It's the longest day of the year on Friday, and the summer solstice is a good time to assess how well the trees and bushes have done during the growing season. As if in some druidical ritual-although not necessarily at dawn, or, indeed, wearing white robes-I make a close inspection to measure the extent of the fleshy green extensions to the woody twigs and compare the rates of progress of the different species. It's quite a revelation.
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The young limes have grown 18in in some cases, the weight of the new growth hanging down like the arms of a discarded marionette. Our ash trees have been spared the dieback affliction and the tops are spearing healthily towards the sky. The box and yew, often wrongly assumed to be slow growers, have bushed out like furry toys that have had a blow-dry.
Farmers have suffered because the wet spring prevented them from planting their crops, with production estimated to be down 30% for wheat, but the same dowsing has acted like a growth hormone on our sylvan population. The innocent verdant bobbles that are the first signs of the fruit on the apple and plum trees are biding their time among the leaves, but there's no doubting the cornucopia that is lurking. The bees may be in shorter supply this year, but the reduced population appears to have worked overtime. I predict a riotous crop.
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'A bluff, honest man in the trappings of greatness': The extraordinary story of the Foundling Hospital, and the sailor who saved the abandoned children of LondonA remarkable charitable endeavour to save abandoned children on the streets of London has a touching legacy in the form of the The Foundling Museum in the very centre of London. John Goodall tells its story; photographs by Will Pryce.
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The elegant country home of a motor racing daredevil who drove round the world in a 1936 Bentley and crashed a Range Rover into his own front porchPeasemore House, with its collection of barns, workshops, stables and more, is an ideal home from which to plan an adventure — something that was a passion of its present owners. Penny Churchill explains more.
