and its effects on our beloved garden birds.
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'The whole house shook. Everything was white. For four months, it felt as if we were on Mars': The story behind one of Hampshire's most breathtaking gardensWhen Kim Wilkie sculpted a tiered grass amphitheatre behind this 17th-century house, the garden finally settled into place, as Non Morris discovers.
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'I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed': Inside Jane Austen's Winchester home, the house where she penned her final words and drew her final breathJane Austen spent the last days of her life in rented lodgings in Winchester, Hampshire. Adam Rattray describes the remarkable recent discoveries made about the house in which she died.
